A Foodie’s Guide to Avoiding Glyphosate (And Other Bad Stuff) – Whole Grains & Flours
May 10, 2018
By Lisa Petrison, Ph.D.
Avoiding Glyphosate
I became sick with ME/CFS in 1994 while living in a house with a hidden mold problem and eventually became mostly bedridden with the disease.
One of the few therapeutic approaches that seemed to make a difference during my long illness was avoiding specific foods, but there seemed to be a lot of inconsistencies in terms of what kinds of foods did and did not make me react. I wrote about some of these issues in a previous blog post, “Using a Pulse Test To Identify Problematic Foods and Environments.”
In 2007, following the advice of Erik Johnson, I experimented with mold avoidance by spending a few weeks away from my house with all new possessions. I soon began having a variety of very strong reactions to all possessions that had been in the house and to the house itself (which eventually was found to have a major hidden mold problem).
I made a good bit of health progress
Sourdough bread made with Jovial Einkorn flour.
PACKAGED GOODS COMPANIES
Following is a brief summary of some information and personal opinions with regards to some of the more prominent companies currently selling a variety of grain products in the U.S.
Discussions of smaller companies specializing in one type of grain product are included in the individual sections.
Arrowhead Mills is located in Hereford, Texas (southwest of Amarillo in the Texas panhandle). They sell a wide variety of grains and legumes (mostly organic and almost all grown in the U.S.), along with a few baking mixes and cereals. It is currently owned by the Hain Celestial group, a large natural foods conglomerate. I’ve tried quite a few organic grain products from this company and have had mixed experiences. While some items (including ground corn, amaranth and popcorn) have felt good to me, others (including their oatmeal) have seemed problematic enough that I would be disinclined to repurchase. Trust Grade: C.
Bionaturae is an established organic food company located in Italy but selling a variety of products (including wheat and gluten-free pasta) mostly in the U.S. (The wife of the couple running the company is from the U.S. while the husband is from Italy.) More recently, when the couple’s daughter developed food reactivities, they started offering some additional grain products (including Einkorn wheat flour and pasta, gluten-free rice pasta, and gluten-free bread and pastry flours) through a new “sister company” called Jovial. A number of products from Bionaturae/Jovial are sold on the Healthy Traditions site (meaning that they have tested as negative for glyphosate residue), and I have done well with the many products from them that I have tried. Reports from other mold illness patients have been a little more mixed though. Trust Grade: A.
Bob’s Red Mill is located in Milwaukie, Oregon (a suburb of Portland). It sells a wide variety of “natural” type grain and legume products, some of them labeled as organic. The company was slow to recognize glyphosate as a problem and accepted for its many non-organic products oats that had been sprayed with glyphosate as a pre-harvest desiccant until 2016. In 2018, three out of four organic oatmeal samples from Bob’s Red Mill were found to have low levels of glyphosate contamination. I have tried many organic and non-organic grain products from Bob’s Red Mill over the years (including some very recently) and have yet to find any that felt to me anywhere close to being acceptable. While some of the non-grain products (including almond flour and flax seeds) have seemed more okay, in general I have basically given up on this company. Trust Grade: F.
Eden started as an co-op in the 1970’s in Michigan. As far as I have been able to ascertain, most of their grain products currently come from either the U.S., Canada or Japan. I’ve purchased quite a few Japanese pasta items (as well as some mochi) from this company and always have been pleased. With only a few exceptions (popcorn, millet) the North American products have not felt as good to me and so I have not repurchased those. Trust Grade: B.
Edward & Sons/Let’s Do Organic:
Trust Grade: B.
Trust Grade: A.
The owners of Healthy Traditions (also known as Tropical Traditions) have been making a concerted effort to sell only food not contaminated with glyphosate for a number of years now. They state that they test all the food that they sell for contamination with the herbicide and that virtually no grains from the U.S. or Canada come up on their test as having zero contamination. They have sourced a few grain products that they do state have met their standards, though, including oats and wheat from Italy; corn from Mexico; and (some years) wheat, corn and popcorn from the “Driftless” region of southwestern Wisconsin (close to where I am living at present). I’ve tried almost all of these products and felt really good about all of them. Trust Grade: A.
Lundberg is a large rice company located in Richvale, California (about an hour north of Sacramento). Most of the company’s rice is grown organically, but some is labeled as “Eco-Farmed” (which in large part is as a way to sell rice that is on land that is transitioning from conventional to organic). Unlike virtually all other rice companies, Lundberg has been proactive in discussing concerns about arsenic contamination of rice and to release testing data on this topic. Although contamination of rice with arsenic and heavy metals is definitely a concern of mine, I do feel somewhat reassured by how Lundberg has handled this topic and have felt pretty good about Lundberg products on the many occasions that I have consumed them. Trust Grade: A.
Trust Grade: A.
Trust Grade: A.
Nature’s Path is a large organic cereal company based in Canada and spearheaded the development of the “Non-GMO Project Verified” labeling program. While I do feel that they are trustworthy in terms of their farming practices, a problem is that glyphosate is used in such enormous quantities in Canada as a pre-harvest desiccant that even crops that are grown in an obsessively organic way may get cross-contaminated through rainwater. This seems to be cause problems with Nature’s Path oats, which testing showed to often but not always be contaminated with very low levels of glyphosate. This is consistent with my own experiences with Nature’s Path oats, which I have found to be just problematic enough that there would be no way that I ever would finish a whole package of the company’s products even though I might manage to get through one bowl. The company does realize that this is a problem and is currently involved in a petitioning effort insisting that glyphosate contamination levels in oats be reduced to the point where pre-harvest desiccation could no longer be used. Some non-oat products offered by Nature’s Path – including their toaster pastries made with white wheat flour – have felt good to me, though. Trust Grade: C.
One Degree is a fairly new organic company that committed to selling only products that are free of testable levels of glyphosate and that provides information about the farms where ingredients originated on its packaging and website. They sell wheat and spelt flour; cold breakfast cereals; oats; frozen bread; and a few other items. Many of the grain products are currently being sourced from a large farm north of Edmonton, which apparently is a drier area of Canada where many individuals pursuing mold avoidance report having felt good. I have tried a variety of their products and have been quite happy with all of them in terms of how they felt to me, and also have gotten many positive reports on this brand from members of the Mold Avoiders group. Trust Grade: A.
This is a moderately priced organic house brand line sold in Kroger stores and on the Vitacost website. They sell a few grain products, including oatmeal and baking mixes. Although I have not seen them make any statements about how they are sourcing their products and do not mention glyphosate on their website, I have found their products so far to feel pretty good to me. In addition, EWG reported two samples of their oatmeal to be free of glyphosate in its 2018 report. Trust Grade: B.
Products that I have enjoyed but that are not grown organically – such as this popcorn – are noted with a (1) in my recommendation lists.
