Living Gluten-Free can be pretty tough. I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with CD, which spurned me to look into it a little. I wound up getting her this book entitled “The Gluten-Free Gourmet Cooks Fast and Healthy” by Bette Hagman for Christmas. It has some good gluten free recipes for making bread using alternate flours like rice flour and bean flours (of course they’re not nearly as good as the real thing, but they’re decent). Also, I’m not sure if you already know, but Whole Foods Market has a whole gluten free section. And all their gluten free products are made in a special warehouse to prevent contamination.

I hope you’re feeling better!

Hi

Last night we had steak and I happened to look at the HP sauce I was using and noticed it had flour in it.. I immediately thought of you and how you will be having to look at where all the gluten is hiding, dip mixes, salad dressing, steak sauce, etc.
Some of your symptoms I experience as well so now I am starting to think maybe I should start cutting out the gluten.

I have quite a few friends with CD too. I will be hooking up with a friend that is a dietitian and nurse,while on our vacation, I am going to be asking her a lot of questions, she has CD too.

I am sorry you were so sick! I hope you are feeling better now.

@Katie - That book’s on my Wish List. I’ve read so many wonderful reviews of it, but I’m waiting until payday and stumbling along on my own until then. (Didn’t do too bad with this week’s menu for the newsletter, though.)

I loved Whole Foods’ gluten-free stuff. That place is a dream come true… but a nightmare for my wallet! I plan to head back there next weekend, though. I’m hooked.

@Tai-Tai - It’s shocking how many things have gluten in them. Steak sauce, yes, and just about anything that’s low-fat. (They use wheat to thicken low-fat foods up so they have the same “mouth feel” as the full-fat stuff.)

Chicken broth? Yep. Tomato paste? You betcha. Mailing envelopes? There, too. It was in my old shampoo, bath gel and body lotion!

It’s so pervasive that for a while there I’d started using those cheap disposable latex gloves to clean the kitchen so I wouldn’t come in contact with crumbs from my son and husband’s glutenated snacks.

But guess what that powder is on the inside of those gloves?

*ARGH!*

Oh, on a side note, Tai-Tai: I haven’t had any allergy problems at all since going gluten-free. None, even when I’ve spent the day outdoors amid the grass, pollen and other stuff I used to think were my allergy triggers.

So maybe my “allergies” were singular, rather than plural?

My sisters are going Gluten Free. The mid sis has been diagnosed wit CD, and my oldest sis decided to just go that route as well. Both feel far better. Mid sis is married to a Tokyo born guy so the rice stuff he is familiar with made some of her changes easier, but much of the stuff out there that has gluten in it isn’t obvious…like the stake sauce, some ketchups, etc.

Ugh, getting glutened is awful, and I’m sorry that happened. It will happen again, but hopefully not very often.

I really want to stress, though, that there are so many things you can eat, and replacements for everything you can’t eat… I’m about as sensitive as they get, and I can eat out, eat at friends’ houses, and even eat donuts (yummy donuts).

Katie, I have to disagree with you about the breads. I’ve made one homemade GF bread that wasn’t from a mix, and other than the fact that it didn’t rise because I forgot to proof the yeast, it was great. The bread I normally make, since I’ve been lax in trying out new recipes, is from Pamela’s bread mix. It tastes better than any store-bought bread I’ve had in my entire life. (Pamela’s and Bob’s Red Mill also make great cookie, brownie, and pastry mixes.) Just never buy the shelf GF breads. Freezer ones are ok.

Kate, you can still eat out! Generally only at expensive restaurants, yes, but you can still eat out. (I will not sugar coat it — gluten free will double your grocery budget, and there’s not much you can do about it). Local fancy restaurants are pretty good for eating out. I went to a place here in Boise called the Cottonwood Grille, and I asked my waitress to ask the chef what he recommended for GFDF. She came back from the kitchen and told me that the chef said I could have pretty much anything on the menu, and he would adapt it to be GFDF, including the pastas. I was in heaven. P.F. Chang’s is the best chain about gluten-free that I’ve been to. They have actual laminated GF menus at the hostess stand, and when the waiter sees you with a GF menu, he asks who all at the table is GF, and he immediately takes away the soy sauce and comes back with Tamari. They are very careful. Outback is also great for GF. McGrath’s Fish House has never made me sick. The important thing is to call the kitchen ahead of time, a few hours before the dinner rush, and ask to talk to the chef (not at Outback or Chang’s, but at other places). Tell him that you have celiac and want to know what you can eat that is gluten-free. If he doesn’t right away understand what you are asking, don’t risk eating there. If he knows what you mean and tells you about the dishes you can eat, then it’s probably safe. But you also have to tell your waiter. “If I have any gluten in my food whatsoever, I’ll get very sick.” As long as they understand (and you can explain, because a lot of them don’t really get it) what you mean, they’ll really work with you.

