Low-kilojoule Weet-Bix are great as crackers

Gluten Free Weet-Bix $6.99 for 375g. Photo / Wendyl Nissen

Opinion

At last, a gluten-free food that hasn’t been pumped full of salt, sugar and fat to pump up the flavour.

So many people are gluten-free these days that there are now aisles in the supermarket devoted to gluten-free products and there's even a Gluten Free show.

In some cases, however, gluten-free products can actually be worse than their gluten equivalents. When the gluten (which is a protein) is removed some food producers simply replace it with fat, sugar or salt to boost the flavour. So if you eat those foods regularly that's not a great nutritional swap.

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New Zealand ranks along with Australia and England as the top three countries in the world for "allergy incidents". Experts believe too many people are self-diagnosing and altering their diets, leaving out important food groups in the belief they suffer from various allergies without real evidence.

It is thought that 20 per cent of the population believe they have a problem but the numbers actually suffering from a food allergy are probably closer to between one and 2 per cent of adults, and 4 to 6 per cent of children. In New Zealand, 1 in 100 people will be diagnosed a coeliac or gluten intolerant. However, it is believed many suffer undiagnosed.

I'm not gluten-free but a woman who is asked me to look into these for this column. She really likes them, eats them with milk or sometimes uses them as crackers.

Ingredients

(In order of greatest quantity first)

Wholegrain sorghum (96%)
Sorghum is an ancient grain which records show was first collected 8000 years ago in Southern Egypt. In the Western world it is mostly used as livestock feed but in Africa and parts of Asia it is a primary food product.

Sorghum doesn't have an inedible hull like some other grains so it is commonly eaten with all its outer layers, thereby retaining the majority of its nutrients. It is also non GMO.

Nutritionally it will give you high levels of manganese, as well as some iron, magnesium, phosphorus, selenium and niacin. It also has good fibre levels. You will get 2g of fibre for every two biscuits.

Golden syrup
Some sugar is necessary for flavouring but like it's cousin traditional Weet-Bix this is a low sugar product. You'll get 0.7g of sugar per two biscuits.

Salt
You'll get 70mg of sodium per two biscuits.

Vitamins (niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, folate)
These will be added in here for extra nutrition. Folate is worth mentioning because two biscuits will provide 20 per cent of folate RDI for a woman of childbearing age. So a good food to eat if you are expecting.

My recommendations

I love these. In fact I like them more than the traditional Weet-Bix. They are low kilojoule, giving just 473 kj or 113 calories for two biscuits, and as the woman who talked to me said, they are great as crackers as well as for a mid-afternoon snack.

They are also low in sugar, salt and fat, giving just 1.1g of fat per two biscuits.

As with many gluten-free foods, the cost is almost twice that of traditional biscuits. These cost $6.99 for 24 biscuits, traditional Weet-Bix costs just $3.69.

But if you are gluten intolerant which means eating gluten can give you serious inflammation of the small intestine then the price is worth it.

And you can be sure that you are eating a gluten-free food which hasn't been pumped full of salt, sugar and fat for flavour.

And if you're not gluten-free like me, just enjoy the different taste and feel of a new wholegrain in your diet.

Highlights

• Gluten-free

• Made of sorghum, an ancient wholegrain

• Low in sugar, salt and fat

• Plenty of folate

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