PRODUCT LISTING NOTATIONS
While most of the food that I eat is organic (certified or non-certified), there are certain other products that I have done well with that are not stated as meeting that standard.
In addition, while I do not eat a lot of wheat or other gluten-containing products, I currently do consume some gluten and seem to do fine with it.
Also, while I tend to find the presence of citric acid or ascorbic acid on ingredients lists to raise questions about the product in my mind, there are quite a few products that contain one or both of those chemicals that nonetheless I really like.
I’m aware that quite a few people who are recovering from mold illness are being very careful to avoid all non-organic foods, gluten, and/or citric and ascorbic acid, however.
Therefore, in my product recommendations throughout this article series, I have used the following system to note the known presence of those ingredients.
1 – Product is not stated to be organic (certified or non-certified).
2 – Product may contain gluten.
3 – Product may contain citric acid and/or ascorbic acid.
4 – Product contains dairy or meat supplied by an animal that consumed mostly grass, but that also may have received non-organic supplemental feed (possibly including glyphosate-contaminated feed).
Please note that I cannot guarantee that products that are not marked with these notations will not include non-organic ingredients, gluten, citric acid or ascorbic acid, since I may have missed something or since the manufacturer may have made changes subsequent to the publication of this article.
Therefore, those who are attempting to avoid non-organic products or particular ingredients should double-check the status on the package or the online product description before purchasing, rather than relying solely on my reports in this article series.
OATS
Based on my own experiences and on the reports of others with mold-related illness, I feel that oats have the ability to serve as a pretty good toxin binder.
The Gerson therapy, which focuses on detoxification, lists oatmeal as basically the only allowed grain product and insists that followers consume a bowl of it every morning.
Of course, conventional medical science has long accepted the idea that regular oatmeal consumption can lead to both a decrease in cholesterol problems and improvements in a variety of a variety of negative health-related events.
One hypothesis about why this might be is that oatmeal is related to the fact that it contains beta-glucans (a polysaccharide fiber also present in the cell walls of certain kinds of fungi, algae and bacteria that is reported to have beneficial effects on the immune system).
It sometimes has been proposed that the gooey soluble fiber in oatmeal may be able to attach to cholesterol and carries it out of the body.
However, the fact that eating food that contains cholesterol (provided that it does not include toxic contaminants or fragile fats) actually seems to be protective of health does not seem very consistent with this theory.
I therefore wonder if perhaps high levels of some kinds of cholesterol are associated with a risk for some kinds of illness not because they are the problem themselves but rather because they are being used by the body as protection against a different problem.
Such as, possibly, toxins in general or mycotoxins in particular.
The idea that there may be a link between cholesterol problems and mycotoxin issues has some support in the scientific literature. Dave Asprey has discussed this topic a couple of times, including in a 2012 presentation and in a 2016 podcast interview.
If this indeed is the case, then that would suggest that possibly the reason that both cholestyramine/CSM (a drug currently widely used to treat mold-related illness) and oatmeal can result in lowered cholesterol levels and positive health outcomes may be because they bind to and remove mycotoxins – thereby providing less need for the body to try to protect itself from the toxins by raising cholesterol levels.
Provided that I can find oatmeal that feels good to me, I usually eat a bowl of it ever day.
Personally, I became convinced that oatmeal was acting similarly (but more gently) to CSM in the early days of my recovery process, when I would feel sick in an inflammatory way from taking the drug but then experience vomiting attacks when I would stop it.
Presumably, this occurred because my body became accustomed to releasing the toxicity from the cells with the expectation that it then would be bound to the CSM and carried out the digestive tract, and then needed to find an alternative way to dispose of it if the drug was no longer in my system.
In those cases, of the many substances of various kinds that I tried, only oatmeal and arabinagalactan (a supplement made from larch bark that also is said to lower cholesterol and address inflammation) were successful in stopping the vomiting attacks.
Phytosterols, which some people use as a substitute for CSM and which also have been shown to lower cholesterol levels, possibly may have a similar effect.
Over the years, many other individuals recovering from mold-related illness have reported to me that it seemed that oatmeal indeed seemed to be helpful to them as a toxin binder (and perhaps in particular as a mycotoxin binder).
For quite a while, I was suggesting McCann’s oatmeal since that seemed to be cleaner to me than other oatmeal (including organic oatmeal) that I tried and because many other mold avoiders also reported doing well with it.
I thought at first that the issue was that most North American oatmeals were contaminated with mold toxins, but eventually concluded that the problem seemed to be due to glyphosate contamination (or maybe to especially toxic Fusarium growing in the wake of glyphosate usage) instead.
A couple of years ago I started to feel much less good about the McCann’s product and received some reports of other people experiencing negative reactions to it. (A shipment of the product also was refused by Taiwanese in 2016 for a violation with regard to glyphosate, meaning that the level would have had to have been more than 100 ppb).
I thus stopped eating oatmeal almost entirely for a long while and ceased suggesting it to others.
Very recently though, quite a few other Mold Avoiders members and I have had very good experiences with oatmeal (as well as a wide variety of other products) from a new company focused on “food transparency” called One Degree.
Montana Gluten Free Organic Raw Oatmeal.
One Degree oatmeal is currently sourced from a farm in a clean part of Alberta, Canada, called River’s Edge Organics.
It has obtained glyphosate-free certification from BioChecked and also is gluten-free.
The oatmeal is also sprouted, meaning that is more digestible and less likely to cause food reactions without the need for soaking it. It is available in steel-cut, rolled and quick-cooking versions.
Since discovering the One Degree product, I now am back to eating oatmeal almost every day again and have started experimenting with some additional oatmeal products (including making a special effort to seek out ones that have been tested as being free of glyphosate).
Perhaps my favorite oat company has turned out to be Montana Gluten Free, which is located near Bozeman (an area that has felt very good to me).
The company contracts with a small group of local growers and carefully supervises the farming activities, especially with regard to keeping both gluten and glyphosate out of the product.
Each lot is tested for glyphosate by both the company and an outside lab. The company says that their products also need to test at below 3 ppm – below both the FDA standard (20 ppm) and the Celiac Support standard (5 ppm).
The company produces both organic and non-organic products, but the standards for glyphosate and gluten contamination are the same for both. The organic products are about 50% more expensive than the non-organic ones.
The company uses a private oat variety called PrOatina, which has a high protein content (8 grams per serving). Because the oats do not have hulls, they do not need to be cooked before being rolled and therefore are delivered to the customer in raw form.
In addition to rolled oats, Montana Gluten Free sells sproutable oat groats; toasted oat flour; oat bran (aka cream of oats); oat bread mix; and an oat-based baking mix (with tapioca flour, xanthan gum and salt added to allow it to be substituted cup-for-cup for wheat flour in recipes).
GF Harvest Organic Quick Oats.
All of the items are available in organic or non-organic forms, and may be ordered direct from the company’s website.
I’ve sampled several of the Montana Gluten Free products and think that I like them even better than the One Degree oatmeal (though it is a close race).
