I dont think i will have to be super strict, but not sure yet. Will have to see how my body does, but no diagnosis of celiac. I have Hashimotos thyroiditis and I guess gluten does not help with that and can aggravate it. Also I think it is related to digestive stuff I have going on for several years. Boo.Originally Posted by Bastelmutti
What you can eat, when eating GF, is a far longer list than what you can't eat: wheat, barley, rye. There are various levels of GF, and you'll need to determine what applies to you. For instance, do all your ingredients need to be certified GF, as is important for those with celiac disease, or do you just need to eliminate the obvious sources, to reduce symptoms caused by an intolerance?
I'm sure it will be easier in practice than in thought - it can be overwhelming to think about giving up large groups of foods... especially when Cafe Latte has so many delicious gluten-containing things...Focus on the positive... eliminating gluten usually takes a lot of the added sugars out, too, unless you go for the substitute flours.
A few thoughts...
If you like Asian foods, they are usually GF. Serve over rice or not. I skip the rice but make it for my family. I load up on the veggies instead.
Look for San-J low-sodium tamari. Tamari is similar to soy sauce but is only made from soy beans and salt, whereas most soy sauce has wheat in it. This means that eating at Asian restaurants can be problematic, but it's not difficult to make those foods at home.
Amazon has a good price for Bob's Red Mill Certified Gluten-Free Oats. Oats do not themselves contain gluten, but are often contaminated in processing.
We tried the GF bread at TJ's. I prefer to go without, but DD liked it. GF tortillas are also available - the best ones we found are available at the Mississippi Market. They are pricey for tortillas but we only used occasionally. You can also make wrapped things with rice paper wrappers, available at just about any Asian market and possibly at Cub. Or use leaves - Romaine, collards, etc.
I have some recipes for whole foods - based, GF treats if you're interested. Mostly I snack on nuts and fruit / dried fruit, but sometimes make some sort of cookie. DD particularly likes the date-sweetened coconut macaroons. I like to keep a small container of almonds in my purse or backpack for times when I really need a snack and am away from the house, because it can be difficult to find something reasonably healthy, quickly.
Gluten-free foods that I love:
Fruits! Apples, pineapple, grapes, pears, mango, pomegranate... etc!
Nuts and seeds - hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, pepitas, etc
Salads with all my favorite things - leafy greens, fresh veggies and fruits, nuts
Legumes - black bean enchiladas, gingered black-eyed pea soup, etc
Roasted root vegetables - separately or together.. sweet potatoes, potatoes, beets, parsnips, carrots
Roasted sweet potatoes - just roasted whole - sweet enough for dessert - adorn with cinnamon and walnuts or pecans if desired
Dark chocolate
Roasted chicken, and the resulting soup - especially as tortilla soup or Vietnamese-style soup - I use bean thread noodles, which are made from mung beans, for this
Doesn't all that make a bag of flour look rather undesirable and bland? When you leave out the flour, everything has a lot more flavor. Instead of serving things on bread or other gluten-containing formats, try this:
Serve sauces over sauteed zucchini or steamed veggies. Great pasta sub, in my opinion.
Use portobello mushrooms as a pizza base, or eggplant slices (roast them first)
Use corn tortillas when you make Mexican foods, or the above mentioned brown rice tortillas, or just use leaves as wraps
The library has a ton of GF cookbooks, but be forewarned that the baking section is going to use a lot of high-glycemic substitutes. Better to avoid, and eat real foods instead.
When you want something sweet and fruit won't cut it, try:
- fruit crisp
- pies with a nut-based crust
- pudding
- a smoothie
- a yogurt parfait (plain, unsweetened yogurt, fresh fruit, granola)
- my coconut macaroon recipe
- fruit dipped in dark chocolate: try frozen banana, or various dried fruits
- dried fruits such as figs or dates stuffed with nuts or nut butter, coconut, etc
For more ideas, look at the allergy elim diet menu on my blog.
Rosemary strikes again! Thank you!! I just sent you a PM that will make a lot more sense for you to know that I hadn't yet peeked at this thread when I sent it.
So, the biopsy showed no celiac? Well, that doesn't necessarily mean you aren't gluten intolerant. Hashimotos often goes hand and hand with celiac/gluten intolerance. My daughter had it, well, until they had to kill her thyroid (took care of that!) She is celiac and as Jemima said, lactose intolerance was a problem until she started healing. Now she can tolerate it a little, and she gets healthier everyday. Before, she had always been turned away for blood donation (it became almost an obsession with her) but about 3 months out from total elimination, all of a sudden her iron count is way up, practically to normal. All I'm saying is, whatever the doc says, you know your body better than anyone, and it won't harm you to totally eliminate gluten. And it really isn't that difficult once you get into it.
One thing you can do is, look at the trees instead of the forest. Take each of your favorite recipes and analyze how you can make it gluten free. Or post each one here and let us have at it! Those of us who cook gluten free as a way of life have certainly been there done that. Let us help. But you need to do it for awhile, several weeks at least, and deliberate, as in not having 'just a little gluten' , to see if this will make you feel better. You might be surprised.
Now, about your family. Don't worry about them. They won't even know. Unless y'all eat pasta and great chunks of bread every night, they won't know.(although they have wonderful gf pastas now!) Cooking without gluten is just regular food. Sure you need to make tweaks here and there, that's where we can help you. But you can cook wonderful foods, just like you do now, except the foods won't make you sick. Beans and cornbread? I got a great cornbread recipe I'll post. Chicken casserole? Use cooked rice in place of the noodles, and a simple white sauce, (I'll tell you how) to bind. You can do this!
So, post a recipe here and let's go.
