My Celiac Blog

Recently I noticed a new ready to heat item offered at Amazon, a new product from Tasty Bite. Tasty Bite offers ready made foods from India. I've often used their products in the past because I like curry and other types of Indian cooking. They have always indicated which of their items are vegetarian, vegan, and/or gluten free. Since this item is both vegan and gluten free it meets my requirements. Best of all it is delicious. This is not a very spicy product, in fact some might say it is not spicy at all. But the spinach and potatoes do come through (Aloo means potatoes and Palak means spinach). It immediately became my favorite Tasty Bite item.

Previous products from Tasty Bite came in a foil lined pouch that could not be put in a microwave oven, this new product is in a plastic pouch and it comes out just right after 60 seconds in our average-powered (1KW) microwave oven.

As with all other ready to heat meals of this genre, I always have mine over a half bowl of rice, and this product goes very well with rice. It gives me Happy Tummy and it tastes good too. I'd give it 4 stars, it could get one more if it was a little bit spicier.

Technorati Tags: Tasty Bite, Aloo Palak, Spinach and Potatoes, gluten free meal, gf, wheat free, gluten free diet, celiac disease

This week I've been visiting with family in the Worcester, MA area. Twenty years ago I lived in Worcester, but at that time I did not know I had celiac disease. On this trip back to Worcester I've enjoyed two fantastic places to eat, each with a gluten free menu.
At Evo, located behind a health food store, I found an enormous selection of GF food on offer and enjoyed fantastic vegan and gluten free pizza with soy cheese. It was a real joy for me to be able to eat a gf pizza in a restaurant. Learn more about Evo at their website, it's on Chandler St, very near Park Ave.

Only a few blocks North on Chandler street is a fascinating Asian Fusion restaurant named Nancy Chang's. They have been offering GF food on their menu for years, and the wait staff is very knowledgeable about gluten free diet issues, and they even bring GF soy sauce, the wonderful San-J product, to your table. You can check out their website too.

People in Worcester who are on a gluten free diet are lucky to have these two fabulous eateries.

Technorati Tags: gluten free dining, gf dining, celiac friendly restaurants, gf pizza, Worcester Massachusetts

Years ago when I was first diagnosed with celiac disease the common wisdom was that people with celiac disease had to avoid oats. As science began to determine that this was not exactly correct those who were more militant in their condemnation of oats gradually retreated to a position of "all oats grown in the United States are contaminated with wheat".

As a person inclined to rational analysis and skepticism, claims that include the word "all" get special attention in my way of thinking.

Recent studies have determined that a minority of people with celiac disease react in exactly the same way as they do to wheat when given absolutely pure oats. These people must avoid oats. But these studies also found that a majority of people with biopsy confirmed celiac sufferers are able to eat oats if they are not cross contaminated. For these people eating oats does not provoke the characteristic immune reaction as determined by blood work and biopsy samples. I seem to be among this larger group of people that can tolerate oats.

In fact I have eaten instant oatmeal packets indiscriminately for years, but then others with celiac disease managed to convince me that cross-contamination, especially with wheat, is a serious concern for the gluten free diet. Fortunately there are some growers and mills that co-operate to produce oats they can guarantee are gluten free. This was comforting news to me, because my gut feels really happy and content when I eat oats for breakfast.

We found the listings below by searching on Amazon.com for the term "gluten free oats", however we make no representation that these products are actually gluten free. Please do your own due diligence if you have celiac disease or any other medical requirement for a gluten free diet.

	Gluten Free Oats - 32oz Sale Price: $15.95

	Bob's Red Mill, Extra Thick Rolled Oats, 32 oz (2 lbs) 907 g (FOUR PACK) List Price: $5.76 Sale Price: $14.18 Average Rating:

These days, with the economy so badly off, we are looking for less expensive ways to shop just like everyone else, affected by celiac disease or not. In fact we spend more time working on shopping websites than anything else at all. Our latest trick is a new way to offer items listed for sale at eBay.
Here is an example, a search for gluten free vitamins:

NOW Foods ADAM -Superior Men's Multi Vitamin - 120 Tabs

US $23.95

5d 8h 57m

Inositol Powder - 227 g (8 oz) Powder - Jarrow Formulas

US $16.99

3d 12h 55m

Max For Men Multi-Vitamin/Mineral 120 vcap Country Life

US $17.20

10d 12h 3m

Buffered Vitamin C + Citrus Bioflavonoids - 100 Tablets

US $13.90

20d 10h 56m

With this new method we can search for anything sold by eBay. We've added a few new pages here for books related to celiac disease and GF cooking. Since used books are often available on eBay, these book pages might help to stretch your shopping budget, we hope so.

I build websites. That's what I do. Today I built another website for people on a gluten free diet. It is called Gluten Free Celiac. This site uses the SMF discussion forum package with a front end portal add-on. I also set up some bots to fetch gluten free recipes and food items for sale and post them as messages. There are already 99 recipes and about 50 food items listed, and this part will continue automatically.

What the site needs now is human users. Human users make all the difference in the world. You seem to be a human, so I'd like to invite you to visit the site: http://glutenfreeceliac.com/

Of course it is and always will be free!

Most Americans will remember Rice Chex breakfast cereal from the days of their youth, but like so very many other well known breakfast cereals it has been off limits to the gluten-free and celiac communities. We have good news [PDF].

General Mills has announced that they will be reformulating Rice Chex as a gluten-free cereal! I might go to my local supermarket and see if it is there yet. This is great news. As a wee lad I could eat Rice Chex until the box was empty, anytime. Today I would be using soy milk instead of moo cow, but I bet I would still enjoy this cereal.

