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Gluten-Free Diet

Should I Avoid Skin Care Products and Cosmetics that Contain Gluten?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

This is a tricky question – at least the part about skin care products is. The scientific answer about gluten in skin care products is that they can’t enter the digestive track from your skin so you don’t need to avoid products that contain gluten unless you’re going to ingest them. However, some people feel that skin care items that contain gluten affect their health negatively so they avoid using them for skin and hair care.

When it comes to shampoo, it stands to reason that someone (especially kids) might get some of it in their mouth when washing their hair, so some people avoid shampoos that contain gluten. Others simply avoid anything and everything that contains gluten. It can be difficult to do this because it’s hard to find companies that will state their products are gluten-free. Like with food items, this issue is improving, and some companies are better than others when it comes to confirming the gluten-free status of an item.

Though it’s more of a personal choice whether or not to avoid products for the skin and hair that contain gluten, there is no question that we need to avoid gluten in anything we know we’ll ingest. For women, that means lip liner, lip gloss and lipsticks need to be gluten-free. Everyone who is avoiding gluten for medical reasons needs to use gluten-free toothpaste, mouthwash, lip balm and dental floss. I’ve not heard of floss that contains gluten but when it comes to this pesky protein – anything is possible.

The companies that make personal hygiene products have stepped up their game over the last few years. Sometimes you can confirm the gluten-free status of these personal products faster than you can many food products. I find this rather perplexing actually, but in a good way. Most major mainstream brands of mouthwashes are gluten-free and many types of toothpaste are as well. These items usually have a toll free number right on the product so you can call the manufacturer from the store and inquire about ingredients before purchasing the item. I choose not to worry about gluten in my skin/hair care products (that I’m not ingesting), after speaking to several educated doctors about the issue – and listening to my own body. Everyone should do what is best for them, of course.

Finding gluten-free cosmetics can be rather difficult, depending on the manufacturer you’re dealing with. The toll free number for most companies is listed on their website. Arbonne and Nu Skin have many gluten-free cosmetics and Afterglow Cosmetics is a completely gluten-free product line. Wet-N-Wild is the lowest priced cosmetic line that makes gluten-free lipsticks that I’m aware of. At least the last time I contacted them, a company representative confirmed their lip liners and lipsticks were gluten-free. That does not mean that they are gluten-free today. Most cosmetic companies now keep a list of which of their products are gluten-free, but as with food items, the ingredients in products can and do change from time to time.

Most supplements that are gluten-free will marked as such on the label, though this will usually be included with a long list of things the product is “free from”. Medications can be checked here and at GlutenFreeDrugs.com. Recently, Cynthia Rudert M.D. of Atlanta suggested to our support group members that GlutenFreeDrugs.com was a great way to check the status of a medication in question. Each of these sites covers both over the counter and prescription medications.

Lately some of the larger drug store pharmacies have started keeping a gluten-free log of medications but I find it much easier and less exasperating to check online than to deal with an overly stressed pharmacist regarding gluten in medications.

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)

Is Corn Gluten-Free?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Actually, there is a gluten protein in corn but it is not one we need to avoid. Even so, this is the reason that some restaurants will tell you that something on their menu made with corn is unsafe for us to consume. There is a high-end place in Atlanta that told me their cheese grits contained gluten. Over a year later I found out they were always gluten-free. Nothing changed about the dish, but a better-informed chef started working there. Higher-end places tend to use pure stone ground grits that are gluten-free, and not contaminated by wheat in the facility where they are produced.

Quaker brand grits were at one time, run on the same product lines as wheat products. The company representative I spoke to told me that they didn’t consider their grits safe for people with celiac disease or wheat allergy to consume. This was in 2006 and because the person I spoke to was quite rude, I never called to check on the status of their grits again. The last time I checked the Quaker grits label, it didn’t say anything about wheat, nor would the ingredients indicate that the product contains gluten. If you search ‘gluten-free’ on the Quaker website, you will not find a match for any information. That fact alone confirms that this is not a company I  care to support. The Jim Dandy grits label states “may contain milk and wheat”, due to the processing methods they use. Laura Lynn grits from Ingles are gluten-free, according to their gluten-free list, so that’s what we use at our house.

