Planning a cheap gluten-free flour diet is necessary because admittedly, a gluten-free diet is not a cost-effective one. Your shopping budget will be significantly higher than usual even for buying gluten-free wheat substitutes. The Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics published a study affirming that a gluten-free diet is neither cheap nor healthier than an ordinary diet. If you have a problem with gluten, be sure to plan your diet expenses because, without a good plan, you’ll never know how much money that you have to spend in every grocery shopping session.

Focusing on getting cheap gluten-free flour is essential because the biggest portion of your grocery budget will likely be for buying flour—the primary ingredient of your primary foods. Here are some tips that you can follow if you want to keep your gluten-free grocery budget low.

Buy Multipurpose Flour (or Not).

There are various gluten-free substitutes for wheat flour, such as almond flour, corn flour, and buckwheat flour; however, if you are looking for the cheap gluten-free flour for all cooking styles, multipurpose flour is the best choice. When you cook using flour, you will use the flour in a variety of ways. You may want to use it for baking, for thickening soup, for frying, etc. A specific type of gluten-free flour—say, almond flour—cannot be properly used for all of those cooking methods, unless you mix it with another type of gluten-free flour. Instead of buying multiple bags of flour, buy a bag of gluten-free multipurpose flour that is perfect for all cooking scenarios.

However, it is also possible that a commercial flour blend costs much higher than the blend that you make at home does. The price of a bag of Cup4Cup gluten-free blend, for instance, ranges from $4 to $7 per pound, while you can actually make a pound of gluten-free flour blend at home for only about $2.5. Be sure to do market research to find cheap gluten-free flour with a truly reasonable price. Bob’s Red Mill’s All-Purpose Gluten-Free Baking Flour, for instance, costs only $2.9 per pound. Reasonably priced products are always available if you do research first.

Know the Right Recipe.

If you prefer making your own gluten-free flour blend at home, you should know the right recipes that keep your budget low. A mixture of tapioca powder, gluten-free ground oats, ground dried rice, and xanthan gum is an example of a cost-effective recipe that allows you to make a homemade gluten-free flour blend for only about $2 per pound. You can cut your expenses further by purchasing all of the ingredients in bulk. Grinding the ingredients on your own is also cheaper than buying ground oats and rice.

Skip Flour.

The best way to do a cheap gluten-free flour diet is by skipping flour altogether. Flour-based foods are not the only foods on earth. There is a large assortment of gluten-free vegetables and fruits that will tickle your palate. When you want to supply your body with carbs, gluten-free brown rice is always available and it is not expensive to buy.

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