I've also read in the press recently an article suggesting that Gluten Free is the new health craze, following in the footsteps of low carb and no carb fads. If so perhaps it is the health fad aspect that is getting big megafoodcorps to pay attention. If 1% of the population has celiac disease, and only 3% of those with celiac disease know about it, that leaves .03% of the population who are on a GF diet because of having a diagnosed case of celiac disease. This is a very, very small minority. So if diet fadsters with no medical requirement to avoid gluten want to help make it easier to find gluten free food, we say good! Have at it. Did you see this rice flour over here ?

Technorati Tags: Rice Chex, gluten free, gluten free cereal, celiac, celiac disease, gf breakfast cereal, general mills

California baker Food For Life has recalled their spelt bread product because it contains spelt. No, really.

Food For Life Baking Company of Corona, California is voluntarily recalling 2,241 cases of Spelt Bread (UPC# 07347200168) because they contain spelt grain which is known to be a hybrid of wheat.

You see under the newly revised food allergen labeling laws, any product that contains one of the leading food allergens must be labelled as containing that allergen. Food For Life Spelt bread contains Spelt, Spelt is a wheat hybrid, the package did not state that the product contains wheat. Ooops.

Technorati Tags: Spelt, Food For Life, FDA, Recall, celiac disease, gluten free, gluten free diet, wheat hybrid

Today I had my first complete success in baking GF bread, the first loaf that was completely vegan, gluten free, and did rise without collapsing during the bake cycle. There were two new factors in this loaf that I had not used before. First I used silken tofu as an egg replacer, and second I used Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour, which I will definitely be using in the future. There was no brown rice or white rice flour in this bread at all.
This mix contains Garbanzo Flour, Potato Starch, Tapioca Flour, White Sorghum Flour, and Fava Bean Flour.

I used a recipe based on "Chickpea Yeast Bread" on page 116 of The Best ever Wheat and Gluten-Free Baking Book, I substituted the Bob's Red Mill mix for the 3 cups of various flours, and I used tofu instead of eggs.

Wet Ingredients:
5 ounces silken tofu
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 and 1/2 cups water
1 teaspoon Vermont maple syrup

Dry Ingredients:
3 cups Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
3 teaspoons xanthan gum
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 cup Better Than Milk Vegan Beverage Mix, Soy
1 package yeast

Mix dry ingredients in a mixing bowl, try to break up the brown sugar clumps.
Put the silken tofu, olive oil and 1/2 cup of the water in a blender and mix thoroughly.
Put the dry ingredients in your Zojirushi or other bread machine
Pour in the tofu/oil/water blend
Pour in the remaining cup of water
Push the quick cycle (or gluten free cycle) button
Then wait about 2 hours for your delightful bread-like loaf of gluten free bread. Loveses it!

Technorati Tags: Gluten Free Recipe, gluten free bread, gf bread, wheat free, celiac diet, gluten free food, Bob's Red Mill, Bob's Red Mill All Purpose GF Baking Flour, Zojirushi, bread maker, bread machine

There is a new website for people with celiac disease, the intended use is to provide information and news about celiac disease. Users can register free, and each user is encouraged to maintain their own blog as well as posting messages to a fairly basic forum. Users can also create polls which anyone can vote on, registered or not.

Perhaps the best feature of this new website is the Celiac-related news. It is categorized, mixed, blended and served in your choice of several ways -as just headlines in the left and right sidebars, or in more detail if you use the navigation links.

There is also a big long section of GF recipes, and links to a few GF food items.

The site designer (c'est moi) hopes to build a community of people with celiac disease, and people on a GF diet for other reasons, like autism, are certainly welcome too. There is still time for you to be among the very first people to create an account at All About Celiac. Really, visit http://allaboutceliac.org/ today! It's all free, of course.

Technorati Tags: celiac, gluten free, celiac disease, gluten free diet, gf, autism, gluten free recipe, GF videos

There now is a new option for online food shopping available to people affected by celiac disease, autism spectrum disorder, ADHD, and other conditions that may benefit from a gluten free diet. Gluten Free Live is now online, with more shopping options for you.

Gluten Free Live (GlutenFreeLive.com) offers gluten-free bread, bread mixes, buns, cereal, cookies, crackers and more. There is a section of this online store for gluten free and dairy free foods, as well as an area with gluten free milk substitutes in both dry and liquid form. Vegetarians who are eating gluten free will find an area just for them, and the gluten free pasta aisle is sure to be a favorite for everyone on a GF diet.Gluten Free Live uses advanced methods to find and filter online food sources so that you don’t have to wander through a web shop full of food you can not eat.

The founder of Gluten Free Live (GlutenFreeLive.com)is himself a vegetarian with celiac disease, so the site is backed up by years of personal experience eating a GF diet and designing web applications. At Gluten Free Live we want to help you be gluten-free.The book department at Gluten Free Live offers pre-configured lists of books about autism and celiac disease, as well as gluten free cookbooks. There are virtual store aisles with GF snacks, energy bars, fruit bars and our top-selling gluten free pretzels. There is also a section with gluten free meals that are ready to eat or require a minimum of preparation.

Busy cooks can find bread mixes, all kinds of gluten free flour, gluten free pizza shells, and gluten free pancake mix.Because many people on a gluten free diet rely on rice as a staple, the store (GlutenFreeLive.com) also features rice cookers, and rounding out the kitchen wares is a selection of bread machines. Gluten Free Live also offers pages with free gluten-free recipes and the latest news about celiac disease and autism. By partnering with Amazon the site is able to offer free super-saver shipping on many orders that total $25 or more. Gluten Free Live is now open for business. Shop now, shop often.

Technorati Tags: Gluten free food, gf shopping, celiac disease, gluten free shopping