News

New Recipe Guide Makes Gluten-Free Cooking Tastier, Healthier and Easier with Pulses

(Winnipeg) March 22, 2011– Pulse Canada is responding to the growing demand for gluten-free foods by releasing a resource booklet that includes recipes for meals, snacks and baked goods that feature gluten-free pulses and pulse ingredients (peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas).

Pulse Canada’s Pulses and the Gluten-Free Diet:  Cooking with Beans, Peas, Lentils and Chickpeas was developed in collaboration with Shelley Case, RD, dietician and author and Carol Fenster, PhD, consultant and author of several gluten-free cookbooks.  Pulses and the Gluten-Free Diet offers 26 new recipes that are tasty, nutritious and easy to make at home.

“Gluten free is one of the fastest growing food market segments.   As many as one in 133 people are affected by some level of gluten intolerance.  Pulses and pulse ingredients are gluten-free and easy to use in many recipes including baked goods, snacks and meals,” said Peter Watts, Director of Market Innovation for Pulse Canada. “Celiac disease as yet has no known cure.  The only treatment of celiac disease is strict adherence to a gluten-free
diet,” said Jim McCarthy, Executive Director of the Canadian Celiac Association.  “This guide is an excellent resource providing new nutritional choices.”

“Recipes that include pulses as an ingredient can significantly improve fiber and B vitamin intake of someone who is following a gluten-free diet, which tends to be low in these  nutrients,” said Carolanne Nelson, PhD RD, Assistant Professor of Nutrition, University of Prince Edward Island.

Pulses are a healthy, sustainable ingredient that offer excellent health benefits that can help reduce and prevent chronic health issues such heart disease and diabetes.  They are a rich source vegetable protein, complex carbohydrates – including dietary fibre, as well as vitamins and minerals such as potassium and iron. “Pulses are a natural prescription for healthy living and can play a key role in providing Canadians with the nutrition
they need” says Watts.  “Combined with the contribution pulses make to environmental sustainability, pulses play a significant role in supporting healthy people and a healthy planet.”

Pulse Canada is the national association representing growers, traders and processors of Canadian pulse crops (peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas). Canada is the world’s largest supplier of pulses, with exports reaching more than 150 countries.