Thursday, June 5, 2008

Buy Flours?

I still buy my flours at the grocery store (Hy-Vee). Since it's pretty expensive, I'm in the process of shopping around online to find a better deal. A couple websites I'm checking out are The Gluten Free Mall, Amazon, and Bob's Red Mill.

I buy Bob's Red Mill brand right now, and I'm really happy with it. I trust the brand to be contamination free.

Where do you buy your flours? What brands do you use? I'd love to learn from your experiences!

5 comments:

Carrie said...

Hi Sarah - I buy my flours from several sources. When I first went gluten free I would travel to Raleigh, NC once a month and stock up. I rarely do that anymore. Usually about every two months I'll place on online order via Bob's Red Mill or BarryFarm.com for my GF flours. I like Barry Farm a lot because they have a HUGE variety of GF flours, I like Bob's Red Mill for their quality. SHipping seems to be pretty expensive at both places. I know a lot of people just shop Amazon, but they sell the flours in Lots (usually more than I have the storage space for!) so I haven't done a lot of shopping via amazon.

I'm also happy to say now that a local store has started carrying basic GF flours like tapioca starch and brown rice flour! I cried when I saw them in the store a few weeks ago. I couldn't believe it!! So it will be nice to know that if I HAVE to have some flour and cannot wait for a large order, I can always just run to town -- wow!

Unknown said...

I buy Bob's Red Mill flours from our local stores. It is DEFINITELY not the most frugal way to go, not by a long shot. However, it's a value choice I've made to spend the money locally, to encourage local stores to carry GF products, so that if I'm ever in a pinch, I don't have to wait for shipping. And for me to say I spend more on something on purpose? It's kind of huge. ;)

Of course, I haven't actually *bought* much for GF products in awhile thanks to a shopping spree I won - everyone thought I was crazy when I didn't head straight for the meat - yeah, I'm pay $5 for a pound of flour, forget meat! :)

http://glutenfreefrugal.blogspot.com/2008/02/gluten-free-shopping-spree.html

Gluten free Kay said...

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

I'm only cooking gf for myself, so I do not buy in bulk. My local Kroger grocery store has brown and white rice flour and tapioca flour for under $3/bag. Plus, they give me 10 cents/gallon off gasoline for every $100 I spend there. That helps.

And I'm glad Kroger has made a committment to organic and allergen-free foods. I'll buy what they have made available and encourage them to expand their offerings.

I've bought millet, sorghum and teff flours at my local health food store. They are a lot higher in price, but I use them sparingly. So sparingly, in fact, that I haven't even opened the teff flour yet. Ha!

I trust Bob's Red Mill, and the products are readily available. I try to avoid buying from bulk bins to eliminate the chance of cross contamination. But I've bought tapioca flour there when they were out of packages.

My brain is slowly getting over the sticker shock of going gf. But it's still hard on my pocketbook. I just spent $30 on gf soap, lotion and shampoo from Gluten Free Savonnerie. But my skin has improved dramatically since I made the switch. So I'll stick with the winning formula.

Rachel said...

Hi Sarah:

Thanks for stopping by Wheat-Free, Meat-Free.

Re: Gluten-Free Flour Mixes.

I don't really purchase the premade bread and brownie and cake mixes or even the premixed flour blends, but try and use a flour mix recipe from one of my Bette Hagman cookbooks, as pies have different flour needs from cookies, etc. For some things you want chewiness, for others you want structure and the tast of the bean flours might be great in one dish but not another.

I purchase bags of garbanzo bean flour, tapioca flour, brown and white rice flour and sorghum flour from my local health food store. They are such nice folks and carry an array of gluten-free stuff that I am happy to support them even though I might save money ordering online.

I keep experimenting with different flour blends, but find inspiration from other more experienced gluten-free bakers like Carrie the Ginger Lemon Girl, who left a comment above, and Natalie at Gluten A Go Go and Naomi at Straight into Bed Cakefree and Dried. They are great baking mentors.

Keep up the great blog posts!

-Rachel

Anonymous said...

Hi Sarah
I bought a Nutrimill grinder to grind brown rice into flour. It does a great job at 50 cents a pound instead of $3.00. I make my own quinoa flour and almond meal with a dedicated coffee grinder. I buy teff (love that stuff), sorghum and arrowroot from Azure Standard.com. I buy McCann's Steel Cut Irish Oats from Amazon and tapioca starch and glutinous rice flour from my local asian market.