Both Quaker and Jim Dandy grits might be perfectly safe for people who can’t eat gluten to consume. It’s not uncommon for companies to make statements and add allergen warnings to their labels, due to them having large legal departments. Seriously, when you pick up a bag of peanuts and the label states “may contain peanuts”, you can understand the problem and it’s happening more and more these days.

It is common for people to tell us we can’t eat corn due to the gluten protein in it, but unless someone has an intolerance to corn, it is considered safe to consume. Part of the reason for this confusion is that there are actually three proteins that are unsafe for people with celiac to eat, but they all have different names. In order to simplify things for lay people like me, doctors decided to call the three different proteins (those in wheat, rye, and barley) all by one name – gluten. They must not have considered when deciding to do this, that corn gluten was going to get confused with the type we can’t tolerate.

Adding to the confusion, several years ago, a Butterball representative told me (and countless others) that due to the corn gluten in their frozen turkeys, I should only buy their fresh turkeys. At that time, Butterball turkeys (fresh and frozen) were gluten-free as long as you discarded the gravy packet that comes with them.

Ingredients often change so you need to check the labels of products, including your holiday turkeys, before purchasing them. Most turkey labels will have one ingredient list for the turkey and another for the gravy packet if included. We have enough to avoid without having people tell us we can’t eat corn due to the gluten in it.

How Do I Start a Gluten-Free Support Group?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Most people who join a celiac or gluten-free support group acclimate to their new gluten-free lifestyle much better (and faster) than those who do not. If you live in an area where no such support group exists, you might consider starting your own. If you find two more people interested in being in a group, you have enough people to get started. Rome wasn’t built in a day and the NYC Celiacs and Gluten-Free Living group didn’t start out with over 900 members (and counting!). To find out if you have a support group in your area already, check out this directory.

One of the main reasons that people don’t join their local support group is that they don’t want to be gluten-free to change their lives. They act like it’s not a big deal and in turn, make things harder on themselves than they have to be. Having to change your diet – and relearn how to eat as if you were a five-year-old – is a very big deal. It’s a monumental deal for most of us. If is was not difficult, 60% of patients told to follow a gluten-free diet would do it instead of eating whatever they want to while living on Pepto Bismol or other medications.

If you are someone who can’t find a local group to join, you might consider starting your own. Ask your doctor (if you have one) if they have another patient with celiac they can put you in touch with. Legally they can’t give you a patient’s information, but you can ask that yours be given to another patient. To be safe, just give out your e-mail address. Another way to connect with others is to ask the owner of your local health food store to put up a signup sheet for people in your area interested in joining such a support group. GIG is a great national organization that can help guide you in starting a support group.

Have an idea of how your group will work going in, but be open to your member’s suggestions as well. Will you meet once a month or every other month? Where will you meet? Ask the health food store owner or manager if they will allow your group to meet there during non-peak times or after hours. Most Whole Foods locations offer a free meeting space in their stores, as long as it’s a non-profit group. If you have just started a group or have been running one for a while, check out Tiffany Jakubowski’s article about how to have successful meetings.

If you are interested in creating a gluten-free dinner club, contact the leader of the local celiac support group to announce your new dinner club to their members. Please note that it’s not a great idea to eat out when first embarking on a gluten-free diet. It’s hard to learn how to eat at home and that really must be accomplished before someone starts venturing out to eat. You might get a lot of takers from a celiac support group and you may not. To get a restaurant to take you seriously, I think you need at least six members to start, but more would be better.

When working with restaurants, it’s usually safer to start out with places that already have gluten-free menus. Don’t assume they know what they’re doing in terms of gluten-free service just because of the existence of their gluten-free menu. Some places will have a firm grip on everything that entails and others won’t have anyone working there who even knows what gluten is. That’s right – a place can have a gluten-free menu and not know squat about what gluten-free actually means. That fact was one of the most shocking things I learned when I ventured out to eat again after my diagnosis.

