Celiac Disease

Official Website of Celiac-Disease.com

You are here: Home / Archives for Gluten-Free Diet

Gluten-Free Diet

Handle Inconsiderate People When it Comes to the Gluten-Free Diet?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

There is not one right answer for this question, but it’s one that many people wrestle with and need help with. We have all had run ins with inconsiderate co-workers, family members – or both! Therefore, we’ve all heard ridiculous comments like “you can eat one cookie for goodness sake” or “one piece of cake won’t kill you”. More than once I’ve heard the comment “gluten intolerance is something you’ll grow out of eventually, like an allergy”. There is no evidence that this is true, but there is a huge amount of evidence that it is most certainly not true.

We all have different personalities and that’s great most of the time. However, when it comes to explaining your new lifestyle (it’s more than a diet, sorry) to others, you have to be very clear about your needs. If you’re the type of person that lets others sway you at times, you might need to tweak your behavior just a bit.

People that have a hard time standing up for themselves will have a harder time on this diet than those who have more forceful personalities. In Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s book, G Free Diet, the author lists several ridiculous techniques that suggest how one might navigate in social situations. If you want to pretend you dropped a cookie by mistake instead of telling someone you can’t eat it, that’s your business. But if you do things like that you will be doing a disservice to yourself and the rest of us in the process. Hasselbeck’s “plate swap trick”, where she waits until no one is looking and switches plates with her husband at an event – is outrageously juvenile.

Many people are weird about food but most of us don’t realize this until we have a food intolerance. That’s when we find out how much our not eating something bothers some of the people in our lives. You might hurt your mother in laws feelings – or worse your own Grandmother’s – by not eating food that they painstakingly prepared for everyone to enjoy. That is perfectly fine. The first time this happens it will be hard for them and you, but each time it will get easier. Eventually either they will understand, or you’ll understand that they have a learning disability you didn’t know they had. Either way, make a stand about your needs and don’t ever back peddle.

If people think you’re flexible regarding your diet, they will do their best to make sure and bend you as much as possible. Don’t act shocked if a friend says “you’re not really going to do this gluten-free thing during the holidays are you?” Trust me – it happens. As shocking as such a question is, and as ridiculous as someone is trying to make you out to be, remember that they are the ridiculous one and stand your ground.

It’s up to us to decide what behavior we will accept from others. If we let people treat us disrespectfully, they will do so until we advise them it’s not acceptable. This translates to our gluten-free lifestyle as well. If someone around you tries to make you feel bad about being diligent about your diet, which you might remind them is necessary for your health, it might be time to rethink your relationship with them.

Have a question about the gluten-free diet which we haven’t covered yet?  You can now submit your questions here! (Note: All medical questions should be directed to your physician)

Gluten-Free Holiday Survival Tips

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

It’s the time of year when many people new to the gluten-free diet start trying to figure out how in the world they can survive the holidays gluten-free. Most holiday meals include gravy, dressing, pi,es and cookies. It’s a full on gluten extravaganza, no doubt. But you can convert most everything you love to be gluten-free. It takes time to get it right but here are some ideas to get your started.

The following holiday cooking tips allow my family to enjoy wonderful meals without gluten, for the most part. Three of us are gluten-free and almost everyone contributing dishes now knows how to prepare food safely for us. The only gluten present at our holiday meals these days is usually in the form of dinner rolls for the glutenoids.

One thing I didn’t want to do when I went gluten-free, gave up my favorite holiday foods. In fact, before my celiac diagnosis, I rarely cooked except during the holidays. My husband used to be a chef so I only started cooking after my celiac diagnosis. It took me two holiday seasons to get everything right, adapting dishes to be gluten-free, while offering the same great (or better!) taste as the gluten dishes.

First up was pecan pie, a staple dessert for Thanksgiving and Christmas for us. Since I’ve never found a ready-made gluten-free pie crust I like, I had to learn how to make the crust for the first time ever. I’d always used the frozen Pet Ritz crusts in the past. I didn’t realize those were not really that good until I made better-tasting crusts with gluten-free mixes!

