Gluten Free

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#1
Enlighten me please?? I am currently trying Gluten free (was told it would take 3months-1year to get it all out of my system and see results) because I have many different symptoms that could be (and probably are) caused by wheat and/or gluten. Difficulty to lose weight despite diet and exercise, sore joints and feet, tired all the time, anemia, anxiety, migraines and constant headaches, constant sinus issues, and I could go on.

I've gone on a lot of low carb diets (which I am currently on and have been for about a couple months now) and I always tend to feel better when I eat low carb. I'm hoping that eating completely wheat and gluten free will help me even more. Even on this low carb diet I have a cheat day on Saturdays where I can eat whatever I want (without going overboard) and I always wake up sick and with headaches the next day. So the plan is to eat gluten free and low carb mon-fri and just eat gluten free on the weekends. (So I can have some limited sugar, potatoes, etc for the weekend).

So what are some tips? Recipes? Snack ideas? Encouragements? Discouragements? I know a lot of good low carb meals that are also gluten free, and would LOVE to know more, but also what are some things I can have on my cheat days that may not be low carb but are gluten free? We bought some gluten free cookie mix last weekend and they were AWESOME! A friend who has celiacs also let me try a gluten free fudge pie that was out of this world! Any other secrets?

And can I use this thread to ask questions along the way? We have close family friends who are gluten free and we get tips from them, but I would like to know more! I even have a few recipes of my own that I could share!
 

Beanie

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#2
Don't eat gluten free replacements you buy in a store. For that matter don't go eating a lot of gluten free replacements you make yourself. It won't do you any favours. Most of those are loaded with so much other crap. I would almost place money on the first ingredient of that gluten free cookie mix you bought being sugar, because if you take the wheat out, they don't taste very good. I make paleo "desserts" maybe once a month. Otherwise I eat food, not snacks and desserts - cookies are not a thing in my diet. I made gluten free pizza last night... for the first time since June. It's just not something I do very often, and also, all that packaged "GLUTEN FREE!!" stuff is rather expensive.

It's actually really easy to eat gluten free if you aren't eating packaged, processed foods - but if you are, it's really hard, because gluten is in SO MUCH STUFF and you have to be really careful. Luckily it sounds like you aren't having celiac issues so you can probably eat stuff that is potentially cross-contaminated and be okay. One thing you do need to be aware of: if you cut out gluten, it's kind of similar to going vegetarian. If you decide to stop being gluten free later, your body will not be very happy about it. It won't be used to digesting it and it will more than likely make you sick to try and add it back in, even if you aren't having stomach issues with gluten right now.

Be aware of how difficult it will be to go out to eat. Gluten is in EVERYTHING, it hides, and sometimes waiters and waitresses will be sucky and unhelpful when you're trying to figure out what you can eat that won't make you sick. I have to research stuff online before I go out to eat anywhere. No lie, if you look at how you might eat gluten free at Bucca di Beppo they tell you to order such-and-such meal with no pasta and MAKE SURE YOU TELL THEM NOT TO DUST IT WITH FLOUR. I picture the entire kitchen at Bucca to be full of cooks throwing flour on everything around like they think it's pixie dust.
The good news is, if you know you're going somewhere, there's a lot of resources online now to help you decide what to eat. Bad news, if you're out and people are like "let's go get such-and-such!" you're going to have to panic a bit trying to figure out what you might be able to eat unless you already vetted it.


I've been gluten free for over a year now and all my stomach issues that I struggled with since I was 13 are gone. I also have far fewer migraines, I haven't been sick since I went gluten free and I used to get a sinus infection that became bronchitis at least once every year, most often twice, I just feel better all the time now. It's amazing and I love it.
But I still miss gluten-y things. I miss bread.
I miss Oreo cookies.
 

JennSLK

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#3
We did gluten and dairy free for a whike with Katie. It's SO hard. When people say it hides, OMG are they right. Even a ham you buy at the grocery store can and probably will have gluten in it. I tried the diet with her because it wasn't fair not to. Yuck! There was so few things I liked. Even gluten free flour to bake. A regular bag of flour here costs $15 ish for the big bag. Rice flour and the other non wheat based are $60-$110 for the same size.
 

JennSLK

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#5
Yeah Beanie that's one thing I didn't know. Gluten is almost always in food colouring.
 