You need to go over all things related to gluten-free food service with any restaurant you are considering hosting your group. Covering the ingredients is just part of the battle. It doesn’t matter that they start out with gluten-free ingredients if they prepare and/or serve your meals improperly. Do they know not to cook gluten-free pasta (or even vegetables) in wheat pasta water? Do they know that they can’t cut bread for other patrons and then use the same knife to cut tomatoes for their salads? Do they understand that picking croutons off a salad doesn’t make it safe for your members to eat? There is a ton of information to cover but if you’re willing to do the work, you will be rewarded in ways you can’t imagine in the beginning.

There are two national organizations that offer gluten-free training programs that you might refer your local restaurants to. GFRAP (gluten-free restaurant awareness program) is offered but the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America (GIG). The GREAT (gluten-free resource and awareness training) program is offered by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Both are excellent programs and once a location in your area completes one of them, competition may heat up for the gluten-free dining business in your area. In these tough economic times, restaurants need every person they can get in the seats – whether they can eat gluten or not.

If you start any celiac or gluten intolerance support or dinner club group, but can’t afford a website to manage it, you can start a Google Group for free. This is a great way for you to connect with your members privately.  Once your support group has a website, make sure it is included in our Celiac Support Group directory.

UPDATE: Thanks to the Ingles dietitian (Leah) for reminding me that Facebook is an excellent way to start your own support group.

Where Can I Purchase Gluten-Free Foods Online?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Many areas in the U.S. don’t have large gluten-free populations and therefore, they don’t have much to offer in terms of gluten-free replacement foods at health food or grocery stores. Things like bagels, pretzels and even pasta are hard – and even impossible – to find at stores in some areas. Celiac disease and gluten intolerance do not discriminate – both conditions affect people in cities or rural areas – basically anywhere there are gluten eaters.

There are good and bad things about shopping online. The most negative thing for me is paying to ship food. Amazon.com is excellent as long as you know what you like. They sell most of their gluten-free items by the case and most people are not interested in purchasing a case of something they haven’t even tasted yet. One of the nice things about online shopping is that it takes a whole lot less time than driving across town or to another one altogether just to buy food.

I’ll drive about 20 miles to shop and after that it becomes a question what is most convenient – spending time and burning gas, plus putting wear and tear on a car or paying a few bucks for shipping. Since I know what products I like, ordering from Amazon.com is extremely convenient for me. I don’t ever order under $25 so I avoid paying any shipping charges. Considering Atlanta traffic ranks up there with New York and L.A., a twenty minute ride and turn into a nightmare on a dime in bad weather or heavy traffic. I know people that will drive an hour out of their way so they never have to drive near Atlanta – our reputation for having horrid traffic is well deserved.

Many people are not aware that you don’t have to buy $25 worth of food to get free shipping on Amazon.com. You can buy a CD and some food – or a book and some food. Well, you get the picture. You do have to order things that ship from Amazon.com and not from a third party seller in order to quality for FREE shipping for $25 (or more) orders.

Thank goodness for the internet! I’m not sure what people did before online shopping was available but my guess is that many of them went without gluten-free replacement foods. Of course, I’ve heard that some of the best products on the market have only been around for 10 years or less anyway, so they might not have been missing too much. In Europe some companies have been producing gluten-free “replacement” foods for over 50 years but that is not the case in this country.

In large metro areas like NYC, Denver, San Francisco, Seattle, DC, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Boston and Atlanta, gluten-free food choices in stores abound. In fact, most people find it overwhelming when faced with six gluten-free pastas to choose from. It’s kind of odd that we have almost as many choices as gluten eaters do, in many food categories. In some cases we seem to have even more.

For those that live in an area where gluten-free offerings are limited, or even non-existent, check out these online companies that offer pretty much anything you can think of, in terms of gluten-free replacement foods.

  • Amazon.com – FREE shipping on orders of $25 or more
  • Allergy Free Foods – frozen shipping method required

Maybe you just want to order some doughnuts or bagels. Below are some excellent 100% gluten-free bakeries that will ship many of their products nationwide.

