How to Go Gluten Free?

Before you go gluten free you should do an elimination diet of it to see if it is giving you problems in the first place. i have been reading a lot lately about how many people are needlesly jumping on the gluten free wagon.

I had a terrible time with sick, hyper kids. I had them allergy tested but they didn't test for gluten back in 1997. I had a friend go gluten-free and I tried it with my kids and they totally changed. They weren't sick anymore, the hives went away and they weren't hyper anymore, they did better in school etc. It was amazing! We went cold turkey and they did great. I bought a mill and ground my own rice into flour. I used regular recipes and substituted with gluten free products. I made everything from scratch since there is hidden gluten in everything.

http://diet.lovetoknow.com/wiki/List_of_Gluten_Free_Foods

http://www.celiac.com/articles/184/1/American-Dietetic-As...

http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/planning-me...

http://www.celiac.com/

Per your child, that you suspect of being gluten intolerant... you should see your Pediatrician. Don't guess at it.
Get a professional diagnosis.
THEN, get referred to a proper Nutritionist. So that they can properly make a dietary recommendation, per YOUR child.

Also read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet

Or Google Search "is it safe for a normal person to go Gluten Free", per other family members and especially children. Since they systems are not as developed.

Check out the links on these websites for information and recipes:

www.livingwithout.com
www.befreeforme.com

Most stores like Trader Joes, Whole Foods Market and even your local grocery store will have lists of foods that they carry that are gluten-free. I have also found that when a food item is truly gluten-free, that is a major selling point and the manufacturer will proudly print that in big bold labels on the front of its package.

I would highly recommend that the whole family go gluten-free just for the ease of it. Dinner can be as simple as a piece of protein of your choice (beef, chicken, pork, fish), a starch of your choice (rice, roasted potatoes, quinoa cooked in chicken broth), and a veggie. As for lunches, Boars Head lunch meat is gluten-free and Whole Foods carries Udi's gluten-free bread in it's freezer case. Very yummy. Trader Joe's has frozen gluten-free waffles and a gluten-free pancake mix as well as several gluten-free cereal options.

If you have any particular questions about gluten-free products, feel free to PM me and I'll be glad to share with you what I know.

Good luck with the diet.

I did a gradual. Now that I have been for a while, I know the moment I have wheat I will be sick the next day. Like clock work it happens. We have slowly transitioned the family. My hubby has kids have been slow to like the diet. I actually feel better gluten free. I know its hard for me to really talk because i am battle a food monster right now, this is how it was before hand. You can have blood test done to determine the allergy. you DON NOT want to eliminate it from your diet if you are being tested. If you do, they will not be able to pick it up in any kind of testing. Most stores will tell you on the shelf where they put the prices that it is gluten -free. Gluten free- does not always mean wheat free. So you always want to make sure the ingredients say Rice flour, tapioca, anything that is not wheat or grain related. There is usually a section in most stores not that is dedicated to gluten free/ wheat free products. Or any natural food market will carry it. Fred Meyer has the best BIG CHAIN store natural food section since your sorta a local gal for me.

Like I said my family was not so excited about the change. It was all or nothing the because or grocery bill was getting outrageous shopping for to food types. My kids have seems to calm down a bit. Whether that is due to the switch i will never know. It really is an amazing change if you are looking for feeling healthier and your digestive system will be so much more amazing!! you wont notice until you get there. Its hard to explain. Its good to take probiotics too w/gluten free i have found. it just makes digestion that much more easy, it is great for immune system. Those to things switching, in my life have made me feel so much more energy!!

Its alot of info, but worth it. If you have anymore questions...i am here:)

First if you are truly gluten intolerant then you should never cheat. I was gluten free for close to 20 years but that was because of allergies not because of truly not having the enzyme to digest the gluten. I, unfortunately, could not have abut 90% of the gluten free things either. I am all better now because of things I have done for myself.

If it were me I would go cold turkey. Use up what you have in the house with the non-gluten sensitive people and go gluten-free from then one. There are some super recipes out there that tastes really good and most of the time there isn't much of a taste change. You can have bread, cakes, cookies, etc for everyone also. I would just use the gluten-free for every one in your home because the recipes are pretty good. There are plenty of websites and an association for help if you need it. You might google gluten-free cookbooks and gluten-free associations.