A third company that is careful with regard to being both glyphosate-free and gluten-free is GF Harvest. They are located in northern Wyoming a little north of Cody (another area that has felt good to me).
Similar to Montana Gluten Free, GF Harvest sells a variety of oat products, including steel-cut, rolled and quick-cooking oatmeal as well as oat flour that is both organic and gluten-free.
(A non-organic line of products not treated with glyphosate is also sold, but I have not tried that one yet.)
GF Harvest organic oat products are currently sold through Vitacost and in many other retail outlets.
In Australia, GF Harvest products are sold under the brand name Gloriously Free (GF) Oats.
GF Harvest oats also are used as the basis for my current favorite line of baking mixes, Sweet Elizabeth’s Organics.
With regard to the glyphosate issue, GF Harvest states:
Based on the recent articles on testing of oat products for glyphosate, GF Harvest /GFO Inc. would like to assure our customers that we do not allow our contracted growers to use glyphosate as a drying agent in the harvesting process of oats. We have our raw seed randomly tested for pesticides by third party labs and results have always come back at “below detectable levels” or “none detected” depending on the lab reporting practices….We test below 10 ppm for gluten, and for the last five years, 99% of our products test at < 5 ppm in our internal lab and in two third party labs.
Healthy Traditions, which tests all its products for glyphosate contamination and refuses to stock any that have measurable levels of the chemical, recently began offering rolled oats and oat groats sourced from a single farm in Italy.
The oats are organic and have been tested by Healthy Traditions as glyphosate-free. They are not produced according to protocols that make them gluten-free at the low levels required for those who are very sensitive to gluten, however.
I purchased a bag of the Healthy Traditions rolled oats and felt very good about them. Although the company recommends soaking them before use (if for no other reason than to remove any stray hulls), I have neglected to do this on a few occasions and the oatmeal has felt fine to me.
I also tried the company’s oat groats, putting them into my Vitamix and giving them a few pulses on the low setting to make them into “steel-cut oats.” That worked fine for me, and so I would be willing to do that again with the Healthy Choices oat groats or other oat groats if I couldn’t get any other kind of good oatmeal.
(Supposedly oat groats can be cooked like rice as well, but I have yet to try doing that.)
With regard to the glyphosate issues, Healthy Traditions states:
Our new rolled oats are grown on a single farm in Italy using sustainable and organic methods without any pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers. As an added assurance they are also tested for the presence of glyphosate and no trace was found in the batch we tested. We have tested many batches of oats from the U.S., including those that are certified organic, and it has been extremely difficult to find sources with no trace of the herbicide glyphosate present. These oats are processed by a small family-run mill in Texas, and are never subjected to any heat processing, and are truly raw. This mill is dedicated to milling only grains that are free from pesticides and herbicides.
The EWG study on glyphosate levels in oatmeal reported that just two products came up as negative in repeated testing.
Those brands were 365 Everyday Value (sold in Whole Foods stores and through Amazon) and Simple Truth (sold in Kroger-owned grocery stores and through Vitacost).
Healthy Traditions oats from Italy.
Neither of these companies provide any information with regard to how they source their oats or their position on glyphosate on their websites. In addition, neither product provides any sort of guarantee that it is making an effort to be gluten-free.
I purchased some of the 365 Everyday Value and the Simple Truth oatmeals, and both of them felt okay to me.
In addition, compared to four brands of oatmeal listed above, the 365 and Simple Truth oatmeals are quite reasonably priced.
I still am not entirely confident about these products since glyphosate contamination of oatmeal can vary so much from batch to batch, however.
Just because I thought that they felt good and they tested good at one point in time, that does not mean that they are never going to be contaminated in the future.
The glyphosate issue concerns me more with oatmeal than with some product categories both because oatmeal is very often contaminated and because many people eat oatmeal frequently or even on a daily basis.
That being the case, making a special effort to seek out non-contaminated brands seems a good idea.
Two more organic oatmeal products that I have tried are Nature’s Path (which tested as having low levels of glyphosate contamination in the EWG oatmeal study) and Arrowhead Mills (which was not included in the EWG study).
My experiences sampling these products were that they fell into the category of foods that did not make me noticeably sick but that I nonetheless would not want to eat more than very occasionally.
I do feel bad about making this assessment of Nature’s Path oat products though, since it is my belief that they are doing everything that they can to keep glyphosate out of their products but nonetheless are being affected by issues such as rainwater contamination and pesticide drift.
Nature’s Path is one of the companies that are actively lobbying to lower maximum allowable levels of glyphosate in oats in order to eliminate pre-harvest desiccation with the chemical, and so hopefully that will be a success for them.
Organic oatmeal products from Bob’s Red Mill came up as contaminated with glyphosate in both the EWG study and in another glyphosate testing study. I have given up on grain products from that company in general due to my many bad experiences with them and so did not try this oatmeal recently, however.
Although occasionally I have prepared quick-cooking oats on the stove top or even instant oats on the road, usually I cook rolled oats or steel-cut oats in the Instant Pot.
Corelle soup bowls appropriate for preparing oatmeal in the Instant Pot.
The key here, in my opinion, is to not put cook the oats right in the stainless steel insert, but rather to use put the oats into a bowl large enough for one or two servings. (I usually use one of these 28-oz. Corelle soup bowls that I picked up at Walmart, but a glass or ceramic bowl also could be used.)
I generally use a little less than twice as much water as oats, and then add some extra ingredients (e.g. nuts, raisins or other dried fruit, flax seeds, chia seeds, granola, cinnamon). Then I put an inch or two of water in the Instant Pot insert, insert my oatmeal bowl, cook it on the “Porridge” setting (which takes 20 minutes), and finally add a little maple syrup or fruit butter as well as a splash of milk. The result is always perfectly steamed oatmeal that I can eat right out of the bowl – with no extra pan to wash.
Especially if oatmeal is not sprouted, soaking it overnight (or even for an hour or two) could be worth trying. This will help to remove any random toxicity (though probably not so much glyphosate) and stray hulls that might be present in the oatmeal; may decrease the likelihood of food reactivities by breaking down the phytic acid and other anti-nutrients; and will decrease needed cooking time. (Pour out the soaking water and then add back in fresh water before cooking the oatmeal, of course.)
As long as I am using the oatmeal brands that I am recommending here, though, I have not found that soaking the oatmeal before cooking it makes much difference for me and therefore usually do not bother to do it.
Recommended Oats (U.S.):
Recommended Oats (Australia):
Additional Oatmeal Possibilities:
RICE
Compared to all other grains except for popcorn, glyphosate levels are generally low in rice.
Apparently rice farmers have not found a good reason to use much glyphosate in growing the product, and maximum allowable levels in the U.S. are the same as they were back in the early 1990’s (100 ppb).
Although some brown rice (especially products grown in Canada) does have some glyphosate cross-contamination, almost all white rice and even most brown rice comes up as clean on testing for it.
