You would think if the entire ingredient list consists of two words, “soy flour”, that the product is gluten-free, wouldn’t you?

I had in mind a gluten-free bread recipe I wanted to try, so I stopped off at PCC on the way home to pick up a bag. I couldn’t find soy flour with a “GF” logo on it, so I went with a brand that makes a lot of other GF flours, Bob’s Red Mill. Soy flour is soy, which has no gluten, right?

Just to be sure, I checked Bob’s Red Mill website. Good thing, too, because as it turns out, this seemingly safe flour is not safe for us gluten sensitive folk.

Bob’s has it’s very own gluten-free processing plant. The grains that enter the plant must pass a quality test to ensure that they don’t contaminate the GF plant. After processing, the end-products undergo more testing. It’s a completely different story for the non-GF plant, though. This facility produces high-quality grains and products, but since they’re processing lots of other things that do contain gluten, even the otherwise gluten free products, such as soy flour, can experience cross-contamination. In fact, Bob’s has tested these types of products and sure enough, though they’re not made with gluten, they do test positive for it.

So what to do then, if none of my local stores carry gluten-free soy flour and the source I often rely on for common and uncommon GF flours doesn’t make one? Get on the Internet and start searching!

I came across only two brands: Arrowhead Mills Soy Flour Organic Gluten Free and Hodgson Mills Organic Soy Flour. My preference for all food is organic, which these both are, so then it came down to price. Arrowhead Mills was $3.99 for 22 oz, Hodgson Mills was $3.89 for 24 oz. No brainer, I ordered the cheaper one and am waiting (impatiently) for it’s arrival.

That’s a lot of footwork for a little bit of flour, but really I’m fortunate that, here in Seattle, we have so many stores that carry gluten-free products at all. Usually, if one doesn’t have what I’m looking for, the next will. Occasionally it takes a third, but rarely do I strike out.

This time I did, but perhaps the exception proved the rule: that this was such a rare occasion makes me appreciate my progressive Emerald City that much more. And after so much work to chase down the elusive gluten free soy flour, I’m going to let my local stores know how much I’d like to buy it from them, rather than online. If they don’t know we need it, they won’t stock it.