Wheat Allergies: Sources for Alternative Grains

One of the best things about having this blog is the vast amount of information we learn from all of our great readers. We have recently been helping a reader “Andrea” try out some millet. Her family has a variety of allergies and she’s had problems finding a source that would work for her. In our communication back and forth, she gave us a great list of alternative grains and where she has been able to purchase them in bulk. We thought we’d share her info with you because we know that quite a few of our readers have expressed an interest in learning more about food storage and allergies. She has specific concerns with contamination due to other allergies as well, but this info is great!

Buckwheat:
We buy our buckwheat from the Birkett Mills, specifically Wolff’s Kasha,- a sister company whose supplies can be accessed from the same phone number. Wolff’s is the company that has #50 bags of grain and cereal. As of this morning the groats were $87.70 and the cream of buckwheat cereal was $97.40. Shipping is UPS and pricey, but you can make arrangements to pick up the grain in Penn Yan, NY if you are out there. Birkett Mills rotates their crop with peas so there is no risk of grain cross-contamination. Their phone number is 315-536-3311.

Sorghum: www.twinvalleymills.com Twin Valley only does sorghum, both flour and grain. They are very nice people and have been willing to work with us according to our needs- like splitting a case into half grain and half flour so we did not need to buy a case of each. They have product that ranges in size from 2.5# to 30#.

Teff: If you type in “The Teff Company” in a search engine you may find that you end up with a website advertising teff as grass feed for horses. That said, The Teff Company is where we buy our teff, but the website is www.teffco.com. This is where Bob’s Red Mill gets their teff, but if you buy it directly from the Teff Company there is no risk of cross-contamination as all they do is teff.

Rice: We are having difficulty finding this product near us right now, but we have luck with Lundberg Rice. They are an excellent company and they like to send out surveys and coupons if you register on their website.

Wild Rice: We have had success with Trader Joe’s Wild rice, though it is pricey- about $5/#. It works for us. Often people with a rice allergy can eat wild rice because botanically speaking it is an aquatic grain, but not rice (horray for botanical loopholes!).

Millet: I have had the most difficulty finding millet, but there is a company called Great River Organic Milling that offers gluten free millet flour. I just recieved a sample package from them to try. I do not know if it will be safe for us to use as it goes down the chute with corn starch. I have gone so far as to contact individual millet growers and extension offices in the dakotas and have gotten millet directly, but it is so often grown with corn and oats it gets contaminated at the combine, and besides, it is very often hulled in facilities that openly process corn, and hulling one’s own millet without getting the bits of hull in the grain is very nearly impossible. (The hull has a strong goiterogen, and though I don’t know if I spelled that right, I do know that it is bad for those with thyroid difficulties). I am fairly certain that I could get a 2000# tote of gluten free millet, but with all of the problems that would present it is hardly worth it.

We need your help!

We have asked Andrea if she would be willing to help us out with a few more articles on allergies and food storage and she is going to take a crack at it. We are so excited for her to help us out since we are definitely not experts on this subject.

Please let us know if there are any specific things you’d like to know more about and we will work with Andrea on covering these topics!