As detailed in the section “Heavy Metals and Rice” above, the biggest toxicity threat with regard to rice is heavy metals in the soil and water of the area that already exists in the area in which the rice is grown.
This is a particularly pervasive problem when it comes to arsenic, but it may be an issue with regard to other heavy metals as well. Cadmium and lead tend to be particular problems for rice grown in many parts of China, for instance.
As a result, limiting rice consumption to at least some extent – rather than eating it every day or with every meal as some people do – may be a good idea, especially for those who (like me) have heavy metal issues to begin with.
I personally eat rice only a few times a month – not because for the sake of a theory, but because my body does not seem to want it more often than that. Probably many people who do not have the long-standing heavy metals issues that I do could eat at least some kinds of rice considerably more often than that and do fine with it, though.
Soaking the rice overnight (or boiling it for a few minutes on top of the stove) and then pouring off the water, adding fresh water and cooking as usual may reduce heavy metal content to some extent.
While white rice (which has had the hull polished off) tends to have less metal contamination than unpolished rice, it also has less fiber, less vitamins, less taste and a higher glycemic level.
Some people – such as Chris Kresser – suggest that the contamination and anti-nutrients present in brown rice make it hazardous enough that it should be avoided at all costs. While I don’t really agree with that position, I do think that it’s important to minimize the hazards as much as possibly by being careful to choose a cleaner brand; to soak the rice before cooking; and to not eat it terribly often.
I started feeling that some kinds of rice felt especially toxic to me almost ten years ago, before anyone was talking in a mainstream way about heavy metals contamination of rice. The testing results that I have read since then correspond well with my own personal experiences.
The mainstream brand that I have done the best with, basically across the board, is from Lundberg Family Farms.
Lundberg is a large company producing mostly organic rice, located about 70 miles north of Sacramento, California. They sell a wide variety of different kinds of rice, as well as some rice-based snack foods and a few other grain-based items.
The company has been focused on issues related to organic farming, soil conservation and ecological responsibility since the 1970’s.
In addition, it has been virtually unique in the way that it has discussed concerns about heavy metals openly and provided large amounts of testing results that show that most of the Lundberg rice has moderate levels compared to many other products on the market.
Although most of Lundberg’s rice production is of organic rice, some of the products (including items often sold through conventional supermarkets as well as most of the company’s snack chips) instead are labeled as Eco-Farmed.
Although I always buy organic products from this company when I have a choice, I actually don’t think that it makes a difference when it comes to heavy metals issues and the Eco-Farmed products have felt fine to me when I have tried them.
The company’s website describes the Eco-Farmed products as follows:
Many years ago, we developed our “Eco-Farmed” growing system as an improvement on many typical conventional rice growing practices. This system blends organic practices and integrated pest management techniques with minimal application of synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, only as needed. Additionally, many of our growers are transitioning their non-organic fields to organic – a 3 year process required by organic certification standards. During this 3 year period, a field and its crop are treated as organic, but are not able to be certified organic. In this instance, offering the rice as Eco-Farmed benefits not only the environment and price conscious consumer but also the farmer and the growth of organic farmland in the US. We think that you will find the growing system of our Eco-Farmed rice above and beyond that of conventional rice.
A brand of rice that I like even more than Lundberg is from Massa Organics, a small beyond-organic farm located near Chico, California (about 20 miles from Lundberg’s headquarters).
I discovered this rice in a local store when living in California and have ordered it directly from the company a few times since then. I think that it is the cleanest and likely the tastiest rice that I have tried in recent years, reminding me of the purity and quality of the rice that I experienced during my several trips to Japan in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s.
(Whether Japanese rice would still feel as good to me subsequent to the Fukushima disaster, I don’t know. I have not been to Japan since then, and they do not grow enough rice even to feed their own population and so don’t export any of it.)
The couple who started Massa Organics both have experience as plant biologists who became interested in sustainable agriculture. They state on their website (in all caps) that they started their company because they believed in the need to “STOP SPRAYING POISON ON OUR FOOD.”
They began growing organic rice on their family’s farm (near Chico, CA) in the early 2000’s, rotating it with other crops and eventually deciding to start raising hogs in order to better fertilize the land.
They sell just one rice product: plain brown rice. It consists of short, plump, pretty grains that are very clean-tasting and full of flavor when cooked up.
(I also really like their almonds and their pork lard. The pork itself is available only in California farmers’ markets and so I have not had a chance to try that.)
The company’s rice is available for a pretty reasonable price by mail order, at farmers’ markets, and in a few groceries in the San Francisco Bay Area. It’s gotten rave reviews from the SF Examiner (“the nuttiest, sweetest, sexiest brown rice”), from House & Garden (“a must for your larder”) and from Saveur (“the best brown rice”). I think it’s good enough that it’s worth the bit of extra effort it takes to obtain it.
Although Massa Organics has not released information related to heavy metals testing of their rice, their California location near Lundberg’s operations, their focus on the soil, and (most importantly) how the rice has felt to me makes me fairly confident that it likely is comparatively fine on that aspect.
For a good while some years ago, I was experimenting with very prettily colored rices grown by poor people in faraway countries, sold in tiny bags at high prices. Although this concept held some visceral appeal, such a high percentage of these rice products felt really toxic to me that eventually I gave up entirely on it.
One product from this group that I did really like, however, was the Lotus Madagascar Pink Rice. This rice felt clean to me, and I also thought it was especially tasty and very pretty.
The pink rice is a partly polished version of the Lotus Red Rice, which also seemed acceptable but which I did not like quite as much. The removal of the outer layer of the rice removes some of whatever toxicity may be present, and it also results in faster-cooking rice (20 minutes rather than the 30 minutes needed to cook the red rice).
Although I feel good about the Lotus Madagascar Pink Rice and still eat it occasionally myself, other Lotus products felt more problematic to me and so I cannot recommend those. I had particular problems with the company’s famous black “Forbidden” rice, which is sourced from China.
Recommended Rice:
POPCORN
Popcorn, which often is dismissed as junk food, actually seems to be the cleanest grain on the market when it comes to glyphosate contamination. The U.S. legal limits are only 100 ppb and none of the samples tested in the Canadian study came up as having any contamination at all, for instance.
In addition, at least so far, there is (at least not yet) no such thing as genetically modified popcorn on the market (though of course other ingredients such as oils in microwave popcorn or pre-popped popcorn products may be GMO).
As discussed in the “Other Chemicals” section above, it is my understanding that virtually all popcorn that is on the market is treated with some kind of organic or non-organic chemicals.
In addition, like other grains, popcorn has the potential of being contaminated with toxic mold.
However, it is my experience that despite these issues, I have tended to do very well with popcorn.
Even mainstream non-organic brands such as Orville Redenbacher have seemed okay for me, compared to most mainstream food sold in grocery stores.
