How Do You Manage Your Kids on Gluten and Dairy Free Diets?

I understand the recommendations for eliminating gluten and dairy, but I'd like to offer a suggestion. Don't eliminate both all at once at the same time. Eliminate one at a time, and give the trial about 2 months before you evaluate the effectiveness. That way, you will know which elimination gave your child the most benefit. Since she doesn't have Celiac disease or a true dairy allergy, you have no way of knowing if eliminating one or the other or both will help her.

My daughter has many medical problems, and at different times doctors have had us try eliminating gluten, corn, dairy, etc.

Many gluten free products are marketed to replace the identical glutenous product. For example, "English muffins". They slightly resemble regular English muffins, except that they can contain far more ingredients, and extra sugars and fats. The same can be said for many breads, pancakes, and cookies. Sure, you'll be eliminating gluten, but adding in preservatives, sugars and fats. So read labels carefully. Some delicious options include pretzels. The gluten free pretzels are indistinguishable from regular pretzels.

Don't load up on a grocery cart full of gluten free products. Try one. You might find it very acceptable or you might think it's just awful.

And learn which products contain surprise gluten (soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, some salad dressings, bags of shredded cheese).

Kids usually like rice. There are some good gluten free snacks. Instead of a peanut butter sandwich, spread peanut butter on apple wedges. There are some great breakfast cereals that are now gluten free. Lundberg brand brown rice pasta is delicious. We preferred rice pasta over corn pasta.

When you try dairy free, Earth Balance and Smart Balance make delicious dairy free options, and they are much better than margarine. Rice milk is good on a bowl of cereal (the cereal usually gives the rice milk some good flavor). A lot of the almond and soy milks contain carrageenan and other additives. It's pretty simple to make your own milks. Oat milk is delicious and tastes like oatmeal. There are plenty of recipes for making homemade milks online. Oats are also quite cheap - making almond milk can get pricey.

Most of all, don't go at it from a negative perspective. Don't say "you can never have bread again". Instead, think of it as supplying the body with good fighting soldiers or as putting good things in to feel healthy. Try not to serve the whole family a bread based meal (sandwiches, spaghetti with garlic bread) and serve your daughter a poor imitation. Instead, try to include your daughter. Don't make a huge deal of it. Just serve rice pasta with a good homemade meat sauce to everyone. Use rice and make a stir fry. There are lots of corn chips and tortillas that contain no gluten, so you can make tacos or nachos. Think of this as making your daughter as healthy as she can be. And be strict. Don't do this half-way.

A nutritionist and your child's doc will be able to fill you in more on what they really mean by gf and df. I have celiac disease - gf means really gf, all the time, forever. There is no degree of strict - it's all or nothing. If I eat gluten, my intestines will suffer damage and the process of healing will have to start all over again. I have to be careful of cross-contamination, just like an allergy.

For Hashi's, my understanding is that as an auto-immune disease, this is also like celiac or an allergy, where even occasional ingestion causes damage that is very real and not worth the occasional indulgence, at least for gluten. I think that, like celiac, the recommendation to avoid dairy is because casein is cross-reactive with gluten (similar protein structure, so can be confused with gluten by your immune system).

I totally understand your angst about this as I was freaked out that my kids would have celiac too and didn't want to deal with them having to have the same restrictions that I do. I totally understand the thought that you just want her to be a child. In time, though, and armed with more information, you'll come around to a viewpoint that a happy childhood comes from a healthy childhood, and whatever it takes to get her healthy and keep her there - even if it means constant label checking, cooking from scratch, and finding substitutes for gluten and dairy - will be well worth the effort.

Leanne Ely, who goes by The Dinner Diva, is a chef and meal planner who was diagnosed with Hashi's a few year ago. She has a great cookbook called Part-time Paleo that contains lots of delicious gf, df recipes and has a ton on her website as well.

Overhauling a diet for health reasons can be really overwhelming at first, but with more knowledge and experience that you'll gain over time, it will become very manageable and routine.

One place to turn for dairy free ideas are vegan recipes. I have heard of vegan "cheeses" made of things like nuts that are supposed to be very tasty. If this diet helps her with her disease then it is not about not letting her be a child any more then it would be when keeping peanut butter away from an allergic kid, so don't view it that way, you are helping your child learn how to eat for the rest of their life in a way that will control their illness.

I was dairy free for a few years (both kids were dairy intolerant as infants so I had to be dairy-free when nursing). There was an initial learning curve when I had to figure out what brands of things I could eat, because dairy is hidden in weird stuff.

Some things are easy - I switched to rice milk for everything that needed milk (cereal, to drink, but also in recipes, etc) and soy butter (Earth's Best was the brand I think). There is soy yogurt and soy cheese. I didn't like them so I just skipped those things, but you can try them with an open mind and see what you think. I think there is even soy ice cream.

The hard part is when it's a hidden ingredient - for example, casein is milk protein and it's added to a lot of stuff. So until I learned what brands were ok, I had to read every label. The good news is that after 1 or 2 trips to the grocery store, you make yourself a specific grocery list that includes the brand names that you know are ok, and then shopping becomes quick and easy again.

As for cooking, I didn't change that much. I make the same kinds of things that I usually do, but just substituted for the dairy ingredients or left them out if they weren't essential. And I didn't make that much with dairy in it anyway.

Easy dinners that I make that fit your requirements: chicken or beef stir fry with rice, tacos (no cheese and corn shells not flour tortillas) with spanish rice, meatloaf (no bread crumbs), baked fish and a veggie side, roast in the crock pot with potatoes and veggies, and of course it's summer so any meat or fish that is grilled served with veggies.

ETA: Like someone else below, my pediatrician's practice also has a nutritionist/dietician as part of the group. I had 1 appointment with her to get ideas and it was really helpful. You should ask your ped.

I spent 3 months working with a family whose teen has Celiac, and she had been in serious crisis, hospitalized, etc. The house is entirely gluten free. No exceptions, no cheats, no nothing. If she's in the school lunch room, she washes her hands before and after, and she doesn't even come close to touching anyone else's lunch or lunchbox. The other child in th family, and the adults, can have gluten at someone's house, but not at home. They are "letting her be a kid" by letting her thrive and survive. She eats very little dairy - she's allowed yogurt and some cheese but no milk or ice cream. My job was to teach her to cook and take responsibility for her own food and food prep so she could eat without fighting with her mother. (But the mother is totally fearful of many things due to her own upbringing and crappy mothering, and the daughter also had added problems of low food motility - so a few small bites and she felt full and totally nauseated, so dinner took 2 hours between the honest-to-God nausea and the fear of pain/inflammation. She's an entirely new kid now, which is great. So you don't have many of these issues.) Some of the things we learned to cook were nachos (with chicken, corn and peppers), chicken kabobs with fruit/veggies, lasagna roll-ups with rice noodles and tofu and vegan cheese, breaded chicken fingers or nuggets (using GF panko crumbs), roasted sweet potatoes or regular potatoes with broccoli and other green veggies, GF pizza snacks, stir fry with brown rice, and stuffed zucchini boats with tofu and rice. We had a great time and she felt very proud of herself for mastering these skills.

My neighbors have a kid who is seriously diabetic. They just make the switch, and she gets to be a kid by not being in the hospital all the time. Neighbors have all been great, and we give out something besides candy at Halloween - toys and pencils and jewelry and so on. All the parents love it, actually - no kids needs as much candy as the nation gives out anyway.

Both kids are already in the hospital 3-4 times a year for half- or full-day check-ups and assessments and tests. That's enough of "not being a kid" for all of them - kids and families!

I have other friends whose daughter used to have serious allergies to soy, dairy, egg and especially peanuts. They had a sink installed in their front hall area (small mud room) and people had to wash with soap and water before entering the house, and if the father traveled on a an airplane that handed out peanut snacks to his seatmates, he changed into fresh clothes in the airport before going home - that's how deadly it was. (Now they've resolved the soy/dairy/egg thing through nutritional epigenetics, and while her peanut numbers are down to zero, they're still no feeding her that or allowing it in the house. But at least she can go out to a restaurant or a birthday party.

Ordering at restaurants is not that hard - a lot of items are marked GF. In the case of the first kid I mentioned with Celiac, I kid you not, the parents have to quiz the manager and sometimes inspect the kitchen. For purchases at the store, they've learned what brands are okay and they've often called the food companies for more info. Believe me, the companies want to cooperate.

So, you go vegan, and you discover all the fantastic choices we have today - things no one had available 10 or 20 years ago. Lots of people do this for other reasons - general health, smaller carbon footprint, humane treatment of animals, and more. There are plenty of vegan cookbooks and you can limit yourself to the ones with 5 ingredients or less. Once you learn and start to make better shopping lists and learn your way around the market in a new way, it's not a problem. You walk by some foods and aisles all the time now - you'll just walk by different ones in the future. And your daughter is old enough to learn to eat fruits and veggies without always going to her comfort foods of bread and cheese or whatever she eats habitually. She might even find that she enjoys things more when the problem foods are removed from her diet. You can't make it a punishment - it's just how things are. But if you have these foods in your house for everyone else and tell her she can't have them, then it will be a battle.

Maybe you won't need to keep her GF and DF forever, but you won't know until you do this right. Don't think of it as a huge nuisance, think of it as giving your daughter the gift of health and freedom to do things without pain, exhaustion or illness.

I can't answer to the gluten part, but I went dairy free myself about 3-4 years ago and it has made a HUGE difference in how I feel. My youngest daughter is also dairy free and has been since she was 3. Honestly, I don't really notice at all or even think about it, even though we have 6 other people in the family who are NOT dairy free :) I use Silk for the little bit of milk I drink and just don't really eat cheese anymore (although I don't freak out if there is a little cheese in my salad or something). My daughter learned early on that eating or drinking dairy made her feel really bad so she really had no problem saying no to it. Did she eat the occasional ice cream? Sure, but where most folks would have a bowl, she would just have a couple of tastes and was fine.

I will say that I did not make the other family members conform to my daughter's needs, nor mine. I have a good friend whose son is gluten free (and has been since he was very young) and the rest of the family eats gluten foods at times - she doesn't make the whole family follow the dietary restrictions - that just leads to resentment.

Good luck!

I have no experience with gluten-free but my son had a casein allergy when he was young and has since outgrown but we are still kind of careful with dairy. He liked the enriched rice milk but not the soy milk; almond and cashew milks were not an option since he's allergic to tree nuts. Rice dreams sells 3 packs of lunch box sized cartoons. THere is soy yogurt - like the key lime flavored one. Cheese was difficult....he wound up not eating any during this time period....there are "dairy-free"cheese and soy cheeses; however, all the ones I found in the markets in my area at that time (including Whole Foods) listed casein in the ingredients -the precise thing we needed to avoid- even tho casein free cheese supposedly exists, I couldn't find it

I know so many people (and kids) who do not eat gluten or dairy. I would not cheat...really do it and see if it helps your child. It is so easy these days because you can get substitutes for almost EVERYTHING! You can buy SILK diary free yogurt, gluten free pizza crust, bread, crackers. Pudding made from chia seeds (I love the vanilla one I tried). You can buy dairy free "cheese" or you can google up so many delicious recipes that do not have dairy or gluten. Our friends who loves to cook use almond flour, coconut flour, quinoa flour, you name it! There are many types of gluten free pasta. I had our kids try spaghetti squash pasta (you bake it first and scoop out the "spaghetti") with marinara sauce and meatballs and they liked it! Our local grocery store has three aisles with products that you can buy for people who do not eat certain foods...so many choices. Start googling recipes and meal ideas...you will have so many ideas. Just keep trying things over and over and you will find things your kids like.

We have a milk intolerance - so I can share with you what we did there.

We switched to soy (or almond) milk for on cereal. My kid adjusted just fine. Didn't mind it.

We just skip things like pizza and casseroles with cheese. On the nights we have those, he is free to make himself eggs (or have leftovers). That's what I usually do with him. He loves pasta and tomato sauces (with or w/o meat) so I just keep some on hand if we happen to have a meal with dairy.

He never liked cheese (because of his intolerance) so skipping it in sandwiches hasn't been an issue. He instead eats things like tuna.

I remember someone telling me there wasn't much lactose in yogurt .. he has had some yogurts with ok results.

I'm not sure if it's lactose you'd have to avoid, or dairy altogether. I remember looking up a chart that listed lactose per food, and that helped - in our case.

I have a relative who is a registered dietician with the paediatrics team - and this is the kind of thing she helps families with. So where you have two food types to avoid, you might want to book an appointment with one. Usually just a session is all that is required.

Good luck :) Sounds like a pain, but I think once you figure it out, she will adjust ok. I have friends whose kids have all sorts of dietary restrictions (allergies) and the kids do fine without.

My son eats gluten but is 100% dairy free and has been since he was nine months old (he is now 10 years old). He does not eat anything that has dairy as an ingredient at all - so we don't just avoid the obvious things like cheese or a cup of milk, but literally ALL products containing dairy.

It is very hard in the beginning, but does get easier to manage as you start to figure out what does and doesn't have dairy in it. Do not feel like you have to take dairy out of the diets for the whole family though - everyone else in my house still eats it.

These days, restaurants are well-versed in gluten-free diets and often have gluten-free choices clearly spelled out on their menu. Dairy free is trickier to manage and they tend to be less knowledgeable, but you can absolutely do it. We usually have our son choose 2-3 things he would want to eat, so if one doesn't work he has a backup. We start by telling our server that he has a dairy allergy, then ask if whatever dish he wants is dairy free. Sometimes they know, sometimes they have to go back and ask the chefs, but they are always able to give us an answer.

Here are some of the things my son eats (again, keeping in mind that he does eat gluten, so you'll have to account for that):
Breakfast - sausage or bacon and fruit + some kind of grain (toast, bagel, cereal, etc... you could get gluten free breads to make toast)

Lunch - often leftovers from the previous night's dinner; otherwise, chicken nuggets (dinosaur and ABC nuggets sold at Costco are dairy free), hot dogs, cheeseless pizza (gluten free crusts are often available), sandwiches, rolled up lunch meat, sunbutter & jelly, soup (progresso makes several varieties that are dairy free)

Dinner - usually chicken, beef, or pork - often cooked with teriyaki or soy sauce, lemon marinade, bbq sauce, etc + a vegetable + a side like rice, potatoes, or pasta

Also, it really helps to keep stuff in your freezer that she could take to birthday parties, especially gluten/dairy free pizza and cupcakes. My son almost always has to bring his own food to parties so having food on hand helps avoid scrambling around on party days.

Hopefully that helps some!