How To Go Gluten Free!

One Woman’s Gluten Free Journey

Julie Rabinovitz was once told by a doctor that he refused to test her for Celiac because it was such a “rare” disease and it was “impossible” that her mother had been diagnosed.  Believe it or not, this was within the last ten years.

Julie was eventually diagnosed as having Celiac (by another doctor) although she admits to putting off the diagnosis.  I think many of us can relate to the “I don’t want to know because if I know then I will need to change how I am living” mentality.  But when that gets weighed against the risk of digestive cancers, not to mention continuing to live with the day-to-day symptoms, it is better to know and change then to not know and suffer.

Julie’s symptoms were not the usual digestive issues.  Her mother had pretty classic symptoms including serious weight loss and it took about a year for her to get diagnosed.  Julie’s symptoms were more around depression, fatigue, and a daily headache.  She just figured that was what she would be living with, “each day I’ll have a headache;” when she went gluten-free her daily headaches went away.

I met Julie because she recently started offering gluten-free baked goods for sale in the Ann Arbor area.  It is such a treat to have a fresh-made cookie that I didn’t need to bake myself!  She is currently working out of her home kitchen (it’s certified) and hoping that she will be able to have an actual bakery location in the future.  Imagine how nice that will be to go someplace and be able to select any number of goodies from the shelves.  For the gluten-free, that is a fantasy 99.99% of the time. 

In the meantime you can try Julie’s lovely peanut butter cookies or summer fruit tarts by finding her at the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market in Kerrytown on Wednesdays from 7 AM to 3 PM.  On Thursdays during warm months she is at the Zingerman’s Roadhouse Farmer’s Market (near Jackson and Maple/Miller) from 3 – 7 PM. 

I wanted to share Julie’s story for two reasons:

1. I want everyone to know that we have this wonderful resource now so you can take advantage of getting some home-made goodies without the work (and she does have a lovely assortment of treats including a variety of cookies, fruit tarts, and scones).
2. I want you to hear other examples of people who have been diagnosed with Celiac or gluten-free so if you are hearing about a friend suffering from daily headaches, fatigue, or depression, they may want to get themselves checked.  It could make a world of difference in their lives.

Not only are Julie’s “Tasty Bakery” treats gluten-free, they are also organic.   I really enjoy the peanut butter cookies and the lemon cookies.  Which ones are your favorite?

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So, Someone Gluten Free is Coming Over for Dinner

I read a statistic that as many as 30% of the population may have a gluten-intolerance.  If that is true than over the next ten years gluten-free will become a household phrase.  Until that happens, I thought you might appreciate some pointers on how to look out for a gluten-free guest.  When I am going to dinner at someone’s home I try to give a brief education without stressing the person out.  Believe it or not you CAN cook gluten-free for people without a ton of education.

Here is what I like to tell people to help a gluten free guest have a good meal:

• Keep it simple.  Adding lots of sauces and spices complicates matters for someone living gluten-free.  Every ingredient potentially has gluten in it so the more ingredients, the greater the possibility of contamination.
• Leave sauces and salad dressings on the side.
• Avoid casseroles.  Again you have the “keep it simple” going on here.  A gluten-free person will be better off if instead of doing that chicken and broccoli casserole if you serve all the ingredients separately.  That way they can skip the ingredients that have gluten in them and eat the ones that don’t.
• Keep ALL ingredients handy for the gluten free person to reference.  We become expert at reading packaging ingredients.
• Watch out for pre-prepared foods.  Marinades, spices, and food starch are just a few places that gluten likes to hide in and that means less food for the gluten free.
• Thicken with cornstarch instead of flour.
• Put croutons on the side of the salad.  I find that people are so particular about their salads that ALL guests tend to prefer the option of putting ALL of their own toppings on.  It takes a few more bowls on the table but everyone is happy.
• Try to call the gluten free guest and run down the menu with them.  Some people are less sensitive (those with celiac can’t have any exposure to gluten) so allow the guest to let you know what will and won’t work for them.
• Keep the buns and meat separate.  If the hotdogs or hamburgers aren’t already put on buns, the gluten free person will have a much easier time eating.
• Keep dessert simple.  Most ice cream, especially the higher quality brands, is gluten free.  Do a container of vanilla (some of the additions can have gluten) and a container of a soy cream option (there are some really tasty ones out there) so people who are dairy free can indulge too.  Include some cut up fresh fruit and maybe other fun toppings so everyone can create their own dessert.  There are also some really good gluten free packaged foods available like brownie or cake mixes.  I have found these to be about as easy as other traditional mixes and quite tasty for both the gluten free and regular folks.
• Make sure you avoid cross-contamination.  Wash all pans, knives, measuring utensils, containers, or cutting boards that had something with gluten on them (like bread, soy sauce, flour, etc.) before using for something else.
• Don’t feel bad that you are serving a few things that contain gluten.  Most gluten free folks understand that the world enjoys gluten-containing products.  As long as there is enough to fill out bellies, we are happy.  If the meal is actually balanced where we can enjoy an appetizer, veggie, carb, protein, and dessert…it is our lucky day!
• Know that the gluten free person may have other food issues too so it is helpful to consult with them (and really with all guests) so you don’t inadvertently avoid gluten but put in something else that can be equally harmful or that they plain don’t like or don’t eat for religious reasons.  Many people have allergies to particular tree nuts, dairy, preservatives, artificial colorings, or tropical fruits.

