Hi Mammas, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease last summer, so I am familiar with the diet and although it has been difficult I have been able to manage a gluten free diet for myself.
I suspected that my 13 year old son also had Celiac disease so I had him tested and Friday the Pedi called with the bad news - He has Celiac disease. So my question is how do you manage a gluten free diet for a teen that loves pizza, pasta and bread. How does your teen maintain a gluten free diet at school, other peoples homes, when they go out to the movies or pizza parties etc....I emailed his school and they did invite me to schedule a time to meet in the food and nutrition dept. so they can go over the gluten free choices that they have. I thought that was pretty nice.
Luckily, my son is familiar with the diet because I have been on it. He told me that he will follow the diet because he is tired of feeling tired, achy and sick all the time.
What tips do you have for keeping teen friendly gluten free snacks and quick go to foods? Do you have a resource or online store that you purchase products from.
Try these sites, Gluten Free Gloriously and Celiac Chicks, you might find those sites useful..
good luck!!
My girl friend and her daughter both have Celiac disease, and she stocks her cupboards with Trader Joes products. She called ahead and booked a "gluten free" tour of their store. A staffer walked her through the aisles, pointing out all the gluten free products, many of which she had never tried or even imagined would be gluten free. She was delighted. (one more reason to love TJ's!) I noticed that she makes a lot of her foods from scratch and has fruit and veggies washed and cut up in containers in her fridge, so her teen can just grab them.
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We're not GF here, but I have several friends that are GF due to either Celiac or wheat and gluten allergies. One thing you can check into is if there are any specialty bakeries in your area that offer gluten free products. We have one around here that has a whole line of cakes and cupcakes and chocolates that are simply to die for, and two friends will get birthday cupcakes and make a regular cake for everyone else, and they'll get muffins and other treats from there when they want something rich and gooey. It's a little spendy, but they swear it's worth it.
Another friend makes most of her food from scratch and will use rice flour and other flours not made from wheat and simply sub them out. She also uses gluten free Bisquick and will try to find it online because she says sometimes it's cheaper online than in the grocery store.
She eats a lot of chicken, tons of veggies and fruits, and is always trying new recipes and brands. She likes to visit the allergen-free section in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. I've been there for dairy-free waffles and I've seen gluten free waffles and pancakes there too. I wish I could remember the name brand offhand, but usually I just make them from scratch with lactose-free milk because it's cheaper than buying premade.
Whole Foods is a fantastic resource if you have one in reasonable driving distance.
Talk to a nutritionist. Read labels. One of my friends in particular gets violently ill if she has even trace amounts of gluten... she says if someone doesn't wash a knife or spoon well enough after using it on a gluten product she'll get sick from it. She's a rabid label reader and when she goes out to eat she asks a lot of questions of the servers and managers in order to advocate for herself. Most of the time they're happy to accommodate her.
We have a couple of gf children in our house. We buy specific things for them. Also, I bake some really great gf breads/pizza dough/focaccia bread, cakes, scones, etc. I mill my own gf flours, which makes the baked goods so yummy and fresh. We use quinoa a lot. They have quinoa pasta, which is fabulous. Even my husband loves it and says that he is fine with me just serving that instead of the regular pasta (I usually make two types of pasta for the family). It is so good. A really good cookbook is called 1000 Gluten Free Recipes by Carol Fenster. I would be very hesitant to let my son eat anything at the school cafeteria. Gluten is hiding in so many packaged foods. A great book to see where it might be hiding is The Idiot's Guide to Gluten Free. It is in caramel color, for example. I would just plan on making his food and having him take his lunch with him. Get some good apps for your phone, if you have a smart phone. One good one is the Gluten Free Registry. It will tell you which restaurants have gf menus, and which things on their menus are gf. It will tell you by proximity to where you are, or you can search a particular restaurant. Free app. There is another free app called gluten free, which allows you to view gf safe and unsafe ingredients while on the move. Just do a search for gluten free, and several come up. My girls gladly eat gf for the same reasons your son mentioned. They hate how they feel when they eat wheat. Makes me so sad that it took me so long to actually take them off of it. I was so afraid it was going to be too difficult. It hasn't been, really. It just takes preplanning and a willingness to go that extra bit to make it safe for them.
