Gluten Free Cookbook

Archive for June, 2010

what are some good gluten-free foods to eat? Hope ice cream is one!

Most ice creams are GF! (but read all labels)
I suggest you peruse these sites bc they tell u more than any of us could in these little answers!
www.csaceliacs.org
www.celiac.com
www.celiac.org

And books by Dr Peter Green and Dana Korn
Foods to avoid:
wheat
oats (actually gluten free by nature but are cross contaminated by wheat in harvest. GF oats are available)
rye
barley

I have not been formally diagnosed (drs. appt. Tues.) but I have all the symptoms of the disease. I started a gluten-free diet 3 days ago and I already feel worlds better. Would I feel better this soon or is it in my head? Yesterday and Today I actually had a lust for life and I haven’t in a long time.

yes keep on the menu you will detox your body, i am losing wt not feeling slow and sluggish i even try eatting REAL food with wheat and usually get a bad Reaction i wake up bloated and pain nausea and or diarrhea, sometimes i can eat real food but i am better on the GF menu now fast food you can eat at outback restaurant the 99 ninety nine , they have a GF menu , i can eat McD fries and BK fries probably all fries, as its shared oil i’m not a serious celiac i have the wheat INTOLERANCE i have in tolerances to everything so its never a dull moment, email me i have lots of simple recipes i use for my menu
I eat alot of POLENTA fried in basil oil

I have to cook for a week for twenty people – one of whom is a vegetarian and one is celiac. That means that veggie lasagnes, vegetarian spaghettis are out. I live in the Middle East and there are no speciality pastas made of anything but wheat here. I can’t make lentils and chickpeas for a week – help!

Here are a few ideas:
You can look online for specific recipes to give you quantities of ingredients and whatnot.

Veggie risotto (use vegetable broth instead of chicken broth)

Curried vegetables over rice (you can grill some meat and have it on the side for the non-vegetarians)

If you have access to corn tortillas, you could make bean & veggie enchiladas or soft tacos.

Bean and vegetable chili (use vegetable broth, not beef broth)

Hearty vegetable soup with salad and sandwiches available for those who can eat bread. (Gluten free dressing can be made with lemon or lime juice & olive oil)

Cabbage rolls filled with rice and beans or sauteed veggies – cover with tomato sauce to cook

Stewed veggies/beans over polenta (corn meal)

As for desserts, anything with fruit is perfect. Fresh fruit sorbet, fruit topped with yogurt and nuts, etc…
There are also some gluten free pie crust recipes you can find online — they’re often made with nuts but I don’t know the recipes offhand.

There are many gluten-free web sites so you may want to check some of those sites out for recipes and then choose the ones that don’t incorporate meat. Although, you should make some meat available for the remainder of your guests that are meat-eaters. They’ll appreciate it.

You’ve got quite a challenge… Good luck & happy cooking!!

I have a 5 year old Autistic son. I’m wanting to put him on a gluten-free diet but the grocery stores around here don’t carry them. And the health food stores cost WAY too much.
Where is the best place to buy gluten-free foods online at good prices?
My son tends to absolutely CRAVE foods that contain large amounts of gluten, such as crackers and chips. He also loves chicken nuggets, but the breading has gluten. I’m looking more for sites that sell these types of foods.

Yes. Gluten free food is expensive. I wouldn’t bother with most ready made meals, anyway, though, as they are pretty poor as a bunch, though you may be lucky and find one or two that are edible.

But, you know, gluten is not naturally present in most food. Gluten is the protein in wheat, rye, barley, spelt and a few other closely related grains. It’s not in corn, rice, or oats, although oats are mostly contaminated during processing, so you would need to buy ones that are certified gluten free (meaning they were processed in a gluten free environment).

So, meat, fish, eggs, fruit, nuts and vegetables (including corn and potatoes) are all gluten free if you buy them unprocessed. Cheese, too (not bought grated as that’s coated in modified starch, and not some blue cheese, as the mold is started on bread in some cases), but if your son is autistic, he should not be eating dairy products anyway. Most frozen veg is also fine (if it’s not coated or in a sauce), but frozen potato products are mostly coated in something or other containing gluten.

Go back to basics and start cooking the sort of thing your grandma probably served up: a piece of meat or fish with some vegetables and potatoes. Or do a one-pot rice dish like jambalaya or risotto. Or make an omelette and fill it with maybe diced ham…

There are loads of meals you can serve up that don’t contain gluten or dairy and don’t rely on expensive "gluten free" products. However, if you want to add pasta to the mix, Orgran brand, though expensive, is pretty good. And you can use Real Foods’ Corn Thins (any variety except the multigrain) like crispbreads, and rosti (swiss potato pancakes) for "toast" when you want to do… beans on toast or something.

In my local store Corn Thins are not in the gluten free section, but in the main crispbreak/cracker area. There’s also Mrs Crimbles coconut macaroons, which are gluten free, also in the main part of the store.

A salad made with lots of diced salad stuff (celery, lettuce and other leaves, cucumber, baby tomatoes, green onions) and served with egg mayonnaise (hardboiled eggs mashed up with mayo) is a great meal, and is pretty cheap – a jacket potato added to this makes it more filling.

Hope this helps.

PS. I don’t know what country you’re in. Amazon sell gluten free stuff, but it’s not cheap. In fact gluten free stuff just is not cheap – partly because it’s pretty difficult to get good results without gluten (in many cases), and partly because we are a captive audience. In the UK http://www.naturallygoodfood.co.uk has a good selection and someone recently recommended http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk to me. In Australia, there’s http://okget.info/about/GFfavourites
I’m told Whole Foods, Trader Joes, Ralphs and Sprouts have a good selection.

