Tips for Using Coconut Flour
and Other Substitute Ingredients
By Danny
Ha
Are you interested in substitute
ingredients for your cooking and baking projects? Many cooks are looking into
alternative ingredients these days and many times with very good reasons.
Sometimes choosing a substitute is simply a matter of using what you have in
your kitchen but in other cases substitution is done for health reasons. We'll
look at some reasons to use alternative ingredients and a few of these which
you might like to consider for your kitchen.
One of the top
ingredients in a great many recipes is flour. Unfortunately wheat and other
grains are responsible for a great many health problems that Americans suffer
from today. There are other factors of course but even people who do not have
overt signs of Celiac disease or IBS can benefit from eliminating grains from
their diet. Sometimes pseudo-grains like buckwheat are well tolerated but for
other people it is necessary to complete drop grain consumption altogether and
alternatives like coconut flour can work better.
Some substitutes are
not that easy to cook with but recipes that call for coconut flour are
typically quite simply and work well. You probably will need to use more eggs
than you are accustomed to using when you bake with coconut flour but that just
adds more healthy protein and fat to your meal as long as you are using high
quality eggs.
Coconut flour can be
used as a wheat flour substitute in a number of recipes such those for
pancakes, biscuits and cakes. If you would like to eat a healthier diet it is
probably better to focus on high quality nutrition from meats like beef and
lamb as well as fruits and vegetables but it can be nice to have some baked
goods and coconut flour can help you enjoy them with fewer negative after
effects.
Another important
ingredient to substitute in many recipes is vegetable oil. Despite what has
become the conventional wisdom stating that polyunsaturated fats are healthier
for you than saturated fats it seems that our ancestors used a better diet
template.
Many healthy cultures
have used fats like coconut oil and lard with more success in the health arena
than Americans seem to be having with our high consumption of fats from soy,
corn and canola. The good news is that it is super easy to substitute good fats
like coconut oil for the lousy alternatives. You can typically use the same
amount of oil the recipe calls for but you may want to experiment a bit if you
are not completely happy with the results. Just try using a little less or a
bit more depending on your tastes and you should be able to get some good
results after a couple tests.
Another type of
alternative you can use in recipes like pumpkin pie is an evaporated milk
substitute [http://evaporatedmilksubstitutes.com/] such as unsweetened coconut
cream or coconut milk. If you haven't noticed yet coconut is actually a very
helpful food source for people who have trouble with both dairy and wheat or
other grains!
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Danny_Ha/1305914