Enjoy the new tastes and the new smells. I miss my gluten-free stuff occasionally so I eat both ways and really enjoy it.

N.

Cold turkey here. My daughter is allergic to wheat and I cooked gluten free when she lived at home. We ate rice pasta, potatoes, rice, corn tortillas for starch instead of regular pasta or bread. I cooked from scratch and didn't bother making separate food for her, we all ate gluten free for our main dishes.

I did buy gluten free cookies and snacks for my daughter and regular for the rest of us. But if I baked, it was gluten free just to make it easier on me. I use rice flour in place of wheat and add xanthan gum to hold it together. Some recipes work better with the rice flour, others fall apart. You just have to experiment.

We did an allergy elimination diet to find out what my daughter was allergic to. I can tell when she's cheating because she gets a rash and is stuffed up like she has a cold. When she is careful, she's healthier all around.

Some food packages will say "gluten free" but many don't. You just have to read the labels. Even if you buy the same safe products regularly, you still should scan the label because manufacturers sometimes change the ingredients.

I went gluten free 2 years ago. I was so sick and desperate to get better that I went cold turkey and threw all my leftover gluten foods in the compost. While I feel so much better now and all my symptoms are gone, I did go through a grieving period (not being able to eat the fresh bread at restuarants when hungry and it smells so good is tough at first.) But if I cheated, I was sick for a few days, so I came to view gluten as poison for my body. That really helps the cravings.

Focus on what you can eat. There are so many other grains that you can eat, and so many of the gluten-free foods now are so tasty, that I would've eaten them before if I had only known how good they were. My husband can eat gluten, but he knows it's forbidden in the house - he has to eat it when he's out. The temptations were too strong at first. But now, he has come to prefer gluten free cooking since it is healthier, fresher, and he says things taste "brighter."

There are many cookbooks and websites out there, but I highly recommend Cybele Pascal's cookbooks as her recipes taste the closest to foods you are used to, only better. Her recipes are all taste tested by her kids. She also posts recipes online regularly at http://wholelivingdaily.wholeliving.com/author/cybele-pascal and http://www.cybelepascal.com.

Baking gluten-free from scratch is tough until you find the right recipes, as you have to use several different flours.The Cravings Place is a brand of baking mixes that are gluten-free and are yummy - just add water and mix. You can find them at Fred Meyer.

You will have to read every label at first since most processed foods and fast foods contain wheat. But once you have your list of go-to items, shopping is a breeze.

Most importantly, know that you are not alone in this. The allergy-free community is huge and is very supportive. Good luck and here's to better health!

you've gotten a lot of good tips. if you want to be tested, you can do a saliva test to see if your body is reacting to gluten. we did ours through diagnostechs but it has to be ordered by a dr. if it comes out positive, then you are celiac but even if it comes out negative, you could still be gluten-sensitive. my daughter's test was negative but based on our family history and her other problems, she is gluten-free also.

on another note, i cut out dairy and wheat for 6 weeks and didn't see any changes. it wasn't until i did an elimination diet and cut out all other offending foods that i am now able to see a difference if i eat something i shouldn't. i did a weird sensitivity test with my naturopath (bioenergetic testing). it seemed really 'out there' but everything was correct (i know because i challenged them).

no cheating allowed! any molecule of gluten can cause damage to your intestines that will last for months and can affect the rest of your body as well. i don't suffer from many GI symptoms but i get neurological ones instead (dizziness, vertigo, headaches).

look for rice flours at asian markets. it's usually cheaper there.

read bob's red mill labels carefully. not all their products are gluten-free.

oats are a big controversy in GF world. many are contaminated from being processed near wheat but also it turns out that there are different strains of oats that people react to. there might be oats out there that you can tolerate but there might not. i just gave up oats. my digestion's not great and oats and corn are hard on the system anyway.

having the whole family be GF is a lot easier for me. i don't have to worry about crumbs getting everywhere.

i like the recipes at celiac.com, foodnetwork, and allrecipes.com because people give reviews and mention their substitutions.

good luck!

Just a quick answer. If you shop at PCC they have it so all their gluten free products have orange tags below them. Its awesome!

Try trader joes. Or whole foods store.