BlessedMommy

Yeah, the wooden spoons and cutting board may be the culprit.

If I were you, I would just buy your mom a new set of wooden spoons and a cutting board as a gift. 

I don't live in that area, but when I went to Chattanooga on vacation, I dined at PF Chang's.

Oh okay, that makes sense! So apparently there are other things that can affect the gut?

If you don't want to talk about food, you can change the subject as quickly as possible. 

The other person: "Oh is that gluten free bread good?"

You: "Yes, this brand of gluten-free bread is excellent. Hasn't the weather been excellent lately?"

What did they see on the biopsy? Seems to me that if they saw damage, then it's celiac.

Because being celiac is kind of like being pregnant, either you are or you aren't. You can't be a "little celiac." I'm not sure why they would say it's "suggestive of celiac" but not positive?

I'm glad that things have finally gotten sorted out for you!

I hope for a day where doctors will diagnose based on bloodwork and not use the results of a negative or inconclusive biopsy to override positive bloodwork. 

I'm glad that you're feeling so much better! You will keep on improving! This is a great board to learn how to be gluten-free, I've learned so much from this board! 

I ended up making the bean burgers and they turned out reasonably well. The quinoa flakes are not quite as neutral as bread crumