lpellegr

Everybody experiences different levels of reaction to food from shared lines.  Here's your hint that maybe in your case, you want to avoid foods that alert you to their being made on shared lines.  Many foods have no such warning, so you take your chances.  The more you eat non-processed foods (in essence, stuff in its original form that doesn't come in a box) the better your chance of avoiding cross-contamination and eating healthier.

On the other hand, I got sick whenever I ate plain Lays or Fritos, so I crossed all Frito-Lay products off my list. This was 9 years ago, and they might have improved cross-contamination control, but I'm still going to avoid them. Sorry if this is a duplicate - my computer is acting strangely.

It would help if we had an idea of what you ARE eating, so we can offer alternatives.  Try looking into the Paleo diet or the early stages of the South Beach diet.  Do you cook for yourself and just need new ideas?  Look around this site for many.  Do you eat foods from restaurants and prepackaged foods and need to learn to cook?  Do you just need inspiration?  Salad, meatloaf, home fries, chili, quesadillas, hummus, omelettes, rotisserie chicken, pork and sauerkraut, mac and cheese, yogurt, stuffed cabbage, split pea soup, steak and baked potatoes, fish, cheese, bananas, tuna, Nut Thins, Rice Chex, lasagna, etc, etc, etc.....

They should be unless there is gluten in the seasoning or the oil they are cooked in is also used to cook something with gluten.  Check with the manufacturer.  So far I have not had any problems with plain (unflavored) pork rinds.

This product is full of proteases, so it looks like the aim of it is to break the gluten protein down into tiny pieces, presumably too small for the immune system to recognize as gluten.  Depending on when you take it and how long it takes for these enzymes to work, and whether they work at stomach acid pH at all, it could help somewhat, but considering that the size of the protein fragments that the immune system recognizes are pretty small, I'd be surprised if it was completely effective.  It would have to break the gluten proteins down into individual amino acids before they leave the stomach to be completely effective, and I'm skeptical that that is possible.  Still, if it reduces the amount of gluten antigens available, it could reduce symptoms.  I'll still keep as religiously away from gluten as I can rather than relying on this.

Post the recipe and we'll have a better idea.  I know many older recipes put the yeast in with the dry ingredients, which works most of the time, but as the other posters noted, if you're not sure of your yeast's age it doesn't hurt to proof it and add it in with the wet ingredients.  Saves ending up with a squat dense loaf because the yeast was pooped out.

Gluten free bread recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of yeast. Do I just throw the dry yeast or do I proof it first?

Your recipe should tell you that.  Many of the gluten-free recipes mix the yeast with the dry ingredients, but some don't - it should say in your recipe. 

Hi Nancy!  Welcome to the forum.  Do you have a question for us, or would you just like to share?  Cooking from scratch is a good idea because you will be able to avoid a lot of gluten that way.  If you read through this forum you should be able to find lots of ideas for meals for your son, and lots of advice on how to keep him gluten-free.  Good luck!

The Gluten Intolerance Group educates restaurant owners (or anyone who serves food to the public) about how to do gluten-free.  Try them.  Open Original Shared Link

You're right that the texture is different, and you will probably never find any gluten-free bread with the texture of typical commercial gluten bread.  Gluten-free baking takes a lot of experimentation to find what you like, and eventually you will get used to this type of bread or decide that you can live without it.  For myself, I find that I just don't like the bread enough to bother with it on a regular basis, although I often bake it just to make crumbs and have the rare sandwich.  Try different recipes.  There are books such as "The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread" with a lot of recipes, and of course online.  One of the best I have found is Ginger Lemon Girl's Favorite Sandwich Bread Open Original Shared Link but it does have a lot of ingredients and it still doesn't have that "bread" texture.  You can leave out the Sure-Jel.

You may find that you are better off (and save money) finding substitutes for bread - wrap sandwich fillings in corn tortillas or eat them plain, eat leftovers instead of sandwiches for lunch, make pancakes to use as bread.  Keep trying new recipes, and make them more than once, because many times it takes subtle adjustments to figure out how much water to use, whether to lower the temperature, how long to leave it in the oven.  If a loaf doesn't come out good, cube it up, dry it in the oven at 250, and crush the cubes for crumbs or saute them with seasoning for croutons.  I hope your husband is aware of how lucky he is to have someone willing to put this kind of time and effort into keeping him happy and healthy!

If you can find Mexican Coke, that's sugar-sweetened, no corn syrup.  We have a little produce store that carries odd international things and the Mexican Coke is one of our prime reasons for going there!

Just read that the former Chevy's location at the Mercer Mall in Lawrenceville will be replaced by an Outback Steakhouse and Bonefish Grill!  Good to have more gluten-free options.  If you're in that vicinity, make sure to check out the Wildflour Cafe on route 206 in Lawrenceville - very good and all gluten-free.

It's good.  You can also substitute it for at least part of the cornmeal in a cornmeal muffin recipe, if you like muffins on the slightly gritty side (which I do).

You can eat perfectly healthy and fine on a gluten-free diet with minimal processed foods.  I eat meat, eggs, dairy, veg/fruits, potatoes, and occasionally rice or pasta, but I have pretty much lost interest in bread and pasta.  Chex cereal, Nut Thins crackers, gluten-free pretzels sometimes, slices of homemade bread in the freezer (rarely used unless I need a sandwich for a travel lunch), some Tinkyada pasta for homemade mac and cheese - that's about it.  I make bread primarily for crumbs so I can make meatballs or bread chicken, otherwise I'm happy eating sandwich fillings without the bread.  Think about the Paleo or South Beach diet and you're on the right track for eating without much processed food.  It's doable, especially if you can cook.  

