Cassava Flour: 40+ Favorite AIP Recipes - Gutsy By Nature (2024)

FAQs

Can you eat cassava flour on AIP? ›

AIP, being grain-free as well as gluten-free, creates a fairly good challenge. The main flours used in AIP baking are as follows: Cassava flour, Tapioca Starch, Coconut Flour, Tigernut Flour, and Arrowroot Starch.

Bonus: Cassava flour is low in sugar and minimally processed, so it's considered a Paleo-friendly ingredient that allows those following the diet to still enjoy baked goods when cravings strike.

Cassava flour is a highly versatile ingredient with numerous uses in the food industry, including in all sorts of baked goods, tortillas, porridge, pancakes, and gluten-free pasta and pizza. Manufacturers also sometimes use it as a thickener for ice cream, sauces, and dressings ( 1 ).

Tigernuts, despite the very confusing name, are not nuts. They're small tubers – root vegetables, sort of like sweet potatoes. Because they're not nuts, they make a great flour for those with nut sensitiviies, allergies, and anyone on a nut-free diet like AIP.

Cassava contains anti-inflammatory properties due to its high vitamin C content. When eaten regularly, cassava's vitamin C content can help lower inflammation by reducing the risk of oxidative stress. It does this by providing antioxidants that can balance out free radicals.

Lastly, due to its starchy nature, cassava flour is a high-carb flour which means that it won't work well for individuals following low carb diets like the ketogenic diet.

Nutrition of Cassava

However, it's a good source of potassium, folate, vitamin C, and several other nutrients. Though this doesn't make cassava unhealthy, people following low-carb diets and people with blood sugar regulation issues, such as those with type 2 diabetes, should avoid consuming large amounts of cassava.

Cassava has a low glycemic index of 46, which means that it is less likely than some foods to cause a rapid rise in blood glucose levels. If you have diabetes, cassava could be a healthier choice than white potatoes, which have a high glycemic index of 85, according to DietAndFitnessToday.

Cassava isn't a nightshade, a group of plants that include potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant. Some diets (like the autoimmune protocol diet) ban nightshades, which makes cassava an ideal substitute for potatoes. Research, however, doesn't suggest that nightshades are harmful to eat, the Cleveland Clinic says.

Cassava is POSSIBLY UNSAFE when eaten regularly as a food in large amounts.

Is cassava flour good for the gut? ›

Cassava Flour Contains Dietary Fiber

Great for maintaining gut health, cassava flour contains 2 grams of fiber per ¼ cup. Eating a diet rich in dietary fiber will help add bulk to your stools, making digestion a lot easier. Fiber also helps regulate the body's use of sugars.

In The Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, cassava is made into a bread, or is eaten boiled, either alone or with sweet potatoes, cabbage, plantains, and meat. Alternatively, it is cooked in soups with okra or with dumplings. Or sometimes made as a cake.

Cassava flour is one of those AIP-friendly ingredients that opens up doors that were previously closed. Cassava flour is made from cassava - a starchy tuberous root vegetable that is native to the tropics of South America.

However, in baking, plantain is a great alternative to almond flour and coconut flour. I hate bananas but can handle plantains … this is the plantain flour I tried. Like cassava flour, plantain flour provides carbs and resistant starch, and is AIP-friendly.

The answer is probably no. While occasionally eating psyllium husks (perhaps as an ingredient in a gluten-free baked good) probably won't cause harm except in certain people with autoimmune conditions or severe digestive sensitivity, the “cons” outweigh the “pros” in this case!

FOODS ALLOWED Beverages Juice, soda, sports drinks, coffee, tea and rice, oat, potato, hemp or coconut milk. Breads, crackers, flours, pasta and cereal made from the following: amaranth, arrowroot, barley, buckwheat, cassava, chickpea, lentil, millet, oats, potato, quinoa, rice, rye, sago, tapioca, and T'eff.

As a resistant starch, cassava is a gut friendly flour! Since it is made from the whole root, it is typically more easily digested than extracted starches like tapioca.

Cassava flour is made from yuca root. This is the flour that is used most frequently in AIP recipes. If you get quality cassava flour, you'll find the consistency to be most like regular all-purpose flour.

Plantain Chips & Cassava Chips are two of My Favorite AIP Store-Bought Snacks. These chips are both great options because you can usually find these nowadays at regular grocery stores.