Here are a few things to make sure you avoid, keep completely separate, or ask the gluten free guest if they have a gluten free version they can bring along for the meal.

• ALL wheat flour and products containing wheat flour (enriched, whole wheat, cracked wheat, white flour, all of it)
• soy sauce (this one surprises most people)
• multi-grain chips or packaged, pre-seasoned rice dishes
• pastas
• spelt, barley, rye, graham, kamut, semolina, durum, triticale grains or flours
• licorice (another surprise)
• oats (some gluten free folks can tolerate them)
• beer (there are gluten-free options, some taste horrible; I like “Red Bridge”)
• breadings/coatings
• cereals
• vegetarian meat substitutes
• self-basting poultry

Know that “wheat free” does not mean gluten free.  Here is a simple menu you can see as an example of what to serve:

Appetizer: Veggies and dip (keep the container handy), hummus with corn chips (keep the container handy), guacamole with corn chips

Beverages: Wine, sparkling water, and fruit juice

Main meal: Baked chicken with fresh herbs, salt, and olive oil; mashed potatoes and gravy (thickened with cornstarch); steamed broccoli with butter, salt and pepper; spinach salad with toppings and dressings on the side.

Main meal #2: Mexican feast with plain refried beans, non-seasoned chicken strips, and seasoned ground beef (keep the seasoning ingredients handy), corn tortillas, taco shells, and all your favorite toppings on the side so folks can build their own.

Dessert: Poached pears or baked apples.

Dessert #2: Fresh fruit with real whipped cream.

You likely already serve gluten-free meals and don’t even know it!  If you like to experiment, ask your guest for recipes or try converting some of your own.  Have fun and go easy on yourself.  Having guests for dinner is about enjoying time with you or guests, not stressing over the meal!

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You are Gluten Free and Have a Dinner Invitation

When those of us who are gluten-free find ourselves in social situations that can be awkward.  For example, you are newly gluten-free and you are invited over to a friend’s home for dinner.  Or you have a company function to go to that involves food.  Or the holidays are coming and the highlight of the meal contains gluten.  It can get tricky to navigate while not starving or “gluten-ing” yourself.

When I was initially diagnosed as gluten-free I was told by my doctor to see how much gluten I could tolerate.  Initially I could tolerate small quantities of bread or soy sauce, but the longer I went without wheat in my diet, the more it affected me when I did have it.  So now I am almost 100% gluten-free.  The times I get gluten are purely accidental and I can tell by my body’s reaction within 24 hours.

Let me clarify that for those with Celiac they need to be 100% gluten-free (not “almost” as I said I am).  The places I am the most likely to get exposed to gluten are from cross-contamination (the restaurant uses the same prep space for a sandwich as for my lettuce wrap; a fellow guest puts the humus directly on their pita pieces and some bread crumbs end up back in the humus) or from small quantities of gluten in a dish that you wouldn’t think would have wheat in it (enchilada sauce frequently contains wheat; a little granola mixed in a yogurt parfait; nutritional yeast in vitamins or food).  For people with Celiac, they must be extremely careful l to not allow even the smallest amount of gluten into their diets so they need to be extra careful when eating at someone’s home.