My feeling about this is that at least for me, glyphosate is the most problematic chemical both in its direct effects on me as well as on its tendency to promote the growth of dangerous toxic mold in the soil.
Therefore, the fact that popcorn is virtually uncontaminated with glyphosate makes it much more tolerable for me in general.
Another positive characteristic that I think may be true about popcorn is that the husk tends to protect the corn from many environmental contaminants, including such things as cross-contamination with glyphosate. It thus is less likely to be vulnerable to being affected by what the neighbors are doing than is the case for, say, oats or wheat or rice, I think.
Although I generally lean toward organic brands of popcorn, two of my favorite products (Tiny But Mighty and Lakota) have reported using single chemicals in order to accomplish particular goals.
I would consider other non-organic popcorn products as well, if I were convinced that by the company that the chemicals in question were relatively safe and being used for a particular reason.
Unfortunately, most popcorn in the U.S. is sold in packages intended for microwave ovens or pre-popped in bags.
Microwave popcorn should be entirely avoided by people who are at all concerned about health issues, in my opinion. This kind of popcorn seems to invariably use quite toxic oils (including with a high potential for glyphosate contamination). Microwave cooking also seems to me very unhealthy in general and is not something that I have done for many years.
Pre-popped popcorn in bags is not necessarily unhealthy, depending on the other ingredients that are added to it. I have felt okay about a couple of different organic popcorn snacks (including Annie’s and Lesser Evil) and even about one marked non-GMO but not organic (Popcorn, Indiana).
Pre-popped popcorn invariably seems pretty stale as well as very expensive to me, compared to popcorn that I make myself, however.
Usually, I make popcorn on the stove top, using either a Le Crueset enamelware pot or a cast-iron pot. (Coconut oil and olive oil both work fine for this, though the Nutiva Red Palm Oil gives a color and taste reminiscent of movie theater popcorn for those who find that appealing.) A hot air popper has worked fine for me as well.
Popcorn is available in two different types – yellow popcorn (which pops into big fluffy kernels) and heirloom colored popcorn (which pops into much smaller but somewhat nuttier-tasting kernels).
For the yellow popcorn, I have felt good about products from Arrowhead Mills, from Eden Foods, and from NOW Real Food. All of these seemed pretty indistinguishable to me from one another and are fairly inexpensive.
(I used to feel like Lakota Foods was my favorite yellow popcorn brand, but that may have been more because I felt good about supporting a Native American company rather than necessarily because their popcorn was that much better than the others. In any case, Lakota distribution unfortunately seems to have been at minimum suspended for the moment and may have been discontinued permanently.)
A video providing information about Tiny But Mighty popcorn.
In the heirloom popcorn category, my favorite at the moment is Tiny But Mighty.
This is a hulless popcorn that was discovered in the 1860’s and has never been hybridized or genetically modified at all. The great-grandson of the farmer who discovered the popcorn commandeered the last of the kernels from his mom and started growing it commercially in Iowa in the early 1980’s.
Although it is not labeled as organic, the owners say that their growing methods actually are “beyond organic” in that they are focused on the biology of the soil. They do use of a non-systemic non-organic herbicide early in the growth cycle, however.
I’m actually rather excited about this company, both in terms of the quality/purity/taste of the popcorn itself as well as the philosophy of the company, and encourage popcorn fans to watch the video about it.
Tropical Traditions Heirloom Ladyfinger Popcorn.
Healthy Traditions sells a “Ladyfinger” popcorn that is grown on farms in the hilly “Driftless” area of southwestern Wisconsin (near where I have been living for the past few years). The multi-color popcorn has consistently tested as negative for any glyphosate residues as well as for contamination with GMO’s, the company says.
This is an interesting popcorn because the kernels are very, very tiny – meaning so small that I cannot use my hot-air popper for them since the kernels blow all over the room before they even have a chance to pop.
At least at regular prices, the Healthy Traditions popcorn also is eye-poppingly expensive – $22 for two pounds, plus a hefty charge for shipping.
If I felt that this was the only popcorn available that was not going to be cross-contaminated with glyphosate, then perhaps these high prices would be worth it. As it turns out though, glyphosate contamination does not seem to be a hazard with regard to any popcorn, even conventional popcorn. So it’s hard to justify paying a really high price just for that reason.
The popcorn is pretty tasty though, and Healthy Traditions seem to offer a lot of sales. Perhaps it therefore may be worth trying out, therefore.
Rancho Gordo (a California company selling a wide variety of extraordinarily good dried beans) offers a Crimson Popping Corn that I also have enjoyed when purchased as an add-on to a bigger order.
Although Rancho Gordo does not claim to be organic, I have done so well so far with a variety of their beans that I am continuing to eat them anyway. The popcorn also feels fine to me.
Following is the response from Rancho Gordo to the query of “Are your beans organic?”
No. Let me say if you’re going for an all-organic diet, my hat is off to you. If you’re open minded, I’d ask you to consider that conventionally grown beans are pretty green, certainly greener than many organic versions of other products. Beans have few natural enemies, don’t require loads of water or fertilizer, and they store and ship well. Most years we don’t have to even use a pesticide but my goal more than anything is saving heirloom varieties.
There was some concern for our beans in the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project. Foreign-grown food should always be a consideration, but we’ve found that our growers in Mexico are beyond organic, although they can’t afford certification.
One more organic popcorn that I have tried and liked is the Shiloh Heirloom Multicolor. For those who would like an organic colorful heirloom popcorn that is not too expensive and readily available through Vitacost and elsewhere, that could be worth trying out.
Arrowhead Mills also sells some organic blue popcorn and white popcorn that may be similar to some of the heirloom popcorns, but I have yet to try those.
Recommended Yellow Popcorn:
Recommended Heirloom Popcorn:
CORN
Admittedly, I do not use ground corn for cooking very often. A few times a year, I do make polenta or cornbread, which I enjoy as long as the ingredients are high-quality. I also occasionally make fried chicken and usually will add some cornmeal to the flour for the coating to give it a little extra crunch.
Healthy Traditions sells ground white corn and corn flour, sourced either from Mexico or from small farms in the “Driftless” region in southwest Wisconsin. The corn is grown organically and is tested by Healthy Traditions to be free of both GMO’s and glyphosate.
I ordered some of the both the ground corn and the corn flour sourced from Wisconsin a couple of years ago. Both have seemed like very good products to me.
Although I’ve yet to order a bag of the ground corn sourced from Mexico, I did order a bag of the pricey corn tortilla chips sold by Healthy Traditions and they were really fabulous.
It’s my understanding that the ground corn that they sell is from the same farm in Mexico, and so I feel confident that this is a good product as well.
Although I have not tried the Healthy Traditions whole corn, their other corn products (and grain products in general) have been consistently good enough that I am sure the whole corn is good too.
The only other ground corn that I have felt good about is from Arrowhead Mills. Their product is yellow and stated as grown in Texas.
