My Stupid Mistakes - Not Because The Gluten Was "hidden" Because This Is Hard!

[lucia]

I've been working on cutting gluten out of my diet now for 5 weeks. The impact of a gluten-free diet is immediate. My GI symptoms clear up entirely after 5 days.

But, I keep accidentally eating food with gluten. I recognize my mistakes as soon as I realize the stomach cramps and pain are back. In retrospect, the mistakes seem so stupid, but I'm still making them. Partly, this is a result of "brain fog". But, I still feel stupid and frustrated.

List of my mistakes:

1. Cafix: a coffee substitute made of barley. I was a week into the new diet. I pretty much stopped eating much of anything during that week. I didn't realize that barley, as well as wheat, had gluten. The worst part is that I turned

2. Ice cream. I read that ice cream was okay. After being glutened, I searched online and found that not all ice cream brands are okay.

3. A superfoods bottled juice drink. It contained wheat grass and barley grass. It turns out that these can be contaminated with wheat and barley seeds. Especially frustrating since the drink was all-organic, super-healthy, blah, blah, blah.

4. Hot chocolate from a cafe. I make this at home, and my hot chocolate doesn't have gluten. I left my keys in my apartment last night and had to wait for my husband to come home. I waited in a cafe down the block. I had to order something. They must have used a mix. Next time, I guess my drink of choice will have to be herbal tea.

Argh!

It's hard to imagine this as a thing of the past. I can't believe that a single mistake like this will keep me on the couch for 5 days at a time.

[mushroom]

Hey, I'm sorry you keep getting glutened - as you found out, it is very easy to do. Word of caution: I have even found gluten in herbal tea It was one of the Celestial Seasonings teas. Now doesn't that just make your day?

[Midwest]

Yeah, I was bitten by the ice cream too. I checked the ingredients and it looked safe. Later I realized I was glutined and that was the only food I knew was different from my routine. I checked the labeling again and in small print at the bottom was the disclaimer about cross contamination possibilities with wheat. Lesson learned on reading *everything* on the packaging.

For me, I got hit with some hidden gluten in prescription-strength codeine cough syrup. I checked the Walgreens bag info (the bottle itself is just that generic brown, plastic bottle) and there was no ingredient list. So I figured it must be safe as it couldn't possibly have G in it. The next morning I was sluggish and the crappy feeling is still hanging in there... I suppose they used it to thicken the syrup which I heard does happen.

(Which flavor of tea? I thought all C.S. herbals were gluten-free! Scary...)

[mushroom]

(Which flavor of tea? I thought all C.S. herbals were gluten-free! Scary...)

I'm sorry, I can recall the flavor now or I would have mentioned it. It was just a heads up to read ALL labels.

[jackay]

I'm sorry, I can recall the flavor now or I would have mentioned it. It was just a heads up to read ALL labels.

Celestial Seasonings lists on their website and on the packaging if the tea is gluten free. The boxes have a star with a K in the middle and also say gluten free. My boxes are old so maybe the symbol has changed.

[lucia]

Thanks for checking in about my message. It's depressing that I can't even count on herbal tea to be gluten free. I remember now that many teas have barley.

It sounds like you all are scrupulous about checking labels, checking brands, writing to manufacturers about products, talking to waitstaff at restaurants. I guess that's what it takes to stay healthy.

I've never been very good at advocating for myself. (I didn't grow up in a family or situation where that was encouraged.) Maybe a positive thing about this condition for me is that I'll be forced to learn how to do that.

[Skylark]

The diet takes a lot of research and practice. You will get better at it!

[drloots]

sorry to hear that. What I found to work is reading about what is safe and isn't in general then as your shopping read labels and keep track of what you can eat. Google is another great way to see what is gluten-free b4 you shop. If you have an iphone there is an app called is that gluten-free which has a bunch of everyday products. Cheers! Jason

[Juliebove]

I learned the hard way to read every label, every time. And at a restaurant, never assume it is safe. Always ask. Daughter will only drink water now in a restaurant. She knows that is safe.