Making almond flour/question for the foodies

[Lucy]

Hi,

I'm just trying to refresh my memory -- didn't at least one person among us make their own almond flour? How would one do that? Would ya just throw a bunch of whole raw almonds into a blender and set it on pulverize?

Also, would pulverizing nuts make them not problematic in terms of diverticulitis?
This is something that really concerns me with this group especially, particularly after Wayne's experience of late.

I like nuts, and they are good for us, but I hate to take a chance on irritating diverticulosis into the -itis. Guess the oils of those nuts could be used for flavor, particularly the roasted/toasted forms, but I'm not sure whether or not the roasting/toasting process converts the good fats into bad fats or not. They have much more flavor, I'm sure, than the raw forms, but I'm not sure how good the raw forms would be for flavoring cooked foods.

Welp, whadya think about making one's own almond flour the way I mentioned above?

Yours, Luce

[artteacher]

Hi Lucy,
You can make almond flour just by throwing some in the blender. If you blend them too much they turn into almond butter. The only problem is that if you grind the ones with the skin on, the bits of skin that look like little dark flecks, can be irritating, and trigger D. That type is crunchier and good for breading meats. Elaine Gottschell mentioned that it can be irritating, in her book, and recommended that no one use flour with the skins for quite a while after D goes away.

So blanching the almonds before grinding it would be better, especially if you have any diverticulitis, but it's an extra step that takes time. I buy flour in bulk and it's the blanched kind.

Hope that helps! Marsha

[Lucy]

Marsha,

Occasionally I'll hear someone say that the nut flours, and other gf flours in the healthfood stores can be a bit dated, but I'll just betcha the kind you get mailed to your house is fresh. Can you tell the mail order version is fresh? I'm not sure I'd know what to look for.

Now that I have a few new options for the use of the almond flour, I'm seriously thinking of ordering some. Is the 5 lb bag about the size of a bag of sugar of the same wt? With Mom being mostly homebound, when I do get relief long enough to pick up groceries, I have to buy lots of perishable stuff and freeze it or refrigerate it, so space is limited here. At least, for the time being anyway, we have two frigs which makes for more freezer space, but you'd be surprized how much we need to have on hand.

This actually might be pretty good timing for getting some of that almond flour due to the fact that I've not been able to restock the freezers since we lost everything when we evacuated for Rita a while back. Had to leave the power completely off to the house.
I'd have to shop at every store in town to restock with everything I like, and there's no way I can even remember where all that stuff came from. Just have to make due on what I find at a very few stores nowadays.

Thanks for the valuable information re: diverticulitis precautions. Really need to read Dr. Cordain's books one of these days.

Yours, Luce