There are 210 recipes in http://www.GlutenDairyFree-Easy.com

I have 2 children with Autism and many friends have their children on the GFCF diet. It sounds pretty tough. But I was looking at some of the symptoms I am thinking I want to go to a doctor to get myself checked out.

You can get blood tests done by your doctor and you might get an endoscopy done after that. It is still possible to test negative to celiac disease and then go gluten free and find out some symptoms clear up. But get tested first. If your children are eating GFCF, it is just as easy to eat the same foods as them anyway. I have been GF for over 5 years and there are very few foods that can’t be made GF that taste as good or better than the gluten containing version.

Both my father and sister do not have a celiac artery. The splenic and hepatic arteries branch directly off the aorta.

I have no idea how common it is but from what I’ve read it can’t be healthy. Obviously your father and sister are alive so it’s possible to live without it but if you read the article I’ve listed here you’ll find that it’s a very important thing to be missing.

While I understand that it’s important to make sure your diet is balanced with fresh produce and such, I’m trying to find some good vegan gluten-free foods that are pre-packaged and easy to prepare. Think things like frozen entrees and rice boxes. Any ideas?

Try going to a local health food store. The one that I go too has almost everything gluten free and vegan. Along with no soy products that are still vegan, etc.

I’m not sure any specific items. But check it out.

i was diagnosed 3 weeks ago with celiac. i felt very good the first week on a very strict gluten free diet, i have stayed on that diet, i am always hungry. but the past four days i have all my old symptoms back, does anyone have any answers to why. and why im constantly hungry

Celiac disease requires a 100% gluten free diet for life. This is a difficult diet to start off with, as most processed food contains gluten for one reason or another.

I have no idea why you’re always hungry. However, it may be that you are mistaking the pain you feel from healing as hunger pangs, or it may be that you are just not eating enough!

You need to substitute the foods you used to eat with other foods of a similar caloric value, but gluten free. Although gluten is a protein, as it forms part of wheat and some other grains, cutting it out often results in a loss of carbohydrate from the diet.

Rice, potatoes, corn, quinoa, millet, and many other grain substitutes can be used to add carbohydrate to your diet. You can also get gluten free pasta (Orgran is one of the more palatable brands), which can be used instead of the ordinary type.

Gluten free bread is difficult to find – not that there aren’t plenty of different brands on offer, but that most of them are so nasty you don’t buy them a second time. If you’re in the UK, I recommend Genius brand, on the Free From shelves in Tesco only at the moment, Other than that, you can substitute rosti (swiss potato pancakes) for toast for things like beans on toast, and Corn Thins by Real Foods Pty for other purposes. The multigrain variety is not gluten free, but all the others are sfaik.

Did you go through your kitchen cupboards and throw out all the gluten-containing foods, cooking tins and utensils with crevices where gluten might lodge, and so on? This article will help you with this: http://www.glutenfreedietbook.com/articles/37.html

If you wear makeup, have you checked that the brand/s you are using are gluten free? Also check your toothpaste, as some of these also contain gluten.

This article: Master of Disguise: How Gluten Hides Where You Least Expect It: http://okget.info/about/GlutenHides will help you identify ingredients that are most likely gluten-based.

I have constant bloating and gas and I have noticed it gets worse when I eat whole grains. I also have lactose intolerance which sometimes comes along with celiac. I read a list of the symptoms from different web sites and they include weight loss, fatty stools, floating stools, malnutrition, etc… I only have the gas and bloating which is constant. Could I still have celiac and only have the bloating and gassiness?

I think you would know if you had celiac disease, you would be losing weight and throwing up, you would have to watch what you eat.
Bloating and gas are not the key symptoms to this disease. Everyone gets bloated and gas. Don’t eat so much and get more exercise. Gas comes from different sources for different people, sometimes it’s dairy, or vegetables or meats.

I am a vegan, and i think i have a gluten allergy or Celiac disease. I want to test this out by cutting out foods that contain gluten. What can i eat? I already cut so much out of my diet that it would be even harder to just cut out all grains like pasta, oatmeal, and bread.
I want to eat foods that naturally do not contain gluten, not products where you can go to the store and but gluten free varieties. Otherwise i would not be asking this question.

all fresh foods that are not wheat, barley, rye, spelt, etc. are naturally gluten free. For carbs I eat potatoes (especially sweet and yams), quiona, buckwheat, some soy (but be careful d/t cross contamination), some corn (also cc issue).
The best place to get this information is at Celiac.com. Look at the unsafe ingredient list and go from there.
Also, no items from a "bar" or the bulk bins (cross contamination). For fresh food ideas simply search "gluten free recipies" and tons should show up.
If you really want to know, you can always have the celiac blood testing done.
Good luck and health to you!

to the person below, use tinkyada pasta. It is BETTER than wheat based pasta and whole grain ! Stay away from that sticky corn stuff! Also Shar pasta is great!
and unless your corn tortillas are specifically gluten free or you make them yourself with cert. gf corn meal (e.g. Bob’s Red Mill) you are probably glutening yourself due to cross contamination. No offence, but you might want to step your game up a bit and look into emerging information about cross contamination issues.
Also, be careful of those chinese rice crackers. Keep the wheat allergy rss feed going on your computer, if you did that you would understand the number of times "undeclared" wheat alert goes out on those products. They do NOT have the same standards as the US for food (remember MESALAMINE??) in China and you want to be VERY careful about eating that sort of thing!!
Stick with Lundeberg rice cakes and other certified gluten free products for your health and safety and fresh foods only if money is an issue.
and PLEASE tell me you are not eating generic trail mix!
Sorry to break the news to you, but you are going to need to be a bit more careful than what you are! If you can, please join a celiac support group, you sound like you can use the support!