  • Everybody Eats
  • The Grainless Baker
  • Island GF Bakery
  • Joans GF Greatbakes
  • Sunny Valley Wheat Free *completely gluten-free, regardless of the name.

Consider ordering with a gluten-free friend in order to save money on shipping. Please know that sometimes all it takes to get your local stores to bring in gluten-free products is asking them to do so. Be prepared with the company website/phone number of the products you’re requesting that they order for you.

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)

Are Oats Gluten-Free?

Last Updated on by the Celiac-Disease.com Staff

Are oats gluten-free? In a word – yes! However, most doctors suggest that people with celiac disease wait until they heal before introducing certified gluten-free oats. Even the companies that make oats suggest waiting a while before introducing them. One of the reasons is that oats are extremely high in fiber, so when they are introduced to someone on a gluten-free diet, they might induce symptoms similar to gluten containing foods.

Even though certified gluten-free oats are completely free of gluten, between 3%-5% of people with celiac disease simply can’t tolerate them. The exact reason for this seems unclear but one thing is for sure. Certified gluten-free oats have been proven to be gluten-free, period. Each company that sells them in the U.S. tests their products to ensure their safety. Please note that Quaker oats and other mainstream brand oats are not considered safe for people who can’t eat gluten. This is due to the growing, transport and storage methods used for traditional oats.

If someone has problems with certified gluten-free oats, they might want to avoid consuming them. For the rest of us, oats can be an incredibly valuable part of the gluten-free diet. In addition to oatmeal, we can make fabulous oatmeal raisin cookies and other treats. For cookies, I use the gluten-free Naturals Cookie Blend flour and safe oats to make my disappearing oatmeal raisin cookies. For this recipe, just sub out the flour and oats to create cookies that are so fabulous you’ll want to hide them from gluten eaters!

Oats are super healthy so people in general are encouraged to eat them. Because of the lack of fiber and nutrients in many of our gluten-free replacement foods, gluten-free oats can be even more beneficial for us than they are for the average gluten eater. Oats have the same effect on our cholesterol levels as on the non celiac population – a positive one. People should consult their doctor regarding when to introduce oats in their gluten-free diet. Some doctors suggest waiting six months and others suggest waiting a year or two, depending on how sick the person was upon their celiac diagnosis.

Now that cooler weather is here, I love having oatmeal for breakfast. I usually make plain oatmeal from Gluten-Free Oats or Cream Hill Estates. If you don’t have time for that, Glutenfreeda also makes terrific microwavable gluten-free oatmeal pouches. There are four flavors to choose from and a variety pack. These pouces are handy when traveling since most hotel breakfast areas have microwaves. If you’re visiting out of town friends and family, you can quickly whip up a safe breakfast for yourself when others are noshing on gluten bagels or toast.

Personally, I am so appreciative of the companies that put forth the effort  to produce safe oats for those of us that can’t eat mainstream oats. You can order safe oats online and find them at most health food stores. Here are the companies that sell them in the U.S.

Beth Armour, Co-President of Cream Hill Estates (located in Quebec) explains how that company came into being –

“Cream Hill Estates was founded in October 2004 when my business partner, Tracy Perry, a retired medical genetics researcher, was asked by the president of the Quebec Chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association to solve the problem of commercializing pure oats with no cross-contamination that would be safe for the majority of people with celiac disease (CD). Tracy was interested in finding a safe product for his daughter Lara, who had recently been diagnosed with CD. He asked me, a registered dietitian who knew his wife and had recently left the health care system, if I wanted to help him solve the problem and as they say … the rest is history. We realized that if pure oats could be produced in consumer quantities for the CD community, there would be significant nutritional and palatability benefits for their diet. We began selling gluten-free oats in the US in January 2006.”

Special thanks to Beth, Tracy and all the gluten-free oat companies. You make our gluten-free lives healthier and more tasty. For that I am truly grateful!

References:

  • Health Canada
  • Gluten-Free Diet
  • Celiac Disease : A Hidden Epidemic

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)