Gluten Free Bulk

Those who have only dabbled at gluten-free baking might think it is very expensive. After all, pre-packaged gluten-free flours are almost always pricey. (Those that are not are primarily rice flour, which is barely nutritious.)

The solution is to buy in bulk and do a lot of flour grinding at home. It's time for our family's next order at Azure Standard, the food purchasing co-op we use.

Currently, the price per pound for items we buy there is:

Hazelnut Flour $6.78
Blanched Almond Meal $5.40
Brown Rice pasta $2.85
Quinoa (not flour) $2.21
Tapioca Flour $2.00
Amaranth (not flour) $1.86
Teff Flour $1.60
Brown Rice flour $1.50
Millet (not flour) $0.76

The quinoa, amaranth, and millet we grind into flour ourselves. Our normal flour mix (1 part quinoa, 2 parts amaranth, 3 parts millet) thus costs us $1.37 per pound. Not as inexpensive as bulk whole wheat flour, but reasonable for something that is healthier as well as safe for our family.

The brown rice pasta is more expensive for some kinds of pasta: the $2.85 price is for the shapes we buy most. (Trader Joe's has brown rice penne and fusilli for $1.99 per pound, but we get bored of only using those two shapes.)