What you may have heard about developing allergies is probably somebody's misinterpretation of food allergies that you might not be aware you have until you cut wheat, rye, barley, and oats out of your diet and find that you still have reactions to foods you might not have had much in the past, like quinoa or soy.  

You can try making your own noodles, but I've done it and unless you're going to do it a lot and have all the equipment and ingredients, it's probably not worth the effort compared to buying an occasional box of brown rice pasta.  If, as you say, you have done it a lot in the past then for you it's probably not going to be as hard to make your own as it would be for most of us, but the dough will not have the same feel and behavior (like how it rolls out), so it will still take some practice.

Items for when you don't have a refrigerator or microwave: Jif to Go peanut butter cups or chocolate-peanut butter cups with some Nut Thins or gluten-free pretzels or apple slices.  Smartfood and Pirate Booty are gluten-free.  Be careful of potato chips - I always feel glutened with Lays, probably cc from shared lines.  Lara bars or Nature Valley Protein Chewy Bars.  Always keep a couple of those in your purse.  Roll up some ham and cheese in a plastic bag - it will keep just fine for a few hours until lunch.  Make some Chex mix and take a bag of that.  Homemade trail mix of Chex, nuts, raisins, chocolate chips.   Single-serve hummus tubs with baby carrots or lentil chips.  There are premixed tuna salad cups (just discard the crackers) or just plain tuna in single-serve cups.

Stash a few plastic forks and spoons and napkins in your bag so you'll be ready for whatever you find.  Lately I have found more and more gluten-free food available in convenience stores - yogurt, cheese sticks, some brands of jerky or pepperoni, fruit, salads, hard-boiled eggs.

Any advice on Heidelberg?  I may be going to a conference in November and need to find safe food for just a few days, within walking distance of the convention center.  The conference registration asked about dietary restrictions, but who knows whether they can accomodate gluten-free.

The problem with the gluten-free Rice Krispies is that instead of just taking the malt out of the old ones, they made these out of brown rice.  They are not as crisp and taste different from the regular ones.  They should call them Rice Chewies or Rice Toughies, nasty little buggers.

Just a shout-out for The Bald Strawberry, gluten-free bakery and cafe.  Had a chance to check it out while visiting.  The menu is small, but the waffle pizza I had was great - the usual pizza toppings on a hot, fresh, crispy waffle.  They make salads, pizza, etc, and they have cookies, pastries, and bread for sale.  They also have options for dairy and egg-free and sell their flour blends.  Their website is a little confusing - they used to be in Cape Canaveral, but have moved to Melbourne, so look for the Melbourne address.  Open Original Shared Link

I was unfortunate enough to try the Eco-Planet ones.  OMG how horrible that was.  I knew it was going to be bad when I tried to break one in half and I had to struggle with it.  The crust is dense, like a brick, and twice as thick as a Pop-Tart's crust should be.  The icing looks like it has been hand-applied by toddlers, and has no taste, and a texture like a layer of dried glue.  In between the bricks is a layer about one molecule thick of filling, which again had no flavor resembling strawberry (the flavor they were supposed to be).  I got through about three bites before I gave up.  Mine is one of the reviews on Am@zon.  Even though they don't carry this yet, if you look it up on Google that comes up as a product not sold yet.  What a crushing disappointment that was.

From the smell of the flour and the label (harina de platanos, or something like that), I expect it probably is from plantain.  In strongly flavored muffins (cinnamon, banana, sugar) it was undetectable, so I'll probably just substitute it in here and there in other recipes unless I find something meant just for banana flour.

Yup, the Mighty Monkey Wrenches go to nationals pretty much every year.  I think they and their alliance came in second last year.  They are partnered with a school for the deaf so they also do outreach and education about that.

I tried searching banana flour, but even when I use "banana flour" in quotes I still mostly get recipes with flour and with bananas together.  Whatever - I'll use it up somehow.  The kids tell me the banana nut muffins are great.  Good luck to the Metal Mustangs!  I love the team names.  It's a great nerd sport.

Thanks - how do I find them?  I made banana-nut muffins, which seem perfectly usual with 1/3 banana flour, but with all that sugar and cinnamon, who would notice any difference.  Good to see the FIRST logo and quotes - my son was on 2016, the Mighty Monkey Wrenches for 3 years, and even though he has graduated high school, we are still looking forward to this year's local competitions.  The nationals ought to be on mainstream TV.

Any recipes using banana flour, or tips for substituting?  From what I've seen it can substitute for up to a quarter of the flour in a recipe, but I was wondering if there are recipes that feature banana flour for texture or flavor.  Yeah, I could throw it into a banana bread recipe, but could you even tell?  Somebody proudly bought me a bag, and I want to try to use it.

I have not tried it, but I have a feeling rice noodles would absorb too much liquid during the cooking time in a crockpot and get pretty soggy. But give it a try - the worst that happens is that you eat soggy mac and cheese, and that's probably still pretty good. Give us the recipe if it works!

Is there xanthan gum in your recipe? That would help a lot. I know I have posted Bette Hagman's vinegar crust recipe here a few times - that one works very well for me.