Spring and Gluten.

The sun is shining more. It's not dark during the dinner hour. Birds are chirping when I go on walks... I go on walks! All signs that Spring has sprung. In less than a month I'll be writing my final exams and then I'll be free for the Summer. But I won't get ahead of myself, because right now I'm just excited for the start of Spring!

On the topic of Spring and the good weather that comes with it, I would encourage my readers to leave their hibernation and go breath-in some of the sweet, fresh air. I found this quote that encourages more outdoor-ness too: Human nature is about the only nature some people experience. - Abigail Charlson. This quote depicts a sad, but true reality. I used to live in a very outdoors friendly area and I miss it. In Toronto, it is hard to escape into true nature, so I've come to appreciate the little bits of nature that I do come across: the CCNM garden, city parks, wild bunnies (I saw one on the weekend!), singing birds, and green grass.
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Gluten is a protein found in wheat products. It gives wheat its high protein content, its stretchability, and chewyness (in Latin gluten means "glue"). More and more people are developing a wheat sensitivity likely due to its wide abundance in the standard North American diet. Yes, avoiding wheat is a difficult task (wheat is EVERYWHERE, including soy sauce, licorice candy, and canned-creamed soups (to name a few)), but there are actually TONS of foods for baking (and cooking) that don't contain wheat or gluten.

Here are some flour (and general grain) alternatives:

Sorghum, rice (brown, white, and sweet varieties), tapioca, soy, potato, chickpea, fava bean, ground nut and seed flours (like almond flour and pumpkin seed flour), corn, oat (as long as certified gluten-free), lentil, pea, farrow, taro, teff, coconut, quinoa, millet, amaranth, chia, hemp, flax, arrowroot, and buckwheat (which, despite its name, contains no wheat!). ...To sum, there are LOTS of ways to eat without wheat!