Gluten Free, Sugar Free, Vegan...

What IS in it then?

Welcome to our blog post about the history of New Orleans' Okra File Gumbo. New Orleans is a melting pot of cultures, just like its cuisine... Being a native of New Orleans, when I became Vegan I really missed all of my old favorites like Gumbo, Poboys, Stuffed Artichokes, Oyster Dressing, and so many other fabulous dishes. In researching how to re-create them into Vegan options, I started learning about the history of our New Orleans' Creole + Cajun Cuisines (Yes they are different). Creole derives from when we were under Spanish rule and Cajun derives from when we were under French rule. But actually there is a third + fourth .... African and Choctow cultures as well.... In our blog we will share our unique "melting pot" Heritage and re-create via GRAB n GO Vegan!

Gluten Free Flours, Lifestyles and Corresponding Health Issues

“We have learnt in the course of many years’ experience in the treatment of celiac disease that it makes a great difference to the patient what kind of starch-containing foodstuffs are included in the diet; in particular whether or not wheat is used.”–Willem-Karel Dicke, Dutch pediatrician and early advocate of the gluten-free diet for the treatment of celiac disease, 1953

Prior to Dr. Dicke’s feeding trials some physicians believed that people with celiac disease could not eat carbohydrates or “starch” (with the exception of bananas). Dr. Dicke’s feeding trails demonstrated that it was not all “starch” but a particular “starch” that was problematic.

Dicke’s Classic Feeding Trials (Excerpted from The Gluten Free Nutrition Guide by Tricia Thompson, McGraw-Hill, 2008)

“Beginning in the late 1930s, a Dutch pediatrician named Willem-Karel Dicke observed that his patients with celiac disease improved when they did not eat products containing wheat. In the late 1940s, he and his colleagues conducted feeding experiments designed to find out if wheat was the specific starch that caused problems for people with celiac disease. Patients participating in these feeding experiments were placed on diets that were similar except for the type of starch. Every few weeks, the specific starches provided to each patient were changed. Starches that caused a decrease in fat absorption and consequent increase in fat excretions were considered harmful to people with celiac disease.”

Findings from the paper “Coeliac Disease II. The Presence in Wheat of a Factor Having a Deleterious Effect in Cases of Coeliac Disease” (Acta Paediatrica. 1953;42:34-42).

Dicke and colleagues conclude from the feeding trails presented in this paper that wheat starch, corn flour, maize starch, rice flour, and peeled, boiled potatoes are harmless while wheat flour, rye flour, and oats are harmful. In their summary statement, they write: “A factor exists in wheat, which is the cause of anorexia, vomiting, diarrhea and a large proportion of the fat elimination is patients with coeliac disease. However, this factor is not the wheat starch.”

Almond, Coconut, Soy AND now even Oat Milk have become Popular Alternatives

The FDA’s position on what’s milk and what’s not—and what is ultimately at stake—has nutritionists, food historians and even lexicographers scratching their heads. Marion Nestle, professor emerita of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, explains there’s a problem in Gottlieb’s premise. “I’m not aware of any evidence for significant nutrient deficiencies in the American diet,” she says. “Milk is not essential after infancy, and people who choose not to drink it can get those nutrients from other sources quite easily.”

Linguistically speaking, using “milk” to refer to the “the white juice of certain plants” (the second definition of milk in the Oxford American Dictionary) has a history that dates back centuries. The Latin root word of lettuce is lact, as in lactate, for its milky juice, which indicates that even the Romans had a fluid definition for milk.

To this day, tiger nuts, a Berber import to Spain from North Africa, are still the main ingredient in horchata, Valencia’s signature summer beverage. Hazelnut and pistachio milks featured occasionally in medieval cookbooks as well, though less is known about where these originated.

Drinking fresh milk—plant-based or otherwise—as a beverage remained uncommon until the 19th century. “There was no cow’s milk trade until modern times,” says Anne Mendelson, food journalist and author of the 2008 book, Milk: The Surprising Story of Milk Through the Ages. “In places where people could digest lactose, animal milk was occasionally drunk on its own, but it was more commonly fermented, which made it more digestible and less hospitable to harmful pathogens.”

Cow milk’s perishability plays a major role in why more people weren’t drinking the stuff; producing it on an industrial scale is a costly and complex enterprise. The modern dairy industry necessitates live animals, expensive machinery and refrigerated trucks, a financial model that is proving untenable. Small dairies, once common are, in turn, dropping like flies.

Low Glycemic Sugar Alternative

Coconut Sugar vs. White Sugar

One of the worst things about white sugar is its high ranking on the glycemic index. The glycemic index is a measure of how much foods cause blood sugar levels to change. Some carbohydrates break down rapidly, causing the blood sugar level to rise rapidly as well. This puts a greater demand on the liver to produce insulin, and reduces the body's long-term ability to control insulin production. This can increase one's risk of obesity.

Thus, the lower the glycemic index, the better. Refined table sugar's glycemic index is estimated at 80 and high fructose corn syrup is close to 90. Coconut sugar, however, has a glycemic index of only 35, putting it near the bottom of glycemic indexes for sugars. Only synthetic sweeteners have a lower glycemic index, but these artificial sweeteners carry other risks that man made products may have (e.g. some have been linked to cancers).

Vegan Butter, Vegan Sour Cream, Vegan Yogurt, Vegan Condensed Milk, Vegan Mayo, Vegan Whipped Cream... basically, you name it! If it exists in dairy, the taste and consistency has probably has been simulated into a vegan alternative.

Yes, and even vegan EGGS! Athough I was corrected recently that eggs are not considered dairy. So the term DAIRY FREE is not synonymous with VEGAN.