Sometimes an innocent post takes on a life of its own.  I received this comment to yesterday’s post.

“Do you make your own baking powder? If not, to do so, mix 1 teaspoon bicarbonate soda with 2 teaspoons cream of tartar. If you wish to store it, add 1 teaspoon corn starch to absorb any moisture from the air. Most commercially made baking powders contain aluminium.”

Thanks to Val for the comment.  I set off to the world of Google and discovered that the presence of aluminium in commercially prepared baking powder seems to be common knowledge.  Which rock have I been hiding under?

This then begs the question – Does self-raising flour contain aluminium?  Once again, thanks to Google, the answer is most definitely yes.

So, what started out as a way to simplify and streamline my pantry ingredients to a single type of flour has turned into a campaign to eliminate aluminium from our diet.  Whilst nothing has been conclusively proven, there is potentially a link between levels of aluminium in the brain and Alzheimer’s Disease.  Of course, flour and baking powder are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to ingestion of aluminium.  Many processed foods will also contain it.  It yet another example of the importance of eating food in as natural a state as possible to avoid these hidden ingredients.

I will be discarding the baking powder and buying cream of tartar  and bicarbonate of soda to create my own baking powder.  The proportions are 2 parts of cream of tartar and 1 part of bicarbonate of soda.

There are numerous sites that discuss making your own baking powder but this blog post explains it very clearly.  I will be making a bulk quantity with the addition of cornflour and then using 2 teaspoons of the mixture to 1 cup of plain flour to make my own aluminium-free self-raising flour.

What do you think?