All of the below mixes make very good pie crusts –

Gravy (we don’t like gravy but have heard good things about these mixes) –

Cornbread for dressing –

  • Gluten-Free Naturals
  • Pamela’s Cornbread & Muffin Mix
  • Gluten-free Pantry

Cream of Mushroom soups (for casseroles) –

  • Progresso Creamy Mushroom (new label states gluten-free but all cans are gluten-free)
  • Health Valley Cream of Mushroom (read the label)
  • Walnut Acres Portobello Mushroom(read the label)

The above soups are not condensed so you need to thicken them for use in casseroles. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to use a little with corn starch dissolved in it. Add mixture to the heated soup and stir until it’s the consistency you desire. Because this takes about 20 minutes, I do it several days before I need it and store in the fridge until needed.

For a gluten-free version of French Fried Onions (for casseroles), some people use Funyuns. French’s Potato Sticks with added onion powder for flavor will work but adds a potato flavor. We prefer making homemade fried onions. They can be stored in an airtight container for up to a week. We use gluten-free Pantry or Domata flour for fried onions, using this recipe. These taste better than anything you can find in a can – with or without gluten!

For the best spice cake around, use the Namaste mix and add ½ cup of unsweetened applesauce. We add nuts and raisins as well. Frost with cream cheese frosting and have glutenoids begging for more!

Have a question about the gluten-free diet which we haven’t covered yet?  You can now submit your questions here! (Note: All medical questions should be directed to your physician)

How Can I Survive the Holidays and Stay Gluten-Free?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Your first holiday season on the gluten-free diet is likely to be somewhat challenging. In my case, I moved my biopsy from December to January.  I simply didn’t want to have to worry about learning about gluten – and how to avoid it during the holidays of all times. With my only outward symptom being anemia, to this day I’m very glad I moved the test to January!

Finding a gluten-free turkey and ham – or even prime rib – is not difficult. However, putting gluten bread stuffing into a turkey makes it off limits for you to eat – even if you only eat the turkey and skip the stuffing. Making gluten-free dressing with Pamela’s or Gluten-Free Naturals cornbread mix will have glutenoids asking for more! We use the dressing recipe on Pamela’s website, no matter which mix we use for the cornbread.

What you need to know is that making the food gluten-free and delicious is not the hardest part of getting through the holidays gluten-free style. The most difficult part is dealing with family members who will not want you to change any family traditions involving food. Some people can get really weird about these things – really weird. Don’t worry about understanding why they do, just accept that it’s likely to happen in any given family. It only takes one person to declare that they “shouldn’t have to eat differently just because you do” to ruin the whole meal – or maybe the whole day.

By the time I had my first-holiday meal, I had two other gluten-free family members, making us the majority in my immediate family of five. I’m not going to kid you. The easiest way for others to accept your diet is for there to be someone else in your crowd who either has a food intolerance or better yet, another person who can’t eat gluten. If no such person exists, people will come around eventually, so try and be patient.

Let’s assume that you are the only gluten-free person in your family because it might take a few years for the other celiacs (if there are any) in your family to be diagnosed. Think about what you need in order to feel relaxed and safe at the holiday gathering. Remember that is not reasonable to think others are going to be willing to make gluten-free food to accommodate your diet – at least, not in the beginning.

For your first holiday season, you might consider making all your own food and seeing how that goes over with everyone. If the gluten-free diet is new to you and them, it’s so much work to try to help anyone make you safe food, that it might not be worth the effort. Practice makes perfect and it will take time for others to understand that you can’t have the Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup that Aunt Betty puts in everything. This will be particularly hard for dear Aunt Betty to “get”.

We’ll go over pie crusts, gravy soups for casseroles, and various holiday cooking tips later this week.

Gluten-Free Baking using Linseed Oil

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff Leave a Comment

Did you know that Linseed Oil is gluten-free, wheat-free, sugar-free, nut-free, low carb and contains rich Omega 3? A small developer in the UK, Flax Farm, has been successfully pressing and grounding Linseed Oil for a number of years. The final result is a very fine powdery substance, which,  for a daily happy tummy, can be spread on breakfast cereals, spread on mashed bananas, yogurts or fresh fruit and as it is finely ground it’s very nutritious and is therefore a versatile food ingredient.

