Foods You're Allergic To - Alternative Options Part 3: Wheat Products

If you're allergic to wheat, and having a difficult time finding alternative options that you enjoy, this a great post for you. Read below to learn more about the wheat-free alternatives you'll love.

As a person affected by wheat allergy, I can assure you that one of the best choices you can make...is to adopt the gluten-free diet.

Replacing Wheat Products

As in my previous posts about replacing the foods you’re allergic to, this post will focus on  alternatives to wheat products. As mentioned in my previous post, Using Alternative Diets To Your Benefit, one of the best paths forward after an initial food allergy diagnosis is to adopt a whole foods diet until you’ve gotten familiar with reading labels and identifying ingredients that may be harmful to you. However, if you’re already comfortable with reading labels, you may find this post extremely helpful as it will highlight the wheat-free packaged options available. 

As you may know, wheat is a huge staple of the American diet and is a common ingredient in many of the foods we eat, making wheat very difficult to avoid. In fact, experienced label readers can attest to the frequency in which wheat appears on the packaging of countless processed foods. Due to the almost customary usage of wheat in America, individuals diagnosed with wheat allergy often find themselves having an extremely difficult time finding wheat free alternatives, resulting in an overwhelming, even disheartening, dining or shopping experience. In this post, I’ll attempt to ease the difficulty of finding wheat-free foods by sharing some alternatives to several wheat based items, all of which are staples in my home, and have passed my family’s incredibly difficult, and critical, taste tests.

As a person affected by wheat allergy, I can assure you that one of the best choices you can make upon your initial diagnosis, outside of the whole foods diet, is to adopt the gluten-free diet. The gluten-free diet has become wildly popular over the years due to the work of advocates for Celiac’s Disease and proponents of weight loss and alternative diets. Although the gluten-free diet is not synonymous with a wheat-free diet (wheat contains gluten, but gluten is not only in wheat), there are enough similarities between the two diets that it is now easier than ever to find wheat-free products at restaurants and grocery stores across the country. Gluten-free breads, buns, pizza crusts, pie crusts, muffins, bagels, cakes, pancakes, and cereals, among others, are now commonplace, and in some grocery stores you'll even find entire gluten-free sections, something that was unheard of decades ago. So if you’ve been recently diagnosed with a wheat allergy, and you’re struggling with your new dietary restrictions, take a moment to appreciate the time you live in and understand that you can continue eating the foods you love without missing a beat.

To get you started on your wheat-free journey I’ve provided several links to some of my favorite wheat-free brands of pasta, bread, cookies, and mixes below. As a side note I'd like to state that although the brands below target a gluten-free audience, I highly suggest continuing to read labels to ensure your safety. Hopefully you find these just as enjoyable as I do, and if you find something better, please feel free to share your favorite wheat-free brand with the rest of us in the Community Forum. 

The Food Allergy Way’s Top Wheat-Free/Gluten-Free Brands

Tinkyada - This brand specializes in gluten-free rice pasta. I use this brand regularly and absolutely love their products. In fact, many friends that are not restricted to gluten-free products have not been able to tell the difference in our spaghetti or lasagna when we’ve used this product.  

Jovial - This is another brand that specializes in gluten-free brown rice pasta, however, this brand provides an organic option. I use Jovial and Tinkyada interchangeably, and enjoy these two brands over the other options available on the market. 

LiveGfree - A diverse, affordable, Aldi-based gluten-free brand that makes excellent bread and provides gluten-free options for crackers, cookies, baking mixes, pretzels, pie crusts, and more. Of the gluten-free breads available this brand, in my opinion, has done the best job in mimicking the multi-grain wheat breads I grew up eating. They also make great white bread!

Namaste Foods - This is one of my absolute favorite gluten-free brands that specializes in a wide array of baking mixes. My family absolutely loves their pancake and waffle mix, and their brownie mix and spice cake mix are two of my personal favorites. This brand has done a great job in perfecting their mixes to taste like, and have similar texture to, traditional baking mixes that contain wheat. 

Siete - I’d like to personally thank this brand for single-handedly making “Taco Tuesday” a reality for me again. Their soft taco shells (and hard shells) are “grain-free”, and made with alternative flours like almond flour and cassava flour. My kids are big fans of their Mexican cookies, and I’ve purchased some of their other products, including tortilla chips and seasonings, which were also tasty.  

Against the Grain - Another one of my favorite brands. I discovered this brand while searching for a gluten-free frozen pizza that didn’t have a cauliflower crust. I’m a fan of cauliflower pizza crusts, but it's nice to have a more traditional crust from time to time. The crust that Against the Grain has created tastes more authentic than any of the others I’ve tried. I haven’t tried their other products, but I’m sure they’re just as good.

Simple Mills - This is yet another great brand that has a wide range of products. They sell pancake mix, muffin mix, cookies, snack bars, cake mix, crackers, and much more. My family is a huge fan of their muffin mixes and cookies, which we purchase regularly. One of their foundational ingredients is almond flour, which tastes and feels different from wheat flour, but they do an outstanding job making their products have great texture and amazing taste.