Going Gluten Free (and dairy free and on our way to sugar free)

In late June Chris and I met with a holistic practitioner - Dr. Margaret Christensen. Our journey to finding her and these past 6 months of working with her deserve their own post, so I won't go into that now. Suffice it to say she suspected I had a food allergy and, after 2 month-long cleanses, I was tested for gluten intolerance in October, with a positive result. (What I've learned about gluten intolerance, Celiac disease, the research surrounding testing, etc has been so interesting and also deserves it's own post.)


At this point the only way to deal with the intolerance is to eliminate from your diet items that contain gluten (there is research being done on a pill that would allow people with the allergy to ingest gluten without the nasty side affects, but it's not available yet). Gluten is a protein found in certain grains such as wheat, rye, and barley. Eliminating gluten from your diet obviously means no:

Bread
Crackers
Pretzels
Tortillas
Cookies
Cakes
Muffins
Donuts
Bagels
Cereal
Croutons
Pasta
Breaded fish or chicken
Pizza crust
Pie crust
Beer

However, wheat flour and gluten also show up in thousands of other products that you would never suspect such as:

Lunchmeats
Sausages
Hotdogs
Baked beans
Canned soups
Broths
Gravies
Corn tortillas
Potato chips
Oats
Candy
Gum
Cheap brands of chocolate
Chocolate milk
Hot cocoa
Custard
Pudding
Non-dairy creamer
Ice cream
Syrups
Salad dressings
Soy sauce
Flavoring and spice mixes
Malt vinegar
Mustard
Supplements
Toothpaste
Cosmetics

The items in the second lists usually or often contain gluten, but it is possible to get a gluten-free version, it just requires close label reading.

The real difficulty of eliminating gluten from your diet is actually being able to identify it. By law a product must identify "wheat" on it's label; however, other substances containing gluten, like barley, rye and oats and their derivatives are considered "natural foods" and can be listed under a myriad of different names, most of which give no clue that they contain gluten:

Hydrolyzed vegetable protein
Emulsifiers
Bran
Malt
Malt flavoring
Modified food starch
Monosodium Glutimate (MSG)
"Natural" flavor
Brewers yeast
Fillers
Thickeners
Stabilizers
Binders
Textured vegetable protein

Combine those three lists and you're left with a very small amount of processed, prepared, or prepackaged foods to choose from. Which, in one sense makes going gluten-free a blessing, since it eliminates food that probably isn't very healthy anyway and makes it pretty necessary to move to a whole food diet (e.g. Nourishing Traditions and Weston Price). But it does leave one longing for a simple piece of bread!

Thankfully, as more people have identified their symptoms as being gluten related and gluten intolerance awareness increases, the number and availability of gluten free products has also increased. It is now possible to get gluten-free crackers, chips, pizza crust and even bread and bread mixes from the average grocery store! And the availability of alternative flours has made gluten free baking quite simple.

Gluten free baking is certainly more involved than normal baking, but not too much more. Instead of the simple all-purpose flour, the gluten-free baker needs 3 or 4 different flours and additives. Once you've stocked your pantry with these items and have a reliable cookbook you can produce delicious, delectable dainties to rival any gluten filled bakery!


As the title of this post says, I am also going dairy free and attempting to go sugar free (or will be attempting after the holidays). In brief, the reason for going dairy free is that the protein in dairy (casin) is structurally similar to gluten and often, especially right at first when the body is attempting to heal from years of exposure to an allergen, the milk protein can be just as hard on the body. The reasons for going sugar free are many, but mainly have to do with allowing my body (i.e. GI tract) the chance to return to a healthy balance. (Here is Dr. Christensen's quick overview of GI health)

In an attempt to continue baking with these narrow parameters I recently purchased The Allergen-Free Bakers Handbook and Sugar Free Gluten Free Baking and Desserts. Together they provide a great resource for our kitchen. I am still learning the ropes of sugar substitutes (all natural substitutes, mind you, like agave nectar and stevia), but it's coming. For now I am learning about wheat flour substitutes and finding myself so thankful that they exist! The results of a gluten, dairy and (mostly) sugar free diet have been nothing but good, and in some cases seemly miraculous after years of living with the symptoms. More on that later.

Cheers

St. Andrew Christmas Novena

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment

in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,

at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.

In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God,

to hear my prayer and grant my desires,

through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ,

and of His Blessed Mother. Amen

Our good friends Andy and Amanda Wegryzn gave me a St. Andrew Chaplet for my birthday. I have never actually consistently prayed a novena, since they always seemed to me to lean towards "bargaining" - "if you do this then God will do this" sort of thing. But, like I learned with the Rosary, a novena can be a beautiful way of offering our prayer and focusing our hearts on God. Elizabeth Foss comments on this particular novena here and expresses beautifully how a novena turns our eyes from ourselves to Christ.
Christmastime has been very hard for me the past few years. I feel the emptiness of our home and the barrenness of my womb more acutely during the holidays. After all, what we celebrate is a birth - a conception, 9 months of waiting, gestation, and finally, the arrival of a long awaited child . . . A long awaited child.
This year it was a bit easier. I was reminded every time I fingered the little beads that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. The baby we welcome is the Prince of Peace, Emmanuel, God with us. Who can comprehend such Love? Hail and blessed be that moment - the moment in which the Son of God emptied himself (not considering equality with God something to be grasped) and came in the form of a helpless babe to save and redeem us from the curse.
It was also easier because every day, for a few minutes, I offered up a prayer, a cry of utter dependence, like a child. It's one thing to cry out in occasional moments of pain or desperation; it's another thing to lift one's voice every day, consistently, obediently, realizing one has nothing to bring - no bargaining power whatsoever - just a cry of dependence. "Through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of his Blessed Mother." It helps dispose the heart towards trust and a simpler faith. Also, St. Andrew is the patron of those trying to conceive. It was a comfort asking him daily to intercede on our behalf.

Thanks for the gift Andy and Amanda!

It's been a while

I know . . . it's been a long time since the last post. I've thought about posting quite a bit - but in the blogging world the thought really doesn't count. It's possible that the thought may get transcribed into an actual post one of these days, but for now I just wanted to share someone else's post and comments.