Gluten, friend or foe of our diet? As I explain in this article , the gluten-free diet is dangerous for people who are not celiac, and most of the time  it is not a natural diet , but rich in industrial gluten-free products, loaded with starch or gluey substances even worse than digestion of gluten, used as thickeners, such as carrageenan.

However, if we have digestive difficulties and want to reduce gluten consumption , here are some tips to eat less gluten without creating nutritional deficiencies.

Today we see ancient grains, some of which are grains with a lower gluten content than traditional wheat (hard for pasta and some types of bread, from triticum durum , tender, from triticum vulgare or aestivum , for many baked goods such as sweets) . These low gluten cereals are saragolla, majorca, timilia, margherito, einkorn spelled.

CEREALS WITH LITTLE GLUTEN: ANCIENT ITALIAN AND BIO GRAINS

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Saragolla wheat is similar to kamut or khorasan: it has less gluten but has a higher yield. In Italy it is produced (therefore it is not imported) in Basilicata and Abruzzo. Its pasta has a shorter cooking time (less gluten = less resistance in cooking) but it is certainly a very valid food product for those who want to reduce gluten in the diet . You can find it on Amazon as Organic Saragolla Wheat Pasta 500gr  or ask in organic shops to order it. The price is around 4 euros.
            2. Mallorca is a soft and very digestible wheat, suitable for those with digestive problems and gluten sensitivity : it has a low gluten content (high gluten index, however) and can be used instead of soft wheat flour, it is wholemeal and stone ground, perfect for cakes, biscuits, soft bread such as sandwiches and brioscine. On Amazon find the Probios Farina Maiorca, otherwise you can order it at the Cancemi farm .
            3. Timilia flour is low in gluten and with a lower gluten index, excellent for bread and pasta, even if in home productions it must always be combined with some semolina (try the stone-ground one or the same Timilia semolina), but both the Fior di Loto that the Finestra Sul Cielo or the Vivibio offer varieties of pasta, which you can buy online or order from organic.
            4. The Margherito wheat:  you can find both the flour and the pasta of this whole grain with low gluten content. The flour is produced by the Sicilian company Morino Soprano  , the pasta can be purchased online (price 3 euros, less than the others) at the Molino Crisafulli , also Sicilian.
            5. Einkorn spelled is one of our oldest grains. While the so-called “ancient grains” may be less than a century old, einkorn spelled was the first to be cultivated in a widespread way thousands of years ago. In Roman times, it was already being replaced by dicocco, which obtained greater yield in bread-making. It is a wheat suitable for those suffering from gluten sensitivity: its grains are small, it has a low gluten index and low gluten. It has been seen that this gluten has smaller peptide fragments than the traditional one.