When you have a dinner invitation to someone’s home, I suggest the following:

• Tell them right up front, “I have a serious food allergy, would you mind if we connected on the menu to make sure I know ahead of time what I will and won’t be able to eat?”  I have never had a host turn me down on this request, they always ask for more information.
• Try not to overwhelm them.  You are giving the “Cliff’s Notes” for ONE meal, not so they can cook gluten-free for the rest of their lives.  I never ask a person to have an entirely gluten-free meal (some friends choose to out of love, interest, and empathy, but I never ask).  I just try to make sure that there will be enough food there that I can eat without drawing attention to myself.
• Give simple suggestions and focus on the menu the host is planning on: Have all the ingredients for the salad separate so each person can put what they want on their serving and the croutons won’t contaminate the rest of the salad; Prepare my non-marinated chicken in the pan first (or on a separate dish) so it doesn’t get cross contaminated; Let me give you a bottle of some gluten-free soy sauce that you can use; Do you mind saving the packaging from prepared foods that I can look at before the dinner to check ingredients?; Could you put the cheese and crackers on separate plates?  On a side note, just because someone says, “I know all about gluten-free cooking because…”, still clarify your own gluten-free needs.  A friend once glutened me with spelt noodles because she thought gluten-free people can tolerate spelt.
• Offer to bring a dish, especially one that usually has gluten.  If you have a bread recipe you enjoy, offer to bring bread.  I often bring dessert too because so much dessert has gluten in it.
• Eat before the dinner party.  Even the most considerate hosts make mistakes and I find it better to arrive to a dinner party with a semi-full belly and eat less there than to be starving and get there to find croutons ON the salad and that all the meat got marinated in regular soy sauce.

It is important to be proactive and gracious.  We don’t want the host to go through a bunch of extra trouble for us but hosts want all of their guests to have a great time.  So speak up and help out the next time you are invited to someone’s home for dinner.

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Gluten-Free Diagnosis

One of the most common questions I get is, “How did you know you were gluten-free?” or a variation, “Are you gluten-free by choice or necessity?” There are a few different ways to discover if you are gluten-intolerant.  Many people do a self-diagnosis by simply eliminating gluten from their diets for a couple weeks to see if they notice a difference.  You can do that but I also suggest that before you go off gluten completely that you get tested for Celiac, an autoimmune disease that needs more serious treatment than “gluten-intolerance” (which you can listen to your own body and decide how much gluten to consume based on your comfort level).

I do not have Celiac, for which I am profoundly grateful. People with Celiac have a much higher incidence of digestive cancers and need to be EXTREMELY careful about not allowing ANY gluten to get into their diets. If I had Celiac, I would rarely eat out or eat foods that I was “pretty sure” are okay.

Celiac can be tested with a blood test as long as you are still consuming gluten (there is also an endoscopy test and a genetic test, all of which have their advantages and drawbacks – consult with your doctor). My Celiac test was negative. The way we discovered my gluten-intolerance was through an elimination diet which was monitored by my doctor, Dr. Ed Linkner, in Ann Arbor.

If you are going to do an elimination diet I strongly suggest that you be monitored by a professional.  You are eliminating many necessary nutritients from your diet and it is important that you not be putting your body through unnecessary harm from the process, it is supposed to be healing, not hurting your body.

Let me back up to look at how we even started looking at gluten. Keith and I went on a vacation/conference to California and I experienced some discomfort in my stomach area. I would move toward bland foods hoping they would help the tightness to go away (you know, things like potatoes or crackers or bread). The feeling persisted and one night the pain became so bad we went to the ER where they kept me for observation. They thought my gallbladder was acting up (I have a strong family history of gallbladder disease). My pain subsided and after an ultrasound they said I should see my doctor as soon as I get back into town.

I saw Dr. Linkner and described my symptoms to him and he also looked over the records from California. He said he suspected it was my stomach, not my gallbladder that was giving me trouble and set out to determine if there was something going on there.

We went through several tests looking at everything from stomach acid, blood work, and how my food was digesting (by looking at the remains…not overly pleasant!). The results came back that I had an infestation of candida (a yeast) and inflammation in my digestive tract. The inflammation was a concern because that means my nutrients are not being absorbed properly plus over time that inflammation can turn into chronic disease (and discomfort).

