BlessedMommy

Don't worry about what people think. You can always say that your doctor recommended it for serious medical reasons or whatever. (it's really none of other people's business what your medical reasons are anyway)

I say things like, "I have to follow a strict gluten free diet for medical reasons.  I'm not one of those individuals on the fad diet. Please keep gluten away from my food." 

If people are your real friends, they will support you in what you need to do. 

Even if you never get a formal diagnosis, if you quit gluten and you experience symptom resolution, then you have your answer. Whether it makes you sick because you're celiac or because you have some other issue with it, the treatment is still: Don't eat gluten. LOL!

It doesn't make you an "imposter" to be gluten free without being DX'ed as a celiac. There are valid reasons other than celiac to be gluten free. (NCGS, gluten ataxia, etc.)

I have a mixed house by necessity right now (my kids are gluten challenging and therefore have to have gluten every day) and I'm finding it difficult.

The kids will eat something gluteny and then touch my food so that I can't eat it. (i.e. kids were eating burgers with buns and then oldest dipped her hand into the potato chips without washing hands first, middle kid touched my butter stick, etc.) My kids are still young. (youngest is 2) My youngest is very grabby and will grab at my face and try to touch my mouth. 

I'm going to have to come up with a better strategy, if I want to keep any gluten stuff in the house for the kids long term.

If that isn't successful, we'll just have to have the house go gluten free again. It can be difficult to have a mixed house if the kids aren't old enough to remember certain things.

The hardest part about having a gluten free home with small kids is the bread. Even my homemade gluten-free bread costs $4 a loaf in ingredients to make. 

This would definitely be an improvement over current testing, but for some of us, 3 days of eating gluten would still be too long. With my prior history, I just couldn't take the chance of eating a gluten rich diet for 3 days. 

I can see the potential of a lot of people getting diagnosed with it, though, especially those who just feel really sick when they eat gluten, but don't have life threatening or potentially disabling complications. 

I suppose, though, those of us who won't risk eating gluten for any reason kind of have our answer anyway. My body hates gluten and no test result will change the way I live and eat anyhow.

Another idea if you don't want to invest in wheat protein powder is to blend cold cooked cream of wheat into smoothies.

You could eat glutenous soups. Lots of soups are thickened with flour. Or you could make smoothies and put wheat protein powder in them. Open Original Shared Link

Wow, so according to the article, roughly 100% of Americans should be gluten free. LOL!

I tried Red Robin's for the first time and was very impressed! I don't eat meat, so they made me a specially made veggie sandwich on their gluten free bun (avocado, red onion, pickle, tomato, lettuce) and I had their yummy steak fries. Their handling practices are excellent!

They carry the allergy orders separately and even put them on a different colored plate, to distinguish.

I think that no matter what scientific experts say, if a food makes you sick or causes you health issues, you shouldn't eat it.

Plus, celiac testing isn't perfect, there are a number of seronegative celiacs.

The study that was done that claimed NCGI didn't exist had only 37 people in it. That's hardly enough people to draw any sweeping conclusions about the existence or non-existence of a medical condition. Plus, the study was made up of people who were willing to be rotated between gluten and gluten free diets. There's no way on earth that I would sign up for a study like that, knowing that I would be fed gluten.

In addition, people often take days to recover from being glutened, so who knows if the study participants were reacting to their current or prior diet?

I'm right above Ohio--in the beautiful state of Michigan.

Some of the contaminants in rice scare me. I try to use mostly white basmati rice from India, because that rice has the lowest levels of arsenic. Generally, I don't buy rice flour anyhow, I grind it from whole rice.

Another alternative for oatmeal  is quinoa flakes.

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Ironically, my cheap eggs from Aldi's sank to the bottom just fine. Maybe it's better to just buy cheap eggs rather than bothering with getting them from a farmer. 

My neighbor  came over and excitedly told me that she had learned how to know if an egg is good or bad. She said that good eggs will sink in water and bad ones will float. And apparently a bunch of farm fresh ones that she had just gotten floated in the water bowl.

Does anybody know of any scientific studies backing this up or disproving it?

No, millet is an entirely different grain than oats and it's considered completely acceptable for celiacs, even newly diagnosed ones. As far as I know there's no celiac reason to avoid using millet as a cereal or millet flour in baked goods.

My favorite bread has millet flour in it.

I got a 25 lb bag of millet today and a 25 lb bag of oats that were both Golden Prairie brand today. I'm really pleased with the reasonable prices and the fact that it is certified gluten free. The oats came out to $1.64 per pound ($41 per 25 lb bag) and the millet was $1.36 per pound. That is not much more than the non certified millet from the other bulk supplier.

The price on the bag of oats saved me $14 over buying Bob's Red Mill gluten free oats in bulk. (BRM is $55 for a 25 pound bag)

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Another solution that I use is to go to my Amish salvage grocery stores. I find lots of gluten free stuff there for pennies on the dollar. I remember once I found Tinkyada pasta for 69 cents a bag. I think that I bought 20 bags of it!

Other times I have found Bob's Red Mill products for 99 cents a bag.

Does anyone have a really good bread recipe for the breadmaker? Or a mix they recommend?  At least it will be a larger loaf than the tiny frozen ones for $5

I don't make it in the breadmaker, but this is the recipe I like. I figured out that the cost of ingredients run me about $4 per loaf and it's super yummy! If you can have dairy, the ingredients might run you a bit less since dry milk powder is probably cheaper than soy milk powder. Also, you can buy almond meal for $5 a pound if you order online. My cost analysis is based on using almond meal that is $10.29 per pound.

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Just got contacted by Ebay--this buyer's account has been suspended. Yay! Now not only can he NOT leave us negative feedback, he can't make any other sellers miserable. 

Time to look at reporting him to the Internet Crime Complaint center and maybe other avenues. The more thieves get away with their crimes, the more they will do them.

Down with scammers!

lolz - alright, already     i don't know what kaniwa is    that was just my best guess 

Understood! I think that most people haven't heard of it.

I figured that people might think that I was misspelling quinoa or something. I wish that the forum had an option for putting the little accent mark above the "N" and that might clarify it further. 

What were her favorite proteins and lunches before? Many, if not most, regular menu items can be modified to be made gluten free.

The other option if you want really cheap gluten free flour is grind it yourself. Being that you can get brown or white rice for $0.50 to $1 a pound, you can make really cheap rice flour. Whole millet (even if it's certified organic and gluten free) is fair cheaper than premade millet flour. 

That's what I do for my bread recipe, anything that can be ground myself gets home ground and I only really buy the stuff like starch flours and almond meal. 

One thing that I'm also finding helpful in chopping costs is to stop the Aldi's weekly produce picks. (Particularly for the "Clean 15" fruits, as I prefer organic for many items)

For example, this last time I went to Aldi's, their oranges were on sale for $1.99 per 3 pound bag so I got a total of 15 pounds and we are still eating those oranges! Then next time I go, I'll pick a different cheap fruit to stock up on. That way we get plenty of variety over time. 

SMRI, do you live in NY or some other place where the cost of living is really high?

Because here in MI, I pay $14-15 for a 4 pound bag (so twice as much as your bag) of Pamela's Artisan flour mix and that is at the regular grocery store. 

I know that you have lots of foods that bother you--have you tried some of the more unusual foods to see if you can tolerate them? 

Grains: Kaniwa (NOT the same as quinoa), teff, millet, Job's Tears, amaranth

Veggies: Bok choy, kohlrabi, kale, swiss chard, etc.