It’s likely that your friend just didn’t wash her hands between touching things you could eat and things you couldn’t eat, so the food was cross-contaminated (one of the biggest culprits for glutenings). It’s also likely that her grill has gluten on it, and that is why you got sick (that would be my guess). If she’s ever marinated anything in soy sauce or cooked chicken held in a wheat solution on the grill, gluten is still there and transfers onto anything cooked on it. After I went GF, I couldn’t use our grill anymore without foil on it, because I got really sick the very first time. We’re buying a new one soon, and it will be entirely GF forever.

Chicken broth — Pacific Foods makes a GF chicken broth, and there’s another brand that comes in the boxes (I can’t remember which) that is also GF. Some of Swanson’s broths are GF, but a lot of them are not. If you notice a difference in taste, add salt.

Hunts tomato paste and Heinz ketchup are GF (I’ve never even seen a ketchup that wasn’t GF).

I wouldn’t worry so much about touching gluten, unless you also have histamine reactions to it. Soap and water are your friends, and as long as you wash your hands after touching gluten, you shouldn’t get sick from it. But you’re right on about not kissing anyone who’s eaten it, at least not before they’ve brushed their teeth, scrubbed their tongue, and all that.

I did wonder about your allergies, whether they were related, because I always noticed you mentioned those acting up when your fibro symptoms were also bad. I’m so glad that you’re possibly killing two birds with one stone!

One more thing, and sorry for the long comment, the Oreo pie and graham cracker crust — even when you’ve healed well enough that you don’t really feel it every time you eat gluten, you’re still doing major damage to your small intestine. Even 1/8th of a teaspoon of gluten will do significant damage to the celiac small intestine. The not dying is enough to not tempt me, but I know it’s harder for other people to not feel the pull. Just know that there are so many foods (better tasting foods in most cases) that you can eat.

Ok, last thing this time for sure. Do you have Dr. Green’s book, Celiac: A Hidden Epidemic? It was the most helpful to me when I got started.

Actually, GF has reduced my grocery budget, believe it or not. The menu that I wrote in last week’s Home Helper Newsletter, for instance, is entirely GF.

But because it’s focusing on simple food prepared with plenty of flavor, instead of convenience foods, it slashed my grocery budget in half! (Granted, I don’t have GF pasta, bread mixes, crackers, cookies or other GF-substitute foods on there; I simply decided to create meals that don’t rely on wheat or wheat-relatives for their grains.)

You probably know, however, that Huntz ketchup isn’t entirely GF — it simply has low enough parts of gluten to pass under FDA labeling laws.

I’m using Clan Thompson’s program to check most of my stuff. I figure they’ve gone through the effort of communicating directly with companies which saves me the effort. Unless the co. is willing to say there’s no risk of cross-contamination (in which case it’s no different than eating at my friend’s house, really), they don’t mark it as confirmed GF.

Yeah, I’m *that* sensitive. I do have histamine reactions to touching it. All these years I’ve thought they were allergies which, as you noted, have flared up right around the time my fibro flares up, too.

But on the days when I am 100% indisputably gluten-free I have *NO* symptoms. None. No aches, no pains, no GI problems, no bloating or confusion or anxiety or fatigue. Heck, I can even sit outdoors for hours now without sneezing. So, yes, I do have the strength to withstand temptations like my friend’s desserts — destroying my small intestine, not to mention increasing my risk for almost every form of cancer, isn’t worth it. (Oh, if only I’d thought that way 40 lbs. ago, eh?)

First time in decades I’m feeling GOOD, girlfriend. I wouldn’t be enjoying this if it weren’t for you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Thank you.