In the United Kingdom, Flax Farm now produces this linseed flour and from it they make famous Flaxjacks and they now offer many varied recipes using this ground Linseed. It is such a wonderful food for health and it tastes nice! The pressed linseed oil and the freshly ground linseed meal, are delicious foods on their own and add succulence and a delicate flour enhancing richness to many foods.

The Flaz linseed oil, is sweet, mild and buttery tasting and like all unsaturated nut and seed oils it should not be cooked at a very high temperature, as this would destroy the oil’s most important properties, but it can be added to all foods that have some moisture in them. The fresh taste of this oil make it great for vinaigrette’s and gives home made smoothies an irresistibly creamy texture.

It can be added to bread instead of lard or olive oil and gives the bread a subtle buttery flavor, it adds Omega 3, instead of cholesterol.  Use it instead of butter or margarine in scones, cakes, biscuits and muffins.  You can stir it into dishes at the end of their cooking time, to give them a healthy boost. It tastes especially good on carrots, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, or on baked, boiled or mashed potatoes.  It’s really great on Porridge, instead of cream.

Are the Flu Vaccines Gluten-free?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Though we can’t answer medical questions on this website, we want to discuss this particular issue, because the subject has been debated all over the internet of late. Plus, one of several readers who asked us about this actually works in the health care industry and can’t find help on the subject. Many people are reporting that if one has an auto-immune (which celiac disease is), one should wait for the N1H1 shot, as opposed to the nasal spray vaccine.

I determined that the above statement that is being spread everywhere warranted further research so I contacted two medical professionals, with extensive knowledge about celiac disease, for their take on the issue.

Dr. Peter Green, Director of  the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and author of Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic had this to say:

People with celiac disease do not have a compromised immune system.  Their immune system is over active. The only increased risk is for pneumococcal infection due to compromised splenic immune function, hence recommendations for pneumovax vaccinations every 5 years.  Recommendations for flu vaccinations should be along the same guidelines as the general population.

Dr. Stephen Wangen of the Center for Food Allergies and author of Healthier Without Wheat also shared his thoughts on the subject with me –

Most people forget that celiac disease is an autoimmune condition. However, if you are avoiding gluten then in most cases the autoimmune condition has essentially resolved itself. Therefore you are no longer suffering from an autoimmune condition even though we still define these people as having celiac disease. So I would think that this is not a concern for people with celiac disease.

The CDC representative I contacted regarding the gluten-free status of the vaccines referred my query to the FDA. The FDA representative was not able to confirm the vaccines were gluten-free – or that they were not. They instead referred me to two pages on their websites and included instructions on how to find the information I was looking for. To say this is odd is an understatement. Why can’t someone just state whether or not these vaccines are gluten-free?

Information from the FDA’s Office of Public Affairs:

Here is the FDA page that lists all ingredients in all of the H1N1 vaccines, which you can view here.

For the list of ingredients you would need to do a bit more digging, starting here.

  1. Scroll down to Approved Influenza Vaccines.
  2. Select each manufacturer in turn.
  3. Under Product Information, select Package Insert.
  4. Under Package Insert, scroll to the section called Description.

As an example, for the first listed manufacturer, CSL, the ingredients are listed under Description beginning on page 8, at line 221.

Many millions of people are following a gluten-free diet in the U.S. for health reasons, though not all of them have celiac disease. Based on the coverage on the nightly news, the government is clearly determined that we all get these vaccines. Therefore, it is in the best interest of the government to tell us if the vaccines contain gluten or not, instead of making us read labels to try and figure it out for ourselves – period!

UPDATE: According to the Executive Director of the Canadian
Celiac Association, both Health Canada and the manufacturer
have confirmed that the H1N1 Vaccine is gluten-free. Thanks to Shelley Case for posting this information to the celiac listserv. It’s kind of pathetic no one in the U.S. government would confirm this for us.  

Have a question about the gluten-free diet which we haven’t covered yet?  You can now submit your questions here! (Note: All medical questions should be directed to your physician)