Rice flour

Rice flour is obtained from milling the clean grains of the cereal, resulting in a product with the same nutritional characteristics as the rice from which it’s extracted. Like the rice, the resulting flour helps to control cholesterol levels and improves intestinal transit. Composed chiefly of carbohydrates and proteins, rice flour is the ideal substitute for wheat flour. It’s a gluten-free product that’s highly valuable in recipes and formulations for coeliac, diabetic and hypertensive people and others with digestive and cardiovascular problems. In the human diet it’s used for all kinds of culinary applications. Although its most renowned gastronomic quality is its ability to thicken sauces, meat dishes and chocolate, can be used to make dough for bread, pasta, baby food, breakfast cereals, snacks, cakes, appetisers and gluten-free drinks. As a result of its limited ability to absorb oil and its high starch content, rice flour adds textures and nuances to tempuras and batters that other flours cannot provide, such as an outer layer that’s crisp and with a much lower caloric value than the equivalent when using wheat flour. It’s an alkaline food that ensures lower acidity, lighter digestions and a balanced pH. In addition, in the cosmetic industry it’s long been used as a base for creams, soaps and masks, as a natural exfoliant, as a desiccant for atopic and sensitive skins and as an additive in talcum powder.