Although I cannot vouch for the consistency since I have not used it enough, the one bag of corn meal that I bought felt quite clean as well as pretty tasty to me.
Recommended Corn Meal:
Recommended Polenta/Grits:
Recommended Whole Kernel Corn:
OTHER GRAINS & GRAIN-LIKE SEEDS
According to the Canadian study, organic quinoa (especially when grown in locations other than the U.S. or Canada) is pretty reliably free of glyphosate contamination.
My own experiences with quinoa have been consistent with the idea that this tends to be a pretty clean grain replacement. Although I have not purchased a great many products for use at home, I have eaten prepared quinoa from many different healthy-food restaurants and grocery stores and do not recall ever noting a problem with it.
Amaranth is another “pseudocereal” that – at least according to the Canadian study – is pretty reliably free of glyphosate contamination. I had never had this before and so gave the Arrowhead Mills version – which is organic and grown in Nebraska – a try recently.
I thought the amaranth seemed quite clean to me and also tasted slightly of spinach, which is not necessarily a bad thing. I will eat it again sometimes.
The Canadian study suggested that millet tended to be much more problematic with regard to glyphosate contamination than either amaranth or quinoa, with some organic samples coming up clean and others being moderately contaminated.
I really like the taste of millet and have used the Eden Foods brand (which is sourced from the U.S.) in recent years without any noticeable problems.
However, if I were going to use millet regularly (such as to include in baking bread), I likely would want to go to the trouble of ordering some from Healthy Traditions. Their product is sourced from Italy and (like all Healthy Traditions products) tested as being glyphosate-free. Although I have not tried this yet, based on my experiences with other Healthy Traditions products, I feel pretty sure it is good.
Recommended Quinoa:
Recommended Amaranth:
Recommended Millet:
WHEAT, SPELT & RYE FLOURS
According to some high-profile figures in the Paleo world, wheat is uniformly toxic enough that it never should be eaten by anyone, under any circumstances.
Although I do not agree with that perspective, it certainly is the case that wheat has many issues associated with it that can lead to worsened health problems in many situations.
Nevertheless, I think that for most people (including some people who have been sick with chronic illness issues), consumption of certain kinds of wheat under some circumstances can be an okay or even a healthy thing to do.
It therefore seems worthwhile to consider the issues involved in a little bit of detail, rather than just reflexively giving up entirely on all wheat.
Of course, a small percentage of the population has celiac disease or a similar condition that will make it important to avoid gluten on a permanent basis.
In addition, many additional people who become sick with mold-related illness find that they do better avoiding even small amounts of gluten, at least for a period of time.
It seems likely that at least some of these problems with gluten may be related to damage to the endothelial cells caused by trichothecene mold toxins, such as satratoxin made by Stachybotrys or several different toxins made by Fusarium.
Bread made with Turkey red wheat. Photo credit: Jeffrey Hamelman
This can cause perforations in both the gut lining and the blood-brain barrier, thereby allowing food particles to travel outside the intestinal tract and into the brain.
While certain food particles such as gluten may be only mildly irritating at most when confined to the gut, they can be much more damaging if they manage to get into the brain since the neurons are so delicate.
Conceivably, this could be one explanation for why many chronically ill individuals have reported losing their ability to tolerate gluten while being exposed to toxic mold but then eventually have regained it after starting effective mold avoidance.
Because glyphosate increases the amount of Fusarium present in the soil, the use of glyphosate seems to have the potential of contributing to people having problems with this kind of gluten reactivity.
In addition, in recent court testimony, a Monsanto toxicologist acknowledged that the surfactants in Roundup may have the potential of disrupting the endothelial cells in the gut all by themselves:
Donna Farmer: Surfactants are named for surface acting substances, because they act on the surface of cells. Unlike when you have surfactants in body soap, you have a tough layer of skin to help protect your other cells from that. Your GI system doesn’t have that protective layer. Those surfactants are very disruptive to those really delicate cells that are in the lining of the GI system.
If this is the case, then it conceivably may be that avoiding stressors that damage the endothelial cells (such as by avoiding spending time in moldy buildings and avoiding any type of food treated with glyphosate) may have the potential of improving the health situation to the point that gluten and other trigger foods are more tolerated.
This phenomenon, for instance, seems to have the potential of explaining the frequent cases where people who have found themselves to be gluten-sensitive in the U.S. are able to eat cookies or pasta or bread in countries like France or Italy with no problems at all. Since the typical diet in those countries has far less glyphosate than the typical diet in the U.S., perhaps even a few days on that kind of less-toxic diet can allow enough gastrointestinal healing to occur for gluten-containing products to become more tolerated.
Another totally different problem that some people such as those with FODMAP issues may have with wheat is related to the fructans in it.
The idea here seems to be that some people have dysbiosis in their digestive systems, with an abnormal number of microorganisms that can cause a variety of problematic symptoms.
Therefore, if the fructans in wheat (or the other dietary components that serve to feed those microorganisms) can be avoided, health improvements may be experienced.
Note that even if endothelial cell issues or FODMAP issues prevent people from eating wheat at certain points in their lives, that does not necessarily mean that they will need to avoid it forever if those issues can be successfully addressed.
In addition, some people who often have problems with some wheat find with some experimentation that they may do fine with certain other strains of wheat, or with wheat that is free of chemical or mycotoxin contamination, or with wheat that has been prepared in specific ways.
For instance, most wheat used today is a modern hybrid that many people believe may be especially likely to cause problems for many people. While other more ancient varieties of wheat – such as einkorn or Turkey red – also contain gluten, there is less of it and the structure is somewhat different than in the wheat more commonly used today.
Spelt and farro are other ancient wheat varieties that may be tolerated by some people who have issues with regular wheat.
“Refined” or “white” wheat flour that has had the outside layer generally is much less likely to be substantially contaminated with glyphosate than whole wheat flour, but of course it also has fewer nutrients and less fiber. Wheat bran, on the other hand, often has especially high glyphosate levels.
Homemade sourdough bread
As with sprouted oatmeal, wheat that has been sprouted may have less toxicity and be easier to digest.
In addition, many people have reported that sourdough bread may be more tolerable for them than other types of wheat-containing foods.
Part of the reason for this is likely because the sourdough fermentation process breaks down the gluten and phytic acid in the bread, and may help to neutralize other toxic substances (such as mycotoxins or even glyphosate) as well.
Sourdough bread also tends to have a lower glycemic content than regular bread, making it less likely to spike blood sugar.
In addition, sourdough has natural antifungal substances in it that help to preserve the bread itself but that conceivably also could have beneficial effects on those eating the bread.
(Note that authentic sourdough bread does not require yeast to be used. Therefore, if yeast is listed on an ingredients list, that suggests that the bread may not have the benefits of sourdough bread.)
Finally, of course, is the question of glyphosate contamination of wheat, but that is a little tricky.