Dizzy

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#6
You have to really really REALLY want to be gluten free, or it is sort of like torture.

You have to change your WHOLE relationship with food.

It's a huuuuuuuge commitment.

I can say this, as I've been gluten free for 8 days now. And I can't lie, my brain is counting down the days till I can eat other stuff again, even though some ibs symptoms have decreased (bloat and gas, niiiiice), but not all I might add. And I don't feel like I could do this forever more. I really really miss some stuff..... I could probably do so many days a week though, but I'd have to have a blow out day!!!

So unless you have will power of concrete, then I'd say try to just reduce your gluten intake as much as you can rather than going cold turkey.

Words of encouragement :D sorry, it's not hard to make gluten free meals if you cook everything and plan everywhere you go, and make sure you're pre prepared with snacks and foods if you know you will be out all day... But for me, who is a busy working person, who is often out the house here there and everywhere, and often in the car driving place to place, I struggle to be that on the ball ALL the time. I get in from work, eat, sit and then it's nearly bedtime, never mind playing with the dogs, doing stuff I enjoy. Add preparing all your weekly meals on top of that, breakfasts, lunches, evening meals... It's full on!

You can't just grab a snack from a local shop as you pass, or forget your lunch and replace it. Well you can, but if you are truly uninspired by what's on offer like I am, you will struggle!

I have no idea if it gets easier.....

Oh and I forgot the pressure of being surrounded by people who don't get it and will offer you things, and eat things in front of you.... Just to make it that bit more fun.
 

Cardi4851

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#7
Have you seen a doctor yet about it? It might be worth trying an allergy test, but if you try that definitely make sure that the allergist is legit. I never imagined I had a gluten problem, until I got a test done and there it was. I will say I felt better within a day or two, and pretty much felt like another person within a week.
Like everyone else says, it is very, very hard. I also don’t personally think it is that healthy of a diet unless you actually need it and are willing to make everything from scratch. I had to teach myself how to cook, so I am definitely willing to share any of my recipes
 

Beanie

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#8
I feel like this post is so negative LOL. It IS hard and I'm not going to lie about missing things like Oreos. And yes, it does happen that people eat stuff in front of you and you think "oh... I wish I could just eat that and not worry about it." But I don't want you to think it's going to forever be a battle and it's not worth it. For me it's 100% worth it, even though it's tough sometimes and I cannot get over wanting to eat Oreos.

I think I've told the story here before but I will tell it again. When I was a kid I started having stomach issues. I would eat, and within 20-30 minutes my stomach would start to hurt, and I would have to run to the bathroom. Sometimes it was upper GI, sometimes lower GI, but I would get sick after eating. I'd be sick... sometimes it would last about an hour... then I would be completely fine. It started randomly and infrequently. The very first time was actually at a friend's birthday party in 6th grade, so I would have been... 10ish? It started getting more common in high school, got worse in college. I would frequently get sick at work; when I worked at Target this was awkward and involved me basically disappearing from the sales floor and mostly going unnoticed, but at the radio station I couldn't just vanish to be physically ill for a while. One of my co-workers at the station had celiac disease, and after coming clean with some of my co-workers about what was going on, they all recommended I go get checked out. I had blood drawn for a celiac test but it came back negative. I had a barium swallow to check for acid reflux. I even had a colonoscopy because they started to wonder if I had Chron's or various other intestinal issues. I was 23 years old.
They couldn't find anything. They offered to do an endoscopy and I declined. I was tired of all the tests and was terrified of having a scope run down my throat. They told me I "just had IBS" which meant they didn't know what was going on, I just got sick and it wasn't all these more serious things. They prescribed me meds. Each med I got, I went home and researched and found hopeful forum and blog posts from people who took the meds for their IBS and it helped. Some of them were anti-spasmodics, some of them were anti-anxiety and meds for depression. I had a doctor in an urgent care visit for a sinus infection (read TOTALLY UNRELATED TO MY STOMACH ISSUES) tell me matter-of-factually "you have an anxiety disorder. IBS is an anxiety disorder." I did know that it often got worse when I was stressed, but not always. The meds possibly helped, but at this point in my life I no longer had foods that I thought would make me sick - everything was now moved into the category of "might make me sick." So how was I to know if it was working or if I was just in a "didn't make me sick THIS time" day? My symptoms never went away. Finally I stopped going back to the doctor to try new meds. I was just resigned that this is how my life was. I would eat and I might get sick. No telling what or when. If I had something I needed to do, I wouldn't eat. Had to go shopping? Better not eat or I might get sick and I wouldn't be able to run my errands. Going out with friends? Probably shouldn't eat anything or it will ruin your night out.
I'm going to repeat again that I ACCEPTED THIS WAS MY LIFE.

