Gluten Free ~ Celiacs

Carolh70

I was recently diagnosed with Celiacs, it has been okay.... however I have a lot to learn about gluten free foods what I can and cant have and recipes. I would love any advice, feedback or help. I am new to MFP....

KarenB927

I'm not going to lie, it's not easy eating gluten free. I have been gluten free for almost two years. I eliminated gluten from my diet at the suggestion of my endocrinologist. I had thyroid nodules which caused me to have out of control hyperthyroidism. I had to have Radioactive Iodine treatment to shrink the nodules and my thyroid. Shrinking the thyroid also makes it non-functional. So as a result, which I expected, I became hypothyroid, actually according to my endocrinologist, severely hypothyroid. I did the whole Synthroid routine, slowly raising my dosage until I had 3 normal blood tests. In all that time, my symptoms from being severely hypothyroid were not getting better, they were actually getting worse. A year after my RAI treatment I had a one year follow up with my endocrinologist and asked her why I was not feeling better. I had muscle cramps, joint pain, extreme fatigue (I couldn't walk up the stairs in my house without literally crawling up the last 5 steps on my hands and knees), thinning hair, diminishing night vision, I was a physical and emotional wreck for almost a year. She suggested that I might have Celiac Disease; apparently thyroid disease can trigger it. I thought she was nuts, but really, I had never even heard of Celiac Disease before that. But circumstances led to me do a little research and I found I was suffering from about 99% of the symptoms. So I cut out gluten and within 2 weeks it was like I was a new person and I never looked back. No, I did not get tested because frankly, the thought of eating gluten and feeling absolutely awful for weeks just to be told not to eat gluten, seemed like something I'm not willing to do. I know how it makes me feel NOT to eat it and I know how it makes me feel when some company sneaks it into their product without proper labeling.

The best advise I can offer is to educate yourself. Read labels very carefully. While some labels will state "contains wheat" or "contains gluten" some do not. Your first step is to remove everything from your diet that obviously contains wheat, barley, rye and in some cases soy, if that also causes a problem. That basically means bread, pasta, bagels, cake, cookies, pies, pizza, fast food, just about everything that tastes really good, LOL. Find the gluten free section in your grocery store or local health food store, learn all the different ways gluten is listed on a label, and if in doubt, don't buy it. If a label says "corn starch", "potato starch", "tapioca starch", or "rice starch", it's OK. If it says "modified food starch" I stay away from it because it could be wheat flour. Eating out can be a challenge, but a lot of the national chains have a gluten free menu you can order from. I stay away from fast food, because even a salad can get cross contaminated and french fries are cooked in the same oil as the chicken tenders and onion rings, so that's cross-contamination galore. You will have to learn to make a lot of things yourself that you may have in the past just grabbed off the supermarket shelves, like canned or jarred gravy, canned soups, pasta sauces, anything processed. If you eat oatmeal, make sure it's certified gluten free, because even though oats don't contain gluten, it is very often processed in the mills that also process wheat, barley and rye and become cross-contaminated.

My husband doesn't need to eat gluten free, but does eat what I make even if it is gluten free. However, I do make him things where I come in contact with his food so I find that I wash my hands a lot during meal prep, because I don't want to contaminate my own food.

There are a lot of helpful websites out there for people who are just starting out gluten free, research is your best friend at this point. If I want to make something new for dinner, I always include the words "gluten free" in my search. And some things are easy to transition to gluten free, it's just a matter of sometimes substituting wheat flour with gluten free flour. I take leftover stale gluten free bread and make my own breadcrumbs out of it. I whiz it in the mini-chop, spread the crumbs out on a cookie sheet, put in a 200 degree oven for about a half an hour. I let it cool off, then run it through the mini-chop again. I store it in a zip lock container in my freezer and have them handy for making meatloaf or if I want breaded chops or fish for dinner.

After a while it becomes second nature. There are still occasions, even just recently, that my husband will forget what I can or cannot eat (which I blame on his short term memory problems from a stroke he had, so I forgive him), and when we are grocery shopping I will turn around to find a container of chocolate covered pretzels in the cart, which I then remind him I can't eat because pretzels are made out of wheat, I can buy chocolate covered gluten free pretzels in that section of aisle where the gluten free foods are. Then he feels bad and says he just thought I deserved a treat, but I tell him he always needs to check with me first.

But like I said, research and educating yourself is your first priority. Learn all the terms that can be used on a label which are hidden terms for gluten. And even if a product states it's gluten free, if it's not made by a certified gluten free company, there is always a chance of cross contamination during processing. Eating more natural food and less processed definitely helps a lot.

Biobound1

I found an APP for Non-GMO foods. A lot of them are gluten free. It is great to have on your phone when you go to the grocery store!