While one article that has been shared widely on the Internet suggests that many people are reacting to the glyphosate contamination rather than the gluten in wheat, that seems a little simplistic since there are many other product categories (such as oats and certain kinds of legumes) where glyphosate levels are higher but do not trigger food reactions in people who believe themselves to be gluten sensitive.
As stated above, one possibility here is that the glyphosate in people’s diets in general is causing endothelial cell issues, thereby allowing gluten to get out of the gut and into the brain.
Stephanie Seneff (an electrical engineering professor at MIT who has spent the latter years of her career focused on issues related to nutrition and health) hypothesized that perhaps what gluten-sensitized individuals actually are reacting to is a combination of the gluten and the glyphosate.
She commented recently on her public Facebook page:
Their sensitivity is specifically to peptides derived from gluten that are contaminated with glyphosate. I believe that glyphosate actually embeds itself into proteins in place of the coding amino acid glycine. That means that glyphosate modifies the gluten protein to make it much more allergenic and difficult to break down.
There’s also an enzyme that specializes in separating proline from the peptide chain called prolyl aminopeptidase which is crucial for breaking down gluten, which contains lots of proline. This enzyme has multiple regions where glycine plays a crucial role in its function. It too would get disrupted by glyphosate contamination and become defective.
The combination of glyphosate-contaminated gluten and glyphosate-contaminated prolyl aminopeptidase leads to an immune reaction to undigested fragments of gluten. The presence of antibodies against gluten causes an immune cell attack on the tissues through molecular mimicry.
Glyphosate was being used back in the 70’s, but I do not think that glyphosate is the only cause of Celiac disease. People seem to think that when I say that glyphosate caused the epidemic that I imply that glyphosate is the only cause of the disease. I don’t understand that logic.
Personally, when I was very sick with ME/CFS (eating a non-organic diet and living in a home that I did not know was moldy), I had reactivities to many different foods, including gluten.
Within a year of starting mold avoidance, most of those reactivities had mostly faded away. I found at that time that I could sometimes eat bread or other wheat products without apparent problems, but that on other occasions even a bite or two of a wheat product would make me feel quite sick.
Because some of the products that I reacted to the most were certified organic, at first I thought that likely I was reacting to mycotoxin contamination.
Now, though, I more believe that all the wheat that I react to is contaminated with glyphosate (though Fusarium toxins growing downstream of glyphosate usage may also be contributing) and that if I can just avoid that, I generally have no real problems with wheat at all.
Cookies made with One Degree Sprouted Spelt Flour.
Still, most of the time, the only wheat that I eat is a few slices of organic sourdough bread purchased from local stores. Even though that is made with just regular white flour, the sourdough process seems to make it feel okay to me.
I also do feel that Einkorn and Red Turkey organic wheat feels better to me than “modern” organic wheat varieties.
What probably would be ideal would be for me to make my own sourdough bread using that kind of heirloom wheat, but that sounds like a lot of work to obtain just a few slices of bread per week.
Based on my own experiences and also based on the results of the Canadian freedom of information study, I do not consider regular organic wheat flour produced in either the U.S. or Canada to be sufficiently reliable enough to purchase myself or to recommend here.
However, I have found several choices of wheat flour of various types that I do feel confident about buying.
First, while it has been many years since I have encountered any items made from whole wheat flour that I have found to be at all acceptable, One Degree Sprouted Wheat Flour turned out to feel fantastic to me. Making cookies with this flour and just a little sweetener was a revelation for me, feeling much more like a healthy part of the meal rather than a regrettable indulgence.
I also tried the One Degree Sprouted Spelt Flour, which also felt good to me. The One Degree website also lists two additional heritage wheat flours (Red Fife and Khorasan) as well as rye flour, but unfortunately I have not been able to obtain any of them. I wish that all of the One Degree products were available through one website, since as things stand now many of the people who would most like to purchase all the company’s products are unable to obtain them.
All of One Degree’s wheat and rye products are currently being grown by farmers in Alberta (in the same part of Canada where One Degree’s oats are grown) and are certified as glyphosate-free.
One Degree Sprouted Whole Wheat Flour
Healthy Traditions (which sells through its website only products that it has tested for glyphosate contamination and that have come up as totally clean) has in recent years sold a few different wheat flours on its website. I’ve had good experiences with everything that I have purchased from Healthy Traditions and therefore would not hesitate to buy from them again (for any reason other than cost).
In some years, the company sells heirloom wheat – such as Red Turkey Wheat – raised by small organic farmers in the “Driftless” area of southwest Wisconsin. Although wheat in this area is free of glyphosate contamination, in some years small amounts of contamination due to rainwater or pesticide is found and then the website does not list the products.
Healthy Traditions also has been selling flour and whole wheat from an organic farm in Italy. I recently tried doing some baking with the “Italian Type 00” flour (intended especially for pizza dough) and thought that it was lovely.
More widely available is Jovial Foods’ Einkorn Flour, which is produced by organic farmers in Italy. Jovial decided to do an experiment growing einkorn after reading about how some people with gluten sensitivities were able to tolerate it, and it now is available in a large number of healthy food stores in the U.S. and elsewhere.
I’ve purchased the company’s all-purpose (white) flour many times over the years and have done fine with it. They also sell a whole wheat version and a pricier sprouted version that I have yet to try.
Healthy Tradition sells Jovial Einkorn products on its website and so that is further confirmation that it is clean with regard to glyphosate contamination.
I’ve heard from many people who are gluten-reactive who have tried Jovial Einkorn, and quite a few have been able to tolerate it. On the other hand, some people have told me that they didn’t seem to do that well with the Jovial Einkorn, even though they were able to tolerate certain regular white flour products that I believe based on my own experiences to be pretty glyphosate (such as Annie’s cookies or macaroni). To some extent, if people want to find wheat that works for them, a little bit of trial-and-error may be required, perhaps.
In my years of eating in restaurants while traveling around the U.S., I stumbled upon a couple of places that had bread or pizza crust that I thought was outstanding and then looked into where the wheat came from.
Bread made with organic wheat flour from Central Milling in Utah.
The first was from a company called Wheat Montana, which (as it turns out) is located in the same part of that state as my now-favorite oat producer, Gluten Free Montana. Wheat Montana sells both certified chemical-free (grown with nitrogen fertilizer) and organic wheat, and have a whole page on their website discussing their non-use of glyphosate.
The other flour that I really liked came from Central Milling, which is a high-end mill with several outlets in Utah (and a new Artisan Baking Center in Petaluma, California). The pizza and tiramisu made from Central Milling flour was remarkable, and after looking at the company’s website, I am even more intrigued.
The problem, though, is that their shipping costs are so high that it seems it would be hard to justify having things mail ordered from them no matter how often one baked. If I baked often and could pick up the products from them though, I would definitely give their flours a try.
Recommended Wheat Flours:
Recommended Rye Flour:
GLUTEN-FREE FLOURS & THICKENERS
Although until I recently I had almost no experience at all with gluten-free baking, recently I have been experimenting a bit to try to get a sense with regard to how toxic various types of products have felt to me.