Not even one time, even when I had the celiac test, did any doctors ever suggest I just try cutting out gluten and see what happened. The consensus was the celiac test came back negative therefore it wasn't gluten.

Fast-forward to last year and I decided I wanted to make some changes to my diet for reasons totally unrelated to my stomach problems. I first decided to cut out processed foods and eat "clean." This was tough but I was enjoying it. I decided to go one step further and try paleo, no grains, no wheat, no corn, no rice.
It was probably about a month into paleo that I had a sudden realization.
I wasn't sick anymore.
It just happened. I went from being sick ALL THE TIME to not being sick anymore. And it happened when I stopped eating grains. My friend with celiac and I started talking and we started discussing a few other things that happen in my life and signs started pointing to the gluten more and more. I googled something weird that used to happen where I would break out in hives after being out in the cold, or if I was in a pool then came in and took a warm shower, and it's an actual thing and it's related to gluten sensitivity. Stuff just started adding up suddenly.

Since then I have added some rice back to my diet to hit my goals better, and sometimes corn too, and I never have any bad things happen unless I eat gluten. 1 + 1 = 2. It's the gluten.

My friend believes that what happened is my gut was actually being damaged over time by the gluten and that is why I went from eating gluten things makes me sick to everything makes me sick, and once things started to heal up without the gluten, I could eat things that were once triggers again and it wouldn't make me sick, because my gut was healed. Of course without having done an endoscopy we will never know. But I would buy the theory.


So from this perspective... why would I ever go back to eating how I did before?! I'm NOT SICK ANYMORE. I no longer have to plan my life around food. I have to think a bit more about food, yes. But once you figure out how to do it, things do start to get easier. It's been over a year at this point. I know what I can eat at a lot of the fast food places around here. I know what to eat at many restaurants my friends like to go to. And when I see something I would like to eat but can't, I think about how good it would taste - and then I just move on with my life.

I do "cheat" sometimes and eat something gluten-y, but it's very infrequent because it makes my stomach hurt, even if I don't eat very much. I hate to call it cheating because I feel like there's a negative connotation with that, and that it's bad or dirty. The truth is if I cheat, it's because I've assessed what I'm about to eat, decided I have room for it in my calories, and make a decision to eat it... even knowing it's going to make my stomach hurt. So I make sure it's WORTH it when I "cheat." I also think some people who "cheat" are inclined to actually go on a binge. That's not cheating, that's binging, and it's bad juju all around. If you have any regrets about it later, there's something negative going on and should be reassessed.


It's worth doing. It's worth trying. And if your life literally changes because of it, like mine did, it's worth continuing. You just adapt. You have to! It's not much different than other allergies except instead of making you go anaphylactic and potentially killing you, you get sick or you get a migraine or this or that. It must also really suck to be deathly allergic to peanuts, but people do it. I can't imagine going back to how I used to eat knowing it's what was making me sick all. the. time. I will never go back. This is my life from here on out. And it doesn't include bread... or Oreos... which kinda sucks.
But what it DOESN'T include? Being sick all the time.
I'll take that trade off.
 

joce

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#9
Beanie you sound just like m husband. I want him to try gluten free but for a guy so in love with his food not sure it's gonna happen. On top of it dairy also wrecks havoc on him.

Is there a good website or cookbook? It's awful because even at work when they send up gluten free meals I know its not gluten free!

With someone who can't tolerate gluten generally the cilia down your tract are injured. I think once you have been gluten free a while the pop back up so likely why you can tolerate more foods.
 

Romy

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#10
I LOVE being gluten free.

It saved me from having a colostomy! Hooray! I no longer bleed from my guts when I eat food. Hooray! I don't pass out from low blood sugar/malnourishment any more due to my guts being so damaged I can't absorb food. Hooray!