I found a curezone webste few months ago. My family also has lots of allergies and skin disease and I found aboit parasite cleanse in that website. Explicitly, they say that most allergies including celiac disease are caused by parasite thag transmitted among the family member. Thus, the allergies is not the inheritance, hut the parasite is. I will do the parasite cleanse soon. Because my family re quite tired with the food allergies, my son can't eat biscuits, milk, honey,peanust and lots. Just try to read it. Who knows it helps :)
Hi there. Both my son and I are on strict gluten free diets. First of all try to find any stores near by that sell gluten free foods. A local supermarket where I live sells gluten free cookies, chicken nuggets, pizza, pretzels and many other things that my son snacks on daily. I also have my own bread maker and donut maker that I make gluten free goodies all the time. I buy gluten free flour and its pretty easy. You can also buy many gluten free goodies at www.katzglutenfree.com It is my favorite site to buy gluten free goods. Amazon also sells gluten free foods. I love Annies gluten free macaroni and cheese. Pretty much anything that your son loves to eat can be easily transformed to gluten free. My son and I enjoy buckwheat waffles (buckwheat is a wonderful gluten free wheat alternative) in the mornings. Bisquick also makes gluten free waffles and pancake mix. Lots of pizzarias are now adding gluten free pizza alternatives to their menus. You can go to www.glutenfreeregistry.com to check out places in your area that offer gluten free foods. Also, www.glutenfreemom.com is a great resource for recipes and school lunch alternatives. Remember, its substitution, not deprivation. Your son can live gluten free and still enjoy pizza, chips, popcorn, sandwiches (made with gluten free bread) anything. When going to a friends house, he can just eat popcorn and chips. At the movies, popcorn and candy! Lots and lots of candy are gluten free. Peppermint patties, 3 musketeer bars, butterfingers.. all gluten free. If you question whether or not candies are gluten free just go google and type is "Insert candy here" gluten free? and you can get an answer. Lots of ppl look up these things every day because more and more people are switching to gluten free diets. Good Luck!
Well, my Celiac daughter is still a toddler, but because I am still nursing her, I am on her gluten free diet so I can share some of things I like.
Okay...I miss real pizza. Gluten free pizza just isn't the same...however, it's not terrible. There are plenty of crusts out there, for you to make your own, and national chains are beginning to do gluten free pizzas. Pizza Ranch does one, and no matter what toppings you want, it costs 10 dollars. Not bad.
Annie's makes a gluten free mac and cheese (in a box) that we like...again, it doesn't taste like Kraft, but it's okay. I make my own with rice noodles...I like Tinkyada best.
Snacks are probably the big thing for a teen, I guess. Lots of chips are gluten free, and so is Dutch Mill puffcorn and Quaker Rice Cakes...the white cheddar ones are AWESOME. Cocoa Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles make a "cereal bar" now that tastes pretty good. Snyder's GF pretzels taste just like real pretzels...can't even tell a difference. Luna Bars are good and there are a ton of different flavors.
Mostly what I eat anymore are whole foods...fruits, veggies, meats, cheese, etc. I do like Honey Nut Chex, but I don't personally like the GF Rice Krispies...my daughter does, though. Kinnikinnick makes a good frozen GF waffle, but I do NOT like Van's frozen waffles. Applegate Farms GF chicken nuggets are delicious and nutritious, but you'd go through a box at a time for a teenager.
I would definitely meet with the dietician because they can give you ideas for what is in your area. I don't know what kind of grocery store you have. Our Hy-Vee has an awesome selection of gluten free foods, and a lot of their store brand foods (soy sauce, for example) are gluten free where name brands are not. I still buy San-J GF soy sauce because it's the best I've ever tasted. :) Even WalMart carries hit or miss GF items, like the Annie's macaroni, GF Bisquik, and Amy's products.
There are two companies that I recommend: Schar (has that German two dots over the "a") and Glutino. The Schar pizza crusts are really good. And the Glutino crackers and breads are good too. We like the Udi's breads, but we did not like the rice breads at all. Glutino's pretzels were, in our opinion, indistinguishable from regular pretzels. We found that Lundberg's brown rice noodles were excellent, as were the Schar pasta.
