Gluten intolerant

lydiahallbrook7096
lydiahallbrook7096 Posts: 4 Member
in Food and Nutrition
Hey! I'm coeliac. And trying to eat healthy when having to cut out everything with wheat in does actually make things more difficult (yeah you wouldn't think) however most gluten free food has a lot of fat and sugar in. Who's got any idea of tasty snacks or meals? Please also add, I'd love to see how everyone is getting with their journeys.

Replies

  • Luna3386
    Luna3386 Posts: 888 Member
    All you need is a caloric deficit. Plenty of gluten free foods are not just fatty. All of the meats, rice, all veggies and fruits, dairy options, eggs.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    Gf replacements for baked goods are usually higher calorie. Look for foods that are intrinsically gf. I have to say having celiac disease can be useful for weight control since there's no spontaneous fast food runs :)
  • Hamsibian
    Hamsibian Posts: 1,388 Member
    Most gluten free substitutes are nasty, so not worth the calories. Some exceptions may be rice pasta/noodles and nut thins. Stick with whole foods: meat, seafood, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, oils, dairy. Grains are also acceptable if you can tolerate them, but make sure the products don't have any risk of cross contamination. Also check labels in sauces and dressings.

    There are plenty of recipes online. Even look up paleo or primal recipes (just add whatever side you want). For snacks, hummus with vegetables, ants on a log if you like celery, apples with a nut/seed butter, string cheese, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, meat jerky. you can easily make your own trail mix with assorted nuts, seeds, and dried fruit.
  • lydiahallbrook7096
    lydiahallbrook7096 Posts: 4 Member
    Brilliant thank you! Very helpful. Yes I always check sausages as they can be lethal!
  • Bonny132
    Bonny132 Posts: 3,617 Member
    I cook the majority of my food from scratch. Some of the supermarket bread/pizza are now edible but I prefer making my own. Most recipes can be made GF with some imagination or a quick 2mins on the internet.

    I make bread free wraps with cold meats and cheese wrapped in salad leaves. Plenty of salads. Dressings are easy to make yourself.

    Taco without the shells (most shells are GF but I prefer using my calories on the taco meat itself mmm) I wrap mine in salad leaves. Top the meat with cheese, salsa, sour cream, guacamole. The lot.

    I make crispy chicken, nuggets, dippers. I coat them in a small amount of GF flour, dip in egg wash and then either crushed in pork crunch/rind or crushed corn flakes and oven bake. Yummy.

    Spaghetti bolognese with corgettini (spiralized corgettes). By replacing the horrible GF pasta with spiralized veg I can have more bolognese. Win, win for me.

    I snack on vegetable sticks and cream cheese.
    Olives, nuts, pickles, cold meats, hard boiled eggs.

    I make my own breakfast muffins which I often bring in for lunch too. Muffin form. I often cover the base with ham or bacon, other times I leave it as it is. Whips up some eggs with herbs (you can also add shredded cheese) Then see what vegetables I have. Broccoli florets is a fave of mine, rip into small florets and put into the muffin tins. If you have any cold meats, shred finely and put into the tins too. Pour the egg mix into the muffin trays. Bake in oven for 20 mins till set and enjoy. Freezes well and tastes great hot or cold.
  • shaumom
    shaumom Posts: 1,003 Member
    edited July 2017
    Ok, my own thoughts on this.

    1. I try to make food that does not now, nor ever DID, contain gluten. Because it tends to taste better, honestly. And then I save GF subtitutes for special occasions or nostalgia meals (pasta, breads, pancakes, etc...). Because the GF subs are more expensive, usually texture and taste are worse enough that you kind of feel like you are just taunting yourself with the idea of what you used to be able to have, and to round it all off...they are NOT what they are subbing for.

    Or in other words - you are not getting the same food, sometimes not even the same food GROUP. Just as an example, if I usually pair a bean patty with a bun, it is not the same as pairing a bean patty with a grain free bun - one is making a complete protein. The other isn't. It'd be like if I missed mashed potatoes, and somehow I made a substitute from oregano, bean paste, and salmon, plus whatever was needed to make it look and taste like potatoes. Yeah, the latter food might be edible, but it is NOT the same nutrients as potatoes. So eating the same meals we used to, just with substitutes, doesn't give us the same nutrients we used to have, so is generally not so great for us.

    one exception - gluten free soy sauce. This is actually soy sauce like it USED to be, before wheat was added as a crappy filler. What is essentially gourmet soy sauce is made without wheat, and the GF stuff is just gourmet soy sauce with some testing for gluten contamination added in, so it's actually better than the wheat-based soy sauce.

    2. Bento boxes - just check out bento recipes, good website is justbento.com - it isn't updated anymore, but has great explanation of what they are, recipes, and so on. Easy to take with you, can use small portions, comes with a grain that is usually rice - truly helpful in the beginning.

    3. As for tasty snacks and meals - I tend to be meat heavy, and grain light. In large part because GF grains are godawful expensive. As well as a number of celiacs I know have found that they do MUCH better with fewer grains, or even none. Not sure whether that is because there is just more contamination with grains (which is possible) or if there may be celiacs who end up reacting to more than just gluten (which some preliminary small studies have shown may be a possibility, too, but it's pretty much not studied at all yet, which is why it's mostly anecdotal right now - studies included finding some celiacs react to even GF oats, while some don't. And some strains of quinoa - but not all - caused a gluten reaction in some lab testing.), or something else.

    For snacks
    roasted chickpeas are tasty.
    We make a lot of our own nut mixtures (many nuts in the USA are processed with wheat, but I don't know about the UK or australia.).
    Salads - usually with a homemade dressing like this one: http://natashaskitchen.com/2010/04/12/broccoli-salad-with-apple-and-walnuts/ Still have to make sure the yogurt and mayo are GF, but they should be anyway, so I don't feel that's a substitute, it's more finding products that haven't been adulterated with gluten when they didn't need to be.
    Love Indian and Japanese meals - often GF, and very spicy and tasty.
    Homemade soups - easy to make, usually, don't have to stand at the stove long, and you can make a big batch to eat for a few days in a row, so lots of meals, little effort.

    5. By your spelling of celiac, I know that you may be in the UK. If you are (as opposed to Australia), one word of warning - check your GF products for anything based on wheat. The UK (and the USA, now) allow wheat to be used in GF products if it's processed to get rid of most of the gluten, so the gluten level is below the 'allowed' gluten contamination for GF products. The problem is this: the test for how much gluten is present works less accurately on gluten that has been broken into pieces. The process to eliminate some of the gluten from these products breaks them into pieces. So...you can see the potential process. There ARE tests that are a bit more accurate, but all I can tell you is that anecdotally, some folks do fine with these products, but there is a minority in the population who still get sick, and have a celiac gluten reaction, until they eliminate the wheat-based ingredients, no matter how they were processed (glucose and hydrolyzed wheat protein are the ones I see the most). So IMHO, it seems better to get rid of them from the get go, and then when you are healed, in 6 months to a couple years from now, you can add them back in and see if they affect you, you know? Just precautionary.

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