In Cuba, an initiative is emerging as small farms are producing gluten free flour from banana, coconut, rice and yucca amidst food supply challenges. Difficulties in sourcing and paying for imported foodstuffs have stimulated local creativity to use an alternative to wheat flour for baking and breadmaking. Bananas, yucca and coconuts are sliced and air dried, then ground into a fine powder as a flour substitute. Yucca – or cassava – flour is popular in Latin America for sauces and also for baking.
By-products from these crops include coconut oil, coconut fiber rope, vinegar and sweets, all of which are gluten free and therefore in demand from gluten intolerant consumers. The production capacity of local farmers is often limited by a lack of larger scale machinery and staffing. As the culture has changed from foreign imports to more local grown food sources, farmers are doing their best to keep bread on the table in Cuba without wheat.