Best gluten free cornbread ever.
I like to make this in a small 8" cast iron skillet, but you could use a 8x8 or 9x9 pan as well. If you are using the skillet, put about 1/2 tablespoon Crisco in and put in the oven to preheat. Preheat oven to 450. if using the square pan just grease it and set aside.
1 1/2 cups cornmeal
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon white rice flour (any grocery store health section has this)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons oil (I like olive)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (if you can't tolerate dairy, you can use 1 1/3 cups substitute + 1 tablespoon vinegar)
mix dry, add wet and bake about 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes clean. If you used the skillet, take the preheated skillet from oven and swirl the melted grease around before you pour the batter in.
This recipe has no sugar since I absolutely detest sweet cornbread, but I know some like it so you could add a bit if you wanted. This is wonderful, light and delicious. Oh and it makes really great ham sandwiches too, with mustard! And your family won't suspect a thing!
Oh, wow, fidgiegirl - one of the people I know with celiac also has Hashimoto's. I understand that if you have one autoimmune condition, you usually have more than one. Best of luck to you in starting the new diet!
I have a close friend who has Coeliac disease - when we have been out and about, and there is nothing but bread available (eg places where 'lunch' can be only sandwiches or a dodgy soup - one that cannot be guaranteed NOT to contain gluten!) she can often be seen tucking into a great big cream filled meringue....!
Nowadays she carries a supply of oatcakes (either home-made, or the premade ones from Nairn's, a local food company) - at least they'll fill a hole until we can get GF food for her.
DH and I have been GF for about four years now. All these suggestions are GREAT. Macaroons are great sweet treats, too, as is marzipan. Baking can be a hassle if you want it to be, or you can do what we do, which is to use mixes by Bob's Red Mill for bread and pizza dough, and Betty Crocker (!) for chocolate chip cookies, brownies and layer cake.
Lots of the pre-packaged GF stuff doesn't taste that great AND is expensive, so we've found it easier to get by without it (exceptions listed above). There are very good websites around that list sources of GF products, and most fast-food corporate websites have ingredients lists that you can research to find out what you can safely eat when you're out and about. Good luck!
Thank you, everyone. I went to Mississippi Market tonight (a co-op store in town here) and bought the following. I took a long time to just peruse all the options and think of ideas.
My first GF shopping trip by fidgiegirl, on Flickr
I tried to stick with products I already know, but are gluten free. Like, I've made split pea soup before, so I bought split peas. I also downloaded a .99 app on my phone to help me know which products are gluten free and which aren't. I think I pretty much have a handle on that, but I was doubting myself . . . so that was very helpful.
Notice I don't have a lot of veggies, because that's what I don't tolerate.Like I said, in a few months of being GF, maybe I can try again with the veggies.
I wasn't going to go for the substitute type foods, but I picked up the pasta to try it. Sometimes DH and I aren't that inventive.
I am also going to take Rosemary's list idea and expand it for us. We can have it on the fridge for dinner when we are stumped and do not know what to do that isn't spaghetti. I didn't buy a lot of dinner stuff, mainly lunch and snacks. Dinner is kind of easy - meat, vegetable. Maybe rice. Breakfast is ok, though cereal is my fall-back, so I won't have that. I can do my yogurt + oats + banana, a smoothie, or scrambled eggs/omelette.
I am feeling a lot more hopeful! It's all I can do to not go gobble up all those olives
I am also thinking I might need (cheezy alert) some kind of ceremony to mark the beginning of this. I keep thinking "I'll start today" and then cheating. Today it was cinnamon crumb cake at Caribou! It's like I need to mark myself a firm line of beginning, where no more cheating can take place. Not sure what to do to delineate in my own mind that this is how I need to eat now, at least to give it a lengthy trial, like peggy said.
Which reminds me! I had celiac blood testing in 2008 and it came back negative. They also did colonoscopy and endoscopy and took biopsies, and at that time I was not diagnosed. I do not know if this current doc is going to try to do the official diagnosis, she basically says almost everyone can benefit from cutting out wheat so I might as well just do it.
Ishbel - I am worried about the "out and about" aspect of life. Also worried about family meals. My mother in law makes wonderful cookies at Christmas, for example. So there I go again, getting all teary-eyed about what I can't have anymore. I need to just stay excited about the olives is all
There's another layer of emotions, too, like I don't deserve to feel this way. My friend's nephew had meningitis, my co-worker's husband died of cancer last week, and I'm all weepy over not being able to have cookies anymore? And that's not even the case! I've had delicious gluten free cookies in the past! Maybe that's what I need to do - find some delicious gluten free cookies and eat them and get over it!
Thank you all, your support is indispensable.
Great start, Fidgiegirl!
Looks like you found some red garnet yams, YUM!
When we began the allergy elim diet, I set a specific starting date, and used up all the non-allowed perishables ahead of that time. So the week before it was quite indulgent, and we were all ready for some simpler food - plus there wasn't any of it in the house, which was really helpful! That week allowed me to plan the menu for a couple of weeks and stock plenty of allowed foods, both for meals and for snacks.
I did buy some of the subs for standard wheat-containing foods, such as rice crackers - but we ended up not eating much of that type of food once we got going.
There are a lot of GF blogs that have good ideas, and many allergy food blogs as well, which use more limited foods but generally also don't use sugar, if you want to cut that (highly inflammatory). I don't really follow any of these anymore because the only GF foods that aren't really obvious (once you get used to it) are baked goods, and I prefer not to sub unhealthy foods for unhealthy foods. I have a few recipes that I make on rare occasions.
Are there particular vegetables that bother you more than others?
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