Dr. Linkner put me on an “elimination” diet that removed all common allergens from my diet for six weeks. We also wanted to finish off the candida so I removed all fruits and any other form of sugar (because that is what they live on) and I took an herbal supplement to assist in restoring balance. Because my diet was so restrictive, I also took a rice-based shake supplement two or three times per day. NOT tasty. Here is what I removed: caffeine, sugar, eggs, milk, wheat, soy, alcohol, fruit, and more that I can’t remember. Oh yeah…corn too.

My wonderful husband went on the diet with me. What a guy! It was a tough six weeks. We ate a lot of rice, chicken (not a vegetarian at that time), beans, veggies, and potatoes. It was VERY hard with the sugar cravings to get rid of those candida. As they are in their death throes they get very demanding for their sugar. It took a lot of will power and I was grateful I had cleaned out my cupboards ahead of time to get tempting foods out of the house.

After the six weeks I was able to start adding back in foods, one at a time, three days apart. I was to add in a large quantity of the food and look for any reaction (headache, joint aches, runny nose or congestion, stomach upset, cramping, anything out of the ordinary). We were very strategic in adding back foods. I went with the foods first that are commonly found in other foods. I half-feared a milk reaction and was very pleased when I didn’t have one. Corn was early too and it sailed right through.

Wheat though gave me a runny nose almost immediately and a headache shortly after. I tried a couple times in the same day with the same results and had some achy joints the following day.

I let it clear from my system then added back another food then tried wheat again. Same results. Then I knew…life would not be the same in my kitchen.

It has been an interesting trip, learning which foods I can consume and how to find substitutes for my favs. Let me know if this post has been helpful to you. If you would like more information or recipes, just ask and I’ll be happy to include more.

Gluten-Free Beer: Good News and Bad News

I am a beer drinker.  Not often, but I enjoy a beer about once a month and when I realized this was one more area of my life that was to be affected by my gluten-free diagnosis, it was a bit annoying.  In my dad’s final weeks one of the things he enjoyed doing was sharing a beer with one of his kids.  He gamely shared a gluten-free beer with me but he didn’t care much for it.  Poor guy…I wish I could have been more accommodating.

Pretty much all beers, ales, and lagers contain gluten.  Those pesky grains are just so excellent at creating beer that I would say 99%+ of all beers on the market contain gluten.  Here is a bit of good news…manufacturers of beer are realizing that this market is growing larger every year and they are rushing to answer our need.  Large breweries, like Anheuser-Busch have answered the call with Redbridge (a gluten-free beer that I liken to Killian’s) and small breweries are also bringing to market artisan gluten-free varieties as well.  Speak up when you go to your local brew pub and let them know that you would purchase a gluten-free beer if it was available. 

A warning about the gluten-free beers available: some of them taste terrible.  I am a “regular” beer drinker which I consider puts me in the “average joe” category that I like beer that isn’t too strong (like Guiness) or bitter.  I used to drink Killean’s, wheat beers, an occasional flavored beer (like pumpkin in the fall or berry in the summer) and I enjoyed a good Corona with lime on a hot summer day. 

As with all foods, everyone has different tastes so it is important to keep an open mind and try a variety.  For example, when I first went gluten free I bought a six pack of Redbridge and a six pack of New Grist and shared them with my gluten-free siblings.  I was the only one who liked Redbridge and no one liked New Grist.  However I had a party a few months later and one of my non-gluten-free guests really liked the New Grist (I sent the last unopened bottle home with her).  I have heard “Temptation” is a good choice as well, although it may be a bit pricey (I haven’t been able to find it at my local grocery stores as even Whole Foods stopped selling it).

I have found for the days I want more of my “Corona experience”, I take my Red Bridge and add about 50% water and a slice of lime to create a lighter beer…it works for me and stretches out the enjoyment.

Other brands on the market (I have not found them in the Ann Arbor area) are:

• Bard’s Gold
• Green’s Discovery Amber Ale
• Green’s Endeavour Dubbel Ale
• Green’s Quest Tripel Ale
• Sprecher Brewing Mbege
• Sprecher Brewing Shakparo

As you are no doubt aware, an open mind and sense of adventure will serve you well in your gluten-free journey.  Raise your gluten-free beer in a toast to those wonderful breweries looking out for us and helping us to enjoy a good bottle of beer from time to time.  Cheers!

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