Rice Flour..any Problems With Off Brands?

[fatjacksonthecat]

Ive been on an elimination diet for the past two weeks and have been doing really well but recently made a new batch of kimchi( fermented cabbage- a korean recipe). Well this new recipe called for a couple tablespoons of rice flour.My first mistake was going to an asian market to purchase this as it was harder to make out whether it was gluten free or not, but from what I can tell and have googled it looks like it should be gluten free.The ingredients said  it was refined from 100 percent rice.The thing is immediately after eating it I reacted pretty severely and being on an elimination diet makes it easier to pinpoint what it was. This is the only thing it could have been that was even remotely processed.Ive looked it up and I know theres still a small chance of cross contmamination in rice powder although that still seems low, but I cant tell even exactly where it came from either Vietnam or Los Angeles so who knows where its been and what process its been through.Im learning and wont make this mistake again! Anyways, has anyone else had this problem or used Bobs Red Mill rice powder with success?Thanks!

[shadowicewolf]

Can you handle fermented foods well?

 

As for rice flour, i normally use bob's red mill white rice flour without an issue.

[fatjacksonthecat]

Actually my last batch of kimchi was amazing for my gastro symptoms. Anytime I ate something that didnt sit well with me I would eat some kimchi and the pain would go right away.The last batch was a much more simple recipe however, and had no rice flour.Im debating on just going back to that since Ive been having so many problems. I really wanted to  make it the authentic way so I guess I still could use Bobs RM too. Thank goodness for that product line as its usually easy to find and has never caused me problems either.Thanks, Im gonna give that a try I think and stick to just that.I see that its still possible to get glutoned by supposedly gluten free packaged anything!

[notme]

wow, what recipe did you use?  i would love to make that.  we make fermented sauerkraut and it is sooooo good and it *is* good for my gut  we also make half-sour pickles with just salt, cukes, garlic and dill which are fabulous.  but i've not come across a recipe with any flour in it for pickling/fermenting so i was going to suggest just leaving it out but i see you have done that.  i've never had a problem with bob's rm rice flour, maybe try that.  i would be interested in your kimchi recipe if it's not too much trouble (or grandma's secret recipe lolz)  good luck!  

[fatjacksonthecat]

Hey notme, yea things have been going alot better for me lately other than this last episode and one of the things that has helped me the most has been the kimchi. Thats why I was sooo mad I had to throw the last batch out! Anyways, Ive done the first recipe which I liked and was totally allergen free but it probably isnt as tasty as this second ones gonna be especially when I finally get to use rice powder with it. I will say the first one is what helped me like medicine but who knows I have yet to try the second recipe so it might as well. If you make the allergen free one Id use just regular organic cane sugar instead of honey( it only has about four teaspoons) because Ive heard honey can interfere with the fermentation process, although she even said that the small amount of honey wouldnt hurt it. 

 

Now the second recipe is the authentic one Im gonna make tomorrow but Im gonna leave the rice powder out of it since Im trying something called the autoimmune diet and rice is prohibited for now (and also I guess my last glutening put a bad taste in my mouth-no pun intended hha). I think it would be great though with the Bobs Red Mill rice flour.Its not hard but a bit involved to make and I found its really best if its left to ferment about four days. You can choose which one you l wanna try. Hope you like it.... now on my third batch, hope this one goes better than the last! (-:

 

allergen free one...

 

Open Original Shared Link

 

and the more authentic one...

Open Original Shared Link

[notme]

thanx, jackson  i think i'll stick to the amateur one lolz - there's a few things in the authentic one that i know i'll never find around here!  so it wouldn't be authentic  just for shoots and googles, i looked on the interwebs for glutinous rice starch - most of the hits i got were for - get this - making pyrotechnics lolz - there were a couple of 'how-to' sites and you could make your own (soak/cook rice flour, spread onto pan, bake to dry out, grind in a food mill, do the hokey pokey, etc)  whew - good thing i'm making the *easy* one!  glad you are feeling better

[BelleVie]

We had a discussion about this a while ago. From what I understand, Asian manufacturers often label things 100% pure, when in actuality they are closer to 70 or 80 percent. I purchased a bag of "100% rice flour" about six months ago, but when I looked at the ingredients label, it actually said "wheat flour" in Korean. I don't trust foreign labeling at all, unfortunately. If you are going to use rice flour (or anything flour-esque) I would definitely stick to brands manufactured in North America/Europe, which will likely be labeled correctly. I feel your pain, jackson! My boyfriend very sweetly made me bread with this "rice" flour, which then made me quite sick after I ate it.

[fatjacksonthecat]

not me-  and just the name glutinous rice starch is enough to scare me off right now hha. I wonder why pyrotechnics was coming up thats odd isnt it.Looking for all those exotic ingredients is what got me in trouble! Oh yea be careful also if you get korean red pepper in paste form( which many times thats the way thier red pepper comes IF you can even find it called gochugaru or something like that) cause many times its gluten filled. I just used regular red pepper even though they all say to use Korean, I dont know even know where Korean red pepper is and if its really all that different.That recipe is good though, theres lots on the web so Ive been trying  a few different ways but if none works as good as that one did for my stomache Im just gonna stick with that.Oh yea, I also discovered I have a BIG fake sweetener and dye intolerance, cant handle even trace amounts.. didnt you say you have that too?

 

Belle-Well that makes sense.How sweet for your boyfriend to do that and its like we def dont wanna discourage them from cooking for us but boy is it a minefield out there!The bag had only rice in the ingredients but like you said Im 100 percent sure it was  either cross-contaminated with wheat OR like you said the label wasnt right. I also read that sometimes there can be an English problem as well and they can easily mix labels up also. It was funny when I went in the store I  stupidly thought I could ask the girl in there to make sure thier was no wheat in it, well she was really trying to help me but she couldnt speak English and when I kept saying "no wheat, only rice", she thought I was saying " you have no wheat only rice?"  and then took me to the wheat flour hha.Then my mom was in the background saying GLUTEN.. U KNOW, NO GLUTEN?? I said mom please, dont complicate this more than it has to be.Needless to say for a celiac unless one of us speaks the language, not the brightest idea!

[notme]

yes, jackson, i have a ton of sensitivities but if there's artificial color or sweeteners in stuff, i run for the hills lolz - good that you are making your own stuff - you *know* what's in there and it doesn't have to be an un-natural color.  you are always better off, even though it's time consuming, it's totally worth it  if i buy something that is pre-packaged, the product with the least amount of ingredients is the one i choose - and not if it's full of words i can't pronounce!  i cook/make my own stuff, i even can stuff from the garden, and i KNOW every single thing i put into them.  i have a pretty good 'collection' of stuff - from sauerkraut to beets - lots of pickled stuff - pizza sauce, tomato sauce, etc - took a little bit to get the ball rolling, but me and the hubs do it together and it's pretty fun once you get into it.  can't wait to try the kimchi, but i still have 10,000 jalapenos waiting to be turned into jelly and pickles!  

 

if you have questionable ingredients, my motto is:  when in doubt, leave it out!  it might not turn out perfectly right, but at least i can eat it with no worries