The Really Empty Carb, or Why I Hate Rice Flour

Just in case you are brand spanking new to the world of gluten free foods, I'm going to tell you something that the rest of us discovered in the first 10 minutes of reading labels/recipes; it's basically all made of rice. White rice flour, brown rice flour, sweet rice flour, brown rice syrup, glutinous rice flour, rice starch, there are seemingly endless permutations of rice, but it's all still mainly rice. The problem is that nutritionally and texturally, not to mention satisfaction and flavor wise, rice in baked goods is the king of suck.

Nutrition has so many pretensions to importance these days that we'd better jump in there first, lest we be accused of only attending to pleasure. Compared to wheat flour, brown rice flour has more carbs, less fiber, more sugar, minimal protein, and far less of most nutrients and minerals, yielding more, emptier carbs per cup than the stuff most fashionably GF people are trying to avoid. This is exactly why the GF diet is NOT synonymous with a low carb diet. Far, far from it. If rice flour substitutes are used, baked goods are even carb-ier, less nutrient dense, and generally offer nutritional nada apart from their lack of gluten, which really, from one angle, is just another thing they don't have apart from carbs. Rice flour epitomizes the empty carb.

Unlike white sugar, rice flour can't even redeem itself aesthetically. Sugar at least tastes good. Rice flour tastes like... Nothing. It has no flavor, unless you happen to keep it around too long, at which point it will taste stale. Before you get excited about the possibility of it taking flavor well, like tofu is supposed to do, try to remember how much of the flavor of a slice of bread comes from the grain itself. This lack of flavor is not an asset, it's a void we seek, and generally fail, to fill. GF store bought breads so often taste like nothing but the excessive amount of yeast in them, even when supplemented with "natural flavor" according to the label.

The last, most obvious deficiency of most commercial GF offerings is texture. Anyone who's had the misfortune to open up a package of Glutino's bread can tell you that GF generally means crumbly, dry, either a sandy or gummy mouthfeel, and stuff that's almost edible when warm, but stiff enough to chip a tooth on once cool. Every one of these characteristics is a direct result of the use of rice flour. Imagine for a moment the texture of cold, plain rice: hard, sticky, dry outside, too chewy inside. This is what they are making bread from. Small wonder that it's nearly all texturally revolting.

Add it all up and you've got baked goods with all the health hazards of white sugar or starch, that have horrid textures, and at best taste like an abundance of yeast, all thanks to our pal, rice flour. You may be asking; if it's so bad, then why do so many companies use it to create their GF offerings? Easy, it's CHEAP. Rice flour's only redeeming quality is of course, the one quality that businesses find most appealing. Figures, huh? But it's not good enough for me, either to eat or to cook with.

For anyone out there who's wondered why I never, ever use rice flour in any of my recipes, now you know. Demand more. Skip the rice.