Namaste, Gluten-Free and Sugar-Free Muffin Mix and Perfect Flour Blend
Round-Up of Summer’s Best Products for Better Health and Natural Living, Part 1:
We had some golden opportunities to sample some platinum products during the summer of 2015, so since summer has waned, we would very much like to share our views of them.
When we talk about such a product, it means that it is good enough for our family to purchase or continue purchasing it.
Generally, we try out all the products we consider for review together, as a family. At least, we do this whenever possible, to assure an array of opinions within our group.
Thus, the samplers include yours truly, Maria Jacketti, Wayne Funk, and Laurel Jacketti Funk.
Products for Heightened Gluten Free Consciousness
Our daughter, Laurel, believes that she has found her passion, her life’s work. What is she passionate about? Healthy eating – and healthy living! She finds toxicity in the American diet, and our lifestyle choices as the main reasons for illnesses’ rampant presence in our society.
She is also making us more gluten-conscious. Indeed, we also have a relative with celiac disease and see how gluten can truly a real and present danger to everyday living. We applaud the number of gluten free products that are making their lives easier, while vouchsafing their health.
Whether or not we prove to have actual gluten problems as a family, we are limiting our consumption of old-fashioned bread and pastas laden, yes, with old-fashioned gluten. In my case, Type 2 diabetes is central to this decision. I was diagnosed in December of 2014, with numbers that positioned me on a life-threatening precipice.
For almost a year, I wondered if I would ever have a muffin again. And then we tried Namaste’s sugar-free, gluten-free muffin mix. I have no problem with nuts, but the mix is also nut free.
You need to add eggs, oil and water to whip up a quick batch of the muffins, which are gloriously basic. This means that you can take the mix virtually anywhere that your imagination wants to go!
And if you have no problem with sugar, you may choose to add a bit of your own healthy sweetener, such as maple sugar or honey.
I suggest that you don’t bomb this mix with a lot of sweetener, well, for many reasons.
We as a culture have gotten all too used to adding over-the-top amounts of sugar to most things.
This mix whips up muffins that have such a great complex taste that too much sweetener can obscure that, and frankly, that is the last thing that you want to do.
Laurel made the muffins and just added dried cherries to raise the sweetness to just the right level.
The good news was that I ate one of these phenomenal muffins without having a sugar spike and without any digestive discomfort of any sort.
The entire family enjoyed them! And we want more.
From the local perspective, we need Wegmans in Wilkes-Barre to carry Namaste’s products.
While the muffin mix is perfect when time is of the essence – and here it frequently is – we also love baking from scratch.
For those times, Namaste’s Perfect Flour Blend, comes to the rescue.
I actually believe that its light blend of two brown rice flours, tapioca starch, arrowroot powder and sorghum flour trumps the taste of wheat, yes, even the best light whole wheat flours that I’ve ever used!
The best news is that you can use this flour in any recipe to replace that old standby, wheat-derived flour.
Now, because I am diabetic things get a bit trickier for me, as I tend to incorporate soy, coconut, and almond flours into my recipes to the flour mix to send the carb counts down the nutritional sliding board even more.
The Perfect Flour Blend does not protest these additions and works as well, if not better than the white whole wheat flour I was using before.
With Wayne’s birthday just around the corner, I plan on making my favorite Texas chocolate sheet cake, stevia or monk fruit sweetened, with The Perfect Flour Blend.
So stay tuned for an update. I already know that it will be amazing!
On Amazon Prime:
Namaste’s Sugar-free, Gluten-free Muffin Mix : $22.35 for six 14 oz. bags
Namaste’s Perfect Flour Blend: $17.97 for 5lb. bag