That said, there are a TON of delicious GF things you can make. It sounds like the UK might have sucky replacements. :( But here in the states there are a lot of options. Locally, there are a lot of restaurants offering some or even all GF meals too.

Also, from what I understand Beanie is also on a paleo diet? That will restrict the type of sweets you can have regardless of GF or not. :p There are very very delicious GF desserts out there. If you make your own, they're very affordable too. GF baked desserts do tend to be pretty heavy on butter and sugar, but honestly it all depends on what you're getting. Non GF stuff is heavy on sugar too.

I cook for a bunch of not-celiacs who are really picky about food and can't stand the stock cardboard taste of prepackaged GF food. According to them (and me) the following are delicious and they either can't tell it's GF or it's so delicious they actually prefer it to gluten food.

Any of this brand of pasta. SO DELICIOUS. It doesn't get gummy. The texture and flavor are wonderful. The leftovers are actually GOOD! They don't gum together and get chewy and gross like the rice based pastas do. If you cook up some ground beef, add in some Classico pasta sauce, it makes an excellent and very affordable spaghetti.


Any of the Udi's brand baked goods. They are soft and fluffy and wonderful. It's the only sandwich bread worth eating. The millet-chia one is really healthy too. It makes excellent grilled cheese sandwiches, for those cold evenings when you want a grilled cheese sandwich to dip in a bowl of hot tomato bisque.


Thai Kitchen stuff. Most of their sauces and noodles are gluten free, and make an excellent base for doing big delicious meals. I like to take their version of ramen (usually less than $1 a thingy) and poach a couple of eggs in it for protein if I'm in a hurry. The garlic flavored one is the best (not just me saying that, all the stores that carry them are usually out of garlic). You can add all kinds of veggies and meats to it though.


If you like baking, there are tons of GF recipes out there. You'll have some epic fails, but epic wins as well. If you like to experiment it's a lot of fun. If you just want to make familiar things but have them be GF, this flour is the absolute best straight substitute for regular flour that I've found so far. I've used it for cakes, cookies, carrot cakes, etc. and my family couldn't tell the difference. Sometimes they'd see me eat something made with it and start panicking. "WAIT! THAT'S NOT GLUTEN FREE!!!" :rofl1: And I've tested an awful lot of products over the past 10 or so years.


There are a lot of box mixes. In general, the Bob's Red Mill ones are decent, but sort of meh. Gluten Free Pantry are all fantastic. They have a heavenly sandwich bread mix. Kinnikinnick are all very good too, as is Namaste mixes.

Mrs. Leepers makes GF hamburger helper things. They're really really good and retain a nice texture too. They're more expensive ($5-ish) but they actually make a ton of food. I can usually feed 4 adults with one. The only weird/off tasting ones are the Macaroni and Cheeseburger Mac.


There are entire styles of cooking that lend themselves well to GF.

Pretty much anything Mexican can do done GF VERY easily. I eat a lot of Mexican food.

A lot of the Asian food is fine too as long as you make sure to use sauces with no wheat in it. It's a main ingredient in many soy sauce brands. When you eat out, if you go to an actual sushi place (not the grocery store deli) it's not too difficult to find sushi places where everything is GF. Same thing with Mexican food places. There are a couple of taco trucks nearby with mouthwatering food for really cheap that is GF.

If you have any specific questions or want recipes or anything, let me know and I'd be happy to help. I've been at this for a loooonng time. It's paid off. I'm super healthy now. My 30 year old self could easily kick my 20 year old self's butt.
 

Romy

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#11
Beanie you sound just like m husband. I want him to try gluten free but for a guy so in love with his food not sure it's gonna happen. On top of it dairy also wrecks havoc on him.

Is there a good website or cookbook? It's awful because even at work when they send up gluten free meals I know its not gluten free!

With someone who can't tolerate gluten generally the cilia down your tract are injured. I think once you have been gluten free a while the pop back up so likely why you can tolerate more foods.
An interesting thing about the dairy.

The tips of the cilia are where the enzymes for digesting lactose are produced. So, many celiacs also have symptoms of lactose intolerance. Every time the cilia are damaged there's a chance they'll grow back without the little dairy digesting enzyme producing things.

