Flourless Eating
Gluten Free Oatmeal vs. American Standard Oatmeal
by Sheila Rae - The "Bizzy" of the Bizzy Lizzy on 04/16/11Do you understand the difference? American Farmers crop rotate to give the land a break, so they plant a different crop each year. If a farmer plants wheat and then plants oats the next year there can be wheat that pops up the next year and cross contaminate the oats crop. They also then send this crop to manufactures that process more than just oats. So the oatmeal gets contaminated. Most of this product can contain up to 2000 ppm of gluten some are less and some are more. Now we have 3 manufactures that do just oats. Their farmers grow in fields that just grow oats. They have to test their product to get less that 20 PPM to state gluten free. A manufacture can produce their product in a facility that has wheat if they test and get less than 20 PPM.
Walking through the Store
by Sheila Rae - The "Bizzy" of the Bizzy Lizzy on 03/16/11Lizzy and I had a long conversation last night about food and its placement in the store. For 14, she is a bright girl. We were in the cereal aisle and these 2 boxes of cereal popped off the shelf (figuratively). The colors were bold and bright. She said aren't they so cute mom. That was the start of a very interesting conversation. I asked to think about where they were placed and after a few moments she put it together. It was right at eye level to a little kid sitting in the cart. Then she discovered the store brands basically lined that row (which I thought was a kind of interesting) those spots are prime real estate and usually get sold to the highest bidder (some stores are paid for spots other make stores earn them by high sales - they typically have high advertising budgets). We discovered in this store that all the "name brands" had sections from the top shelf to the bottom. We looked at different kinds of cereal we discovered all the high bran cereals were on the top - she thought that was interesting. We talked about the shelf being about 6 ft. tall - the average American is 5'7 and they could easily reach those. She thought mainly older people would choose from that row, packaging was inviting but not flashy, they boast health benefits most had high fiber claims. The bottom row she thought was more for the 20-40 year old crowd. Products did not really have any major health claims, packaging was pretty basic but they were probably more advertise, which people probably knew when they came to the store what they wanted. Kids cereal typically was in that middle eye level a few dropped below.
Oatmeal and Gluten Free
by Sheila Rae - The "Bizzy" of the Bizzy Lizzy on 03/12/11
I get asked all the time if our oats are gluten free. For a celiac that is a normal question. The argument is split. Oats can have cross contamination from the field or manufacturing. There are 3 gluten free mills in the US - oops - there are now 4. Westwind Milling just added a gluten free mill a few months ago but I am not sure they are doing oats. Oats technically do not contain gluten if they never touch equipment that worked with wheat. I would love grow our own oats and process them along with grow our own produce. It would be amazing.
We feel the benefits of oats are so important to the daily diet that we want everyone to have the benefits.
The benefits of OATS
by Sheila Rae - The "Bizzy" of the Bizzy Lizzy on 03/09/11
You can look anywhere, oats has so many benefits it would take pages to explain. I once had a doctor tell me that the way he explains the heart benefits is oats works as a scrub brush to arteries. Oats are so heart health that some companies use it as the only point of their marketing. We use oats because it is good for you, tastes amazing, hold moisture in products, fills you up, and has a good number of fiber grams.
Health Benefits of Eating Flourless
by Sheila Rae - The "Bizzy" of the Bizzy Lizzy on 03/09/11I think the most common question we get about our unique product is "Why Flourless." I normally ask the person to taste it and then I simply ask, "Did you miss the flour." The answer is always the same. NO. The shock on their face is priceless and then the conversation goes from there. The majority of flour we eat in the United States is stripped of all the vital nutrients and then we "fortify" to make it healthier again. The problem is this flour does not benefit anyone it just is a filler. "CHEAP FILLER." The people we eat whole grain wheat good for you but you are the minority not the majority. 80-85% of all flour in bakery is "bleached white flour."
