Anybody else Gluten Free
 

After testing I can't tolerate Gluten. Would like to hear from anybody.

Thanks.

We were a GF household for 4 years. Our oldest DD was allergic to wheat, and since it runs in families, we had to keep all the children off wheat until they were old enough to be tested. The first year was rough, but once we got the hang of living GF it wasn't too bad. It's a great diet for losing weight.

If you're looking for recipes, anything by Bette Hagman (aka "The Gluten Free Gourmet") is a great buy. I quite like her book on bread making and her cook book called "Comfort Foods".

me2forever- Hi, I am also gluten free. I have found that it is best to not replace everything you ate before like bread, pancakes, pasta if you are trying to lose weight. It is still all high in carbs and usually calories as well. I know I gained some when I first went gluten free because those things didn't make me feel sick like the wheat ones, so I ate a lot! It is nice to have the option of brown rice pasta when your family is eating regular, but I try to limit it anyway.
Once you get off the wheat for a while you will feel so much better.

Hi!

I personally don't eat 100% gluten free, but my husband has celiac disease so I cook all meals at home gluten free and all of my baking is gluten free. It has been a lot of trial and error to find what works, what doesn't and what tastes good. Unfortunately, a lot of the GF packaged products out there are NOT healthy. I try to find gf replacements for the basics we usually eat (chicken broth, flour, condiments). They are out there! Where I'm from it is becoming a lot more main stream.

I also use Bob's Red Mill GF flour for baking and it works out pretty well (and actually tastes good). The good thing is that healthy eating consists of naturally gf foods for the most part - fruits, veggies, lean meats, legumes - you just have to find the gf grains to go with them (there's gf pastas which aren't that bad). Another thing you can try is quinoa, most people haven't heard of it, but it is a complete protien and is high in calcium.

Anyway, I've been doing this for a few years so if you want any advice, I can help you along. It will seem impossible at first, but once you learn what has gluten and what doesn't, it gets easier. Also, you may want to join your local celiac disease organization because there is a lot of helpful information through them.

Thanks so much. Yes, it is all new. I am trying to lose weight (low carb) so giving up bread, etc. hasn't been too bad. Also getting over a yeast infection that took over my whole body which led to the testing for Gluten.
Baking may be a challenge as I'm not the best "bakery" in the world. lol
Will try things slowly..........

Found a corn chex cereal and had maybe 6 little pieces in my yogurt this morning with berries.

Just love how old age brings all this new stuff for the brain to process!!

My mom has Celiac Disease, as I suspect do I though I have no been tested. I do however realize that when I eat foods that are not GF I feel horrible, have stomach problems, trouble digesting, and bloating. I did go GF for a while and felt great. Since I have moved to Turkey though, a GF diet is next to impossible for me, and have slowly fallen into eating everything filled with it. You can imagine the side effects of that!

I think in general it's a healthy diet to follow regardless of tolerance or not. :D

In my experience I found the opposite to be true. I bought most of our GF stuff at our local health food store, whose owner has strict rules for what she will and will not sell. So basically if its sold at that store it's pretty darn healthy. But I suppose it all depends on your resources.

Another poster mentioned quinoa, which I had trouble using. It made fairly sticky and heavy baked products, and the kids didn't really care for the flavor of it. But we also had to be dairy and egg free, so maybe there was an issue with the dairy and egg substitutions, I don't know. I had much better luck using a combination of tapioca flour, potato starch flour and chick pea flour, along with guar gum and powdered egg replacer.