Struggling with following gluten & dairy free diet

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Unless you have celiac disease, there's not a reason to avoid gluten as long as you keep your servings of wheat per day reasonable. Gluten free is a fad--I saw oranges advertised as gluten free. Dairy is a bit trickier, a lot of people have allergies and intolerances to dairy. Unless dairy makes you sick, there is no reason to exclude.

jeheer wrote: »

Hi,
I was wondering of anyone had any advice on how to follow a gluten/dairy free diet and still feel like they are not being deprived of stuff. I have really been struggling with this. I grew up eating a normal diet so I know what "normal" food tastes like. I will be honest some gluten free food tastes nasty and is ridiculously expensive. Any suggestions on how to eat healthy but still feel like you get to "indulge" at times? Thanks

Just my 2¢... I went gluten and dairy free for awhile, as an act of solidarity with my husband, who suspected he had allergies. Initially, I lost a lot of weight, but I had to learn to love vegetables and meat. You can find a ton of satisfying recipes on http://www.marksdailyapple.com or do a search for Paleo recipes and see what you get. Most days, it was a veggie omelet or scrambled eggs for breakfast, a salad for lunch (with meat), and various recipes for dinner. I was happy when we figured out DH could have gluten and dairy, but I really haven't made them a huge part of my diet since then. One of my favorite go-to meals to this day is a Seeds of Change Indian sauce (tikka masala, korma, etc.), mixed with chopped up chicken and poured over a bed of broccoli.

Gluten free products are a total waste of money. Just crappy tasting processed foods. It's much cheaper and not much more trouble to learn to eat real food.

it really depends on WHY you are doing it. if you have health issues which require it, i would say that feeling well and being strong internally would be motivation enough. if you are just following a fad or trying to lose weight, it will be darn near impossible to do. my daughter has a very high sensitivity to gluten and has severe stomach distress when she ingests it, so we went GF a long time ago and it's very easy for me personally. (i have some sensitivities to it as well, although not as severe as hers, but i get bloated, headaches, sometimes a rash, esp if i eat corn) **ETA yes i know corn doesn't have gluten, but it causes me to have a rash on occasion so i thought i would mention*

my advice is to go completely cold-turkey. there are tons of alternatives such as fresh fruits & veggies, meats (check labels if they are packaged meats) nuts, seeds, etc.

i personally would avoid "gluten-free" products because they usually offer little nutrition. if my daughter wants a cookie (which 6-year-old doesn't??) then i will bake some GF cookies, but for the most part, we stick to whole foods.

Going Gluten free is a totally ridiculous fad. If you have celiac disease, that's one thing. Truth is, not that many people in the general population actually have celiac disease. (Less than 1%)

Going dairy free is also not necessary unless you are lactose intolerant.

Self-diagnosis is also not a good idea. If you are suffering from weight loss, diarrhea, intestinal upset, itchy - blistering skin rashes, numbness and tingling of your feet and hands, joint pain, headaches and fatigue - then... see your doctor.

Pick a meat & a vegetable to center your meals around, instead of focusing them on the carbohydrate. Bake some potatoes & sweet potatoes to munch on when your body wants some carbs. Don't bake GF products & expect them to taste like "normal" ones. Try new recipes & explore new tastes instead of trying (and failing) to replicate older ones.

There are certainly health improvements many people find from cutting out gluten &/or dairy, especially if you suffer from any GI distress.

I eat gluten free because of an intolerance I have to it and I have found it very easy to do, with the exception of pizza. I do miss that. Gluten free bread is not that great but it tastes pretty darn good toasted. And yes, it is very expensive. So mostly, I opt out of eating bread and just having the meat without the bread, saves calories! I hardly eat pasta but gf pasta is pretty good when covered in a sauce :-)

As for dairy, I have coconut milk for smoothies and cereals. When I indulge in ice cream, I have good old fashion dairy, there is no replacement. I have had ice cream made with coconut milk and it is pretty good though. I don't care for almond milk.

What are your reasons for doing this?

I have been gluten, dairy, and egg free for nearly 2 years now. Not full blown coeliac, but sufficiently severe intolerances to make the change necessary. In my humble experience there is no bread like that containing gluten, so I rarely eat bread ... But I don't miss it. There's sufficient dairy free choices of spreads so that's no issue either. But, finding pre-prepared foods which are free from all 3 is very difficult. Despite all of that, my diet now is more healthy than ever before, weight loss has been good, and there are plenty of other upsides; increased clarity of thought, increased mobility and enthusiasm for life, and generally greater positivity.

It does take time to adjust, but as a life style change its a good reason to have to make the positive steps.

MrM27 wrote: »

Vegetables are a carbohydrate.

.... literally every food contains carbohydrates

We eat vegetables because they contain important nutrients. And their carbohydrate value is lower than something like bread.

I too must abstain fromaef dairy or wheat due to allergies. I *can* eat gluten, so barley and rye are ok. I find that the dairy free part is far more difficult than the wheat free, as dairy provides such good sources of protein.

Removing the wheat is easier too than trying to find "gluten free" substitutions, which are never quite as satisfying. I eat a lot of whole grains--kasha, oats, rice, barley. Udi's has good gluten free bread options. And there are always rice cakes and rye crackers. Nut Thins are a pretty good product too.

I eat a lot of meat, eggs and PB2 for my lower-calorie protein sources. I miss yogurt!

