Rumors have been swirling that Miley Cyrus is anorexic. However celebuzz.com reports the singer/actress is denying such rumors, attributing her weight loss to a gluten and lactose allergy. Surprisingly, I believe her. Several studies have shown that cutting out gluten from your diet can lead to weight loss. Gluten is in practically everything, so Miley has had to cut out the majority of foods. Miley has even encouraged cutting out gluten in one of her recent tweets:

“Everyone should try no gluten for a week! The change in your skin, phyisical and mental health is amazing! U won’t go back!”

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All-purpose. Wheat. White whole-wheat. Self-rising. Bread. Rye. Cake.

What the heck is the difference between all those flours?

Well, I’m here to tell you. Flour 101, here we go!

All-purpose: As you might gather from its rather clever name, all-purpose flour can be used for pretty much anything and everything. People on gluten-free diets can’t have it, but if you don’t have to worry about that, you can use all-purpose for baking, cooking, bread-making… whatever. It’s all good.

Wheat: Wheat flour is like all-purpose’s healthier and less versatile cousin. It has fiber and protein that all-purpose doesn’t have, but it can be a pain to bake with because it tends to produce very dense items. In many recipes, it’s OK to sub up to 1/3 the total amount of all-purpose flour with wheat flour.

White whole-wheat. Now this is good stuff. White whole-wheat flour has all the nutrition of wheat flour with the lightness of all-purpose. I wouldn’t use it to replace the full amount of all-purpose in any recipe, but you should be able to sub in at least half the amount. These delicious muffins use entirely wheat flour, and white whole-wheat gives them a nice, fluffy texture. Read More »