It may be in his case that his cilia are damaged, so he's not making it. If he goes off gluten they make grow back and start working again, or they may grow back without it.
 

joce

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#12
^ that helps a ton! Trying to get husband to try three months and see how he feels. I guess that means I gotta do it to!
 

Romy

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#13
OH! They DO make oreos, and they actually taste like real oreos, and absorb milk just like real oreos. I get them as a once in a while treat.



Trader Joes makes a version of it, but they're not very good. They don't absorb milk and they're kind of gritty.
 
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SizzleDog

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#14
I don't really have much to add, except...

1. it's easier to go gluten free when if you stay positive about it and don't dwell on the stuff you can't eat. Focus on all the delicious stuff you CAN eat!

2. With the exception of a few items, don't buy the gluten free substitutes. They're overpriced and just reinforce your body's desire for foods that normally contain gluten. That said, here are my exceptions:

- Udi's bread
- Kinnikinnick pancake mix
- Tinkyada pasta
 

Romy

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#15
I don't really have much to add, except...

1. it's easier to go gluten free when if you stay positive about it and don't dwell on the stuff you can't eat. Focus on all the delicious stuff you CAN eat!

2. With the exception of a few items, don't buy the gluten free substitutes. They're overpriced and just reinforce your body's desire for foods that normally contain gluten. That said, here are my exceptions:

- Udi's bread
- Kinnikinnick pancake mix
- Tinkyada pasta
:hail:

It was easy to switch for me, because even back then when all the substitutes were crap, I couldn't eat anything when I was sick. It was like, all of a sudden I felt amazing and had to learn to cook. lol

Most things I do homemade now, because that's how I started. The newer products are wonderful though. I think having them available will make it easier for people to transition, because sometimes you do just need a convenient and fast meal as you run out the door and sometimes you do crave childhood favorites for nostalgia sake (like Oreos).
 

Beanie

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#16
Also, from what I understand Beanie is also on a paleo diet? That will restrict the type of sweets you can have regardless of GF or not. :p
Yes, but I'm not talking from the perspective of paleo, or specifically sweets either - if anything it's more from a perspective of "clean eating." My friend with celiac also does not like to eat most of the packaged gluten free foods because they may not have gluten but are packed full of various other kinds of processed crap.

SizzleDog said:
2. With the exception of a few items, don't buy the gluten free substitutes. They're overpriced and just reinforce your body's desire for foods that normally contain gluten.
Also I agree 100% with this.
 

AllieMackie

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#18
Great points from everyone! I did GF for about eight months as part of treating a health issue. It was tricky at first, but I ate well.

For me the key was twofold: positive thinking (HUGE), and cooking everything from scratch. Restaurants rarely happened and I didn't buy anything processed from the store, not even the GF stuff for the reasons already mentioned. I bought fresh raw ingredients and made my food from scratch.

Incredibly beneficial - even though I'm no longer GF, I've cut a lot of gluten out of my diet, have the habit of cooking from scratch and I eat MUCH better. There's so many healthy gluten-free recipes on the internet!

And if you need an unhealthy snack fix, there's always Sizzle's goshdarn puppy chow recipe. *shakefist*
 

Beanie

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#19
Oh, and Bob's Red Mill GF Pizza Dough Mix. That stuff is the sheeeeeet. YUM YUM!
That is the one I used the other night - I also like the Namaste Pizza Dough Mix. It has seasonings mixed in. The Bob's Red Mill stuff I use my own seasoning mix with. The Bob's is cheaper though I think, especially if you use the one bag to make two pizzas!
Namaste makes a thinner crust, not quite a cracker like crust but I'm getting close. I don't make it often enough to have hit on the right result yet. =P
 

Romy

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#20
Domino's makes GF pizza now, and hoooolleee crap it's the first real pizza crust I've ever had aside from home made ones (that I have lost the recipes to). It's just, everything a pizza crust ought to be.

It should be noted, that if you're actually celiac you shouldn't trust them not to cross contaminate. Lucky for me, my sister is the general manager of the local Dominos and is aware of cross contamination issues. If someone calls one in, she personally makes it with fresh, non contaminated gloves and stuff. She said that people in other areas should talk to the manager about it to find out how they handle cross contamination before ordering if they're sensitive.

I should also note that it's just as unhealthy as regular take out pizza. Just a delicious once in a while treat. :D I maybe order one once or twice a year.
 

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