I have been lactose-intolerant for years. Milk, for me, is not a food. Over the last couple of years, I've dropped dairy of any kind to a miniscule amount, primarily to decrease my sodium intake (helps keep blood pressure low). It took awhile to get the hang of making meals without dairy. BUT I found that I actually feel much better without any dairy. I do miss cheese. I find I can tolerate a small amount of cheese occasionally, but have not missed eggs at all. Along the way I decided to drop wheat out of my diet, just to see, since my sister is severely gluten-sensitive -- swells up like a puffer fish with just a bit of wheat. I found I feel much better without that, too. Again, I can tolerate a small amount, but too much is not good. So these days I eat lots and lots of vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds and some non-wheat grains like rice. Once you get the hang of it, there's a lot to eat. I recommend the recipes on Forks Over Knives (they have a cookbook out, too) and Vegetarian Times has a nice recipe search engine where you can specify recipes that are dairy and/or gluten free. The few times I start feeling sorry for myself, feeling deprived (usually at a restuarant), I cave in and eat something that makes me feel crappy later. It reminds me why I don't eat some foods.

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I have been GF since 2010 and have to be GF and "should" be dairy free as well. I had to be dairy free for a long time after discovering my Celiac disease, as I was super sensitive to it, even lactose free or with taking pills. It might not be the lactose, it is very common for those sensitive to gluten to be sensitive to casein and whey as the proteins are similar to gluten. I found after eliminating for a while I handle it better, at least some forms. I am a cheese addict, and that I can do most of the time now, but I still have issues with milk and sour cream and yogurt. Pills don't help me at all, which they would if it was just lactose.

My advice is to just give up the way you used to eat, grieve it, mourn it, and start fresh with a whole new outlook. Focus on real foods, that are naturally gluten free (meat, veggies, fruits, potatoes, rice, nuts, seeds, corn, quinoa, buckwheat, millet, etc.) I allowed myself a time as I grieved the loss of food as I knew it to eat whatever I wanted as long as it was GF. To sort of ease the blow! I ate a lot of junk, but it helped me get over it. Focusing on what you CAN eat helps...like ethnic foods that naturally include little or no gluten. Mexican food relies a lot on corn, Chinese and Thai use a lot of rice and rice noodles, Caribbean foods use rice a lot, Indian food can be largely GF, and you can adapt recipes for all these easily. Many restaurants have GF menus now, and most stores have GF sections.

If you go without the substitutes for a long time, eventually some of them will be more palatable, once you start to forget how bread really tastes. Some things are OK, but they all are expensive. The texture is not going to be the same, and there is just no getting around it. If you want to know about specific substitutes, message me I am happy to help!

I've always been within the healthy weight range, and I'm not gluten free for weight loss purposes. TMI, but I vomit out both ends when I eat gluten, so it's not a fad for me to avoid it. I had been sick daily for over a decade before I found a doctor who recommended going dairy and gluten free. Amazing difference - this was before the current craze and I wish I'd known about it during all those years of misery.

Luckily, after several months gluten free I found I was able to add some cheese back in. That's good, since living without cheese was just sad. The gluten free part is easy. I've been at it for a few years now. Those who do it as a fad probably won't last, since it's inconvenient as hell. At first I missed sandwiches, but then I just switched to making wraps with corn tortillas instead. I don't find GF to be expensive at all. There are plenty of other whole grains out there that don't trash your intestines. Good luck OP!

jeheer wrote: »

Hi,
I was wondering of anyone had any advice on how to follow a gluten/dairy free diet and still feel like they are not being deprived of stuff. I have really been struggling with this. I grew up eating a normal diet so I know what "normal" food tastes like. I will be honest some gluten free food tastes nasty and is ridiculously expensive. Any suggestions on how to eat healthy but still feel like you get to "indulge" at times? Thanks

I do eat gluten foods maybe twice a month at the most, usually less than that. I have been dairy free for close to three years. I never cared for milk but cheese and yogurt were my faves and they were the hardest to break free of. They were like heroine to me. Dairy and my tummy have never gotten along. It took me years to get away from dairy. I loved it so.

I've tried the gluten free products and I really don't think they are worth the money. The only gluten free product I like is the Tinkyada rice pasta. Other than that I avoid any gluten free claiming product. Subs just don't cut it.
For gluten free stuff I stick with the basics: fruit, veggies,legumes, rice, quinoa, oat groats, sometimes buckwheat groats, millet or amaranth.

Cheese and yogurt were harder for me to give up. I don't usually go for the subs because again they are pricey and not as good as I would like them to be. For cheese I will sometimes use Daiya. For yogurt I will sometimes go with the SO Delicious brand. I like the plain, I can flavor it how I like. They make a good sour cream as well. I was never really a milk drinker. I found that I did like almond milk or even some of the newer coconut milks out there. I used to like to make lattes or mochas on occasion. I would usually go for the unsweetened versions. I used to use the SO Delicious coconut milks and the Pacific Naturals almond milk, unsweetened. Oh, and my favorite dairy free ice cream right now is Luna and Larry's coconut bliss, salted caramel and chocolate.

I found that when I was first breaking free of dairy it was more beneficial to not even have any of the subs around. It would just make me miss my yogurt and cheese that much more. It took time and now I no longer feel deprived. It was definitely worth it for me.

I hope you find what works for you.