Gluten-Free Dining

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sudsmaster

sudsmaster

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On a hunch, and prompted by a recent article in Scientific American, I've started trying a wheat/barley/rye gluten free diet.

Anyone else on this regimen? It's not easy to eliminate all wheat and barley products from one's diet. Most prepared foods contain wheat. Even soy sauce can contain sizable amounts of wheat gluten, as well as beer. But I found gluten free beer and soy sauce. Breads are a different matter. The only gluten free bread I've seen so far is overpriced and frozen at the local health food store. So for the time being, I'm doing without bread, cakes, cookies, etc. I suppose I'll be making stuff from buckwheat, corn flour/meal, and rice flour from scratch in future. And I guess it would be possible to make oatmeal cookies etc without wheat flour.

Now, if they only made gluten free donuts ;-)
 
I tend to go gluten free every now and then as I have a skin issue that seems to flare when I have more than the equivalent of 5 slices of bread a day (and that isn't hard to do BTW)...

There are pretty good subsitute flours, cake mixes, muffin mixes etc available here. I'm more than happy to get a couple of them and send them over if you would like me to...
 
Anyone else on this regimen?

Yeah, been on it for about 7 years now. My body seems to have a hard time digesting gluten and sugary ingredients as well as dairy, with the exception of yogurt. I had to diagnose it myself.

It certainly isn't easy and can be very frustrating while grocery shopping, realizing you can't buy 90% of what's on the shelves. You do get used to it after a while, although it takes a lot of time and effort. Most of my shopping is done at Trader Joes.

If you stay with this "diet" (more like "lifestyle to me) long enough, you'll find that "regular" foods seem overly rich and sugary.
 
A couple of things that you will probably find...

- Your digestion will improve markedly in a short time (and I mean ALL aspects of it)

- You will find you have more energy (you will have better absorbtion)

- You may notice that you have better health in general and especially if you have been succeptible to stomach issues
 
Gluten free bake shops......

For everyone that lives in a big city I would imagine it would be easier to be on this regimin as they're so many small stores to shop at. I know that Philadelphia has gluten-free bake shops where you can buy breads of all kinds and cakes, pies and pastries (including donuts). Probably best to just look in the yellow pages to see what you can find. Fortunately I dont have any problems that would require me to go gluten-free but I can see where it would be expensive and hard to find stuff. Good luck to ya !
 
One of my next door neighbors' sons has the issue requiring such a diet. It took a couple of years for his being so ill to be properly diagnosed. From what I hear, it was and is very frustrating for him and his wife to find stuff gluten free. and they've had to start doing some of their own baking too lol.
 
Here we seem to particularly well catered for. Most menus in coffee shops and restaurants either have their gluten free items noted for Coeliacs or can tell you what is suitable. For extremely sensitive people restuarants, such as the Austrian one near us, used to cordon off part of his kitchen to prepare food...
 
My sisters granddaughter has celiac disease. She stopped growing around 3 years old and was chronically sick. Doc after doc and nothing...My sister actually read about it in a womens magazine then my niece had her tested. She has been gluten free for 3 years, happy, growing and my sister had herself tested and found out she has a mild case and now eats pretty much gluten free. Gluten intolorance is very common. That is why people who go on low carb diets a lot of time feel better than ever. They go back to their old way of eating and they feel cruumy again but thinks that is the way it is. It has only been the past few years that more informaiton has been available on this subject. To Good Health! Dano
 
From the article in Scientific American and other sources on the internet, it appears that contrary to prior medical thought, gluten intolerance is not only contracted by infants and children, but can strike people at any age - particularly middle to late age - unexpectedly.

It's also associated with what has been termed a "leaky gut". In celiac disease, the problem peptide - a fragment of the gluten protein - is called "gliadin". In intolerant people, the gut allows this peptide to cross into the blood before being broken down further. In the blood, the body's immune system attacks the gliadin and the cells lining the small intestine. The result is actual damage to the lining, with resultant indigestion, failure to absorb properly many other nutrients, and skin conditions. It's also been associated with diabetes and arthritis, which may also be immune system related maladies.

Interestingly, the incidence of gluten intolerance is quite low in countries in Asia where wheat and barley are not as common as rice or other starch foods. It's far more common in European cultures. In fact, there is evidence that feeding wheat products too early to infants - before their guts can handle the gliadin - can result in eventual gluten intolerance.

I don't know of any gluten free bakeries in my area, but I'll look around. I do have a bread machine, though. So far the gluten free recipes I've seen recommend adding something called xanthan gum to compensate for the lack of gluten, but I couldn't find any of that when I visited Whole Foods last weekend.
 
Rich...

...are there many packet mixes available for cakes, slice, cookies etc?

I mentioned earlier that I am happy to send you a couple if you would like....
 
Besides conditions like celiac disease,can I ask those here on gluten free diets what kinds of symptoms this diet has eliminated for you?

I think many times, folks don't know that something is really "wrong", or that they're not feeling 100% until something happens to point this out. What prompted some of you to make the switch to gluten free diets?
 
I have not been diagnosed as a Coeliac...but after a very close friend was diagnosed I thought that I would look into it as I have had a varying skin issue since we came back from the UK in May 2004. Since about Jan 2005, I had been getting very itchy spots/rash between my shoulder blades, the nape of my neck and sometimes on the back of my calves.

Cortizone cream seemed to fix it, but it would then come back. These spots, about 1/2-1" in size, sometimes larger, would itch so badly that I have actually made myself bleed from scratching and I can tell you the will power to not scratch at times is pretty amazing.

So upon reading about Coeliacs and that there is the potential for skin problems, I decided to cut the wheat out of my diet and gluten in general. Voila, in about 6 weeks, it was all solved. So then I decided to put some back in and I can take about 4-6 slices of bread a day (equiv) which sounds a lot, but then that boils down to toast and a basic sandwich or 1 small bowl of pasta...

At the moment, it has flared again as I have been slack and eating...

2 toast
12" subway at lunch
2 biscuits
sometimes pasta at night...and 2 bowls...

...which is about 10-16 slices of bread a day

....so I am off wheat for a couple of weeks to see what happens....
 
Sudsmaster (Rich) try looking up a 7th Day Adventist church near you. Contact them on where they buy their food. In my area have a large Adventist school and several places to get organic and Gluten free products. Sometimes even the church will have a supply store to sell from.
 
Good luck. Making from scratch without gluten containing ingredients is not easy.

I'm paying about USD$3.00 for cake and muffin mixes by Basco and a little more for Orgran (which I don't like as much)
 
Celiac's Disease

People who have Celiac's Disease cannot eat gluten. The Celiac Sprue Association has several recipes, along with some tips about how to adapt to a gluten free lifestyle, on their website. (See link below).

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www.csaceliacs.org www.csaceliacs.org
 
Yep, I've seen a few recipes. Still looking for that darn xantham gum, lol.

Meanwhile I'm making do with carb substitutes: corn, potato, rice. Tamari soy sauce (brewed without wheat). Redbridge beer (brewed with sorghum instead of barley).

One hidden silver lining is that now I can go buy some vanilla ice cream, mix it with some real chocolate syrup, and make a delicious milkshake with my die cast Oster retro milk shake machine. Maybe add a teaspoon of rum just for the flavor. I thought I was lactose intolerant but I figure it's probably safe now, with the gluten gone. (yeah, I know, some ice creams have gluten but most don't and it's easy enough to read the ingredient label beforehand).
 

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