Buckwheat is gluten free despite its misleading name. Actually, it is a fruit related to rhubarb. When you examine and taste the kernels buckwheat plants produce, it is easy to see why buckwheat was given this misleading name. Buckwheat can play an important role in the gluten free lifestyle.

When purchasing buckwheat products, be sure to read both the product label and the list of ingredients. A buckwheat pancake mix, for example, could be  a mixture of buckwheat and gluten-toxic grains. Cross contamination is always a possibility, so you may wish to buy your buckwheat products from a trusted source such as The Gluten Free Mall. Clicking the picture at the end of the paragraph will lead you to the page that features buckwheat pancake mix by Orgran. For general information about buckwheat, I recommend this article published by Boston Children’s Hospital.

Birkett Mills, a major producer of buckwheat products, has posted a large collection of gluten free buckwheat recipes. You may also be interested in this recipe for carob-buckwheat muffins (which includes information about modifying the recipe to produce banana-buckwheat muffins), buckwheat chocolate chip cookies, buckwheat-sweet potato quick bread, and/or buckwheat pastry. 

I have written about amaranth and quinoa — two other wheat alternatives — and plan articles about corn, montina, millet, rice, tapioca, tef, sorghum, and soy. Technically, some of these are not grains, but they are certainly sources of flour that make gluten free cooking delicious and relatively simple.

Published 4/23/09