While I did find a few products that were good enough that I would consider using them again, an awfully lot of the products on the market felt problematic to me in various ways.
Although I feel like I have only just started to scratch the surface in terms of trying the hundreds of different products on the market, here are some basic observations that I have made so far.
Baking with oat flour has a reputation as being difficult unless xanthan gum or a similar product is added to it. However, my experience with Sweet Elizabeth’s oat-based mixes (discussed below) were so positive that if I were interested in doing much gluten-free baking, I likely would spend some time trying to master this topic.
Either the GF Harvest or Montana Gluten Free brand of oat flour would be my choice. If those were not available, I might try grinding my own oat flour from acceptable brands of oats in the Vitamix.
I have never purchased rice flour and I see that Lundberg, which is usually my go-to brand for all things related to rice, does not even make rice flour.
One Degree sells sprouted rice flour currently sourced from a farm in Argentina. Although I have not tried this flour, I’ve found the One Degree rice crisps cereal from the same farm to feel terrific.
A representative from One Degree responded to my query about the company’s rice products as follows:
We currently do not test for heavy metals. That being said, our rice farmers do not use any animal manures on their crops or fields to prevent any antibiotics, heavy metals, or toxins from the animal manures to build up in the soil and thus be passed on to the food we eat.
I bought some corn flour from Healthy Traditions a year or two ago and thought it felt good to me on the few occasions that I have used it.
One Degree also sells corn flour that I am sure is excellent. It currently sourced from the same farm that supplies the corn for the One Degree Sprouted Ancient Maize Flakes cereal, which I have found to be excellent.
I have used cornstarch occasionally, mostly to thicken sauces for Chinese food. Both the Rapunzel and the Let’s Do Organic products have seemed fine to me.
I also have generally found products from Frontier to be at least acceptable and so might consider their cornstarch as an option as well.
Although non-organic almonds are reported to often be treated with glyphosate, I have had such consistent good luck with higher-end brands of non-organic almonds that I have tentatively concluded that it does not seem necessary to remove them from consideration just because they do not have the label of “organic” on them.
Although one study found glyphosate contamination in both non-organic and organic almond milk, the levels were extremely low (less than 1 ppb) even by my standards and I am not convinced that the contamination might not have come from another ingredient in the product other than the almonds.
I recently tried a few different non-organic almond flours sold through Vitacost and thought that all of them felt at least acceptable to me.
I especially liked the Barney Bakery and the King Arthur brands. But even Bob’s Red Mill (which I have given up on with regard to grain products) seems to be able to do almond flour okay, based on my experience as well as on reports that I have gotten from others.
Although there are a few organic almond flour products on the market, they mostly seem to be quite expensive and available only through special order from small companies and so I have not tried any of them yet.
Almond flour, it seems, can be divided into two categories. The first – also called “almond meal” – is just ground almonds without the skin removed first, giving the baked goods a slight bitter taste and rougher texture that I personally found appealing. The second – also called “blanched almond flour” – is lighter in color with no skins, and has a fluffier texture that produces baked goods more similar to ones made with grains.
Apparently many serious gluten-free bakers are committed to a rather expensive brand of ultrafine blanched almond flour called Honeyville, which I have yet to try.
I’ve only used the Nutiva brand of coconut flour so far and it has seemed fine.
If I were going to try a different brand, I would choose one associated with other coconut products that I have liked, such as Healthy Traditions (also known as Tropical Traditions), Let’s Do Organic or Carrington Farms.
Tigernut flour seems to have become more popular recently, especially among people who are not able to tolerate regular nuts. I tried the Gemini brand for some baked goods and it seemed okay to me.
The biggest shock to me in trying products from this category is how problematic cassava and tapioca (which are made from the same plant) have the potential of being.
Because I have done well with Let’s Do Organic tapioca pudding, I was surprised to find that a wide variety of other tapioca and cassava products (including some organic ones) felt problematic to me. Although I did not feel that the issue was glyphosate contamination, they nonetheless did feel to me like there was something wrong with them.
Finally, after a lot of trial-and-error and amateur sleuthing, I finally reached what I think is the distinguishing variable – country of origin.
It seems that most cassava and tapioca products sold in the U.S. use product grown in Brazil – a country where, even compared to the U.S., vast amounts of extremely toxic chemicals are used in agriculture. Although some companies refused to reveal country of origin to me even when I queried them, I did find that products acknowledged as being sourced from Brazil all felt problematic to me.
According to both the Let’s Do Organic tapioca box and a company representative, their tapioca granules are sourced from France. This surprises me a little since I was under the impression that cassava grows only in tropical countries. Nevertheless, I plan to continue to use this product to make tapioca pudding and now might give it a try for thickening pie fillings as well.
Let’s Do Organic also sells a tapioca starch (flour) that is stated as originating in Vietnam. Although I know little about the toxicity situation in Vietnam, that product felt good enough to me when I tried it that I would be willing to use it again.
Although I have never used arrowroot, that is another product similar to tapioca that seems to very often originate in Brazil and that now concerns me a bit. The Let’s Do Organic Arrowroot Starch is stated as being from India, which seems like it might be safer.
Undoubtedly there are other cassava/tapioca and arrowroot products that are fine other than ones sold by Let’s Do Organic. Personally, though, I think that at this point I would only buy them if they were marked as organic and stated as being sourced from somewhere other than Brazil.
Moving on, I’ve heard some good things about a few mail-order companies selling a variety of flour products that could be worth a look. These include Anthony’s Goods, To Your Health Sprouted Flour Co. and Wilderness Family Naturals.
Recommended Oat Flour:
Recommended Sprouted Brown Rice Flour:
Recommended Corn Flour:
Recommended Corn Starch:
Recommended Almond Flour:
Recommended Coconut Flour:
Recommended Tigernut Flour:
Recommended Tapioca Granules:
Recommended Tapioca Starch/Flour:
Arrowroot Starch Possibilities:
Additional Flour Sources:
To Your Health Sprouted Flour Company
About The Author
Lisa Petrison is the executive director of Paradigm Change, a website and blog focusing on the role of environmental microbial toxins (including mold toxins) in chronic illnesses.
Living Clean in a Dirty World is an associated blog site focused on the topic of recovering from chronic mold-related illness using a variety of approaches.
These websites have received more than a million page views by more than 400,000 visitors since their inception in 2013.
Lisa also is the author or editor of several books on the topic of recovering from mold-related illness. These include A Beginner’s Guide to Mold Avoidance (co-authored with Erik Johnson), Back From the Edge and Erik on Avoidance.
She runs the Mold Avoiders recovery help group on Facebook (with more than 12,000 members) as well as the associated Mold Avoiders website.
Lisa previously worked as a reporter, a marketing consultant and a business school professor. She holds a Ph.D. in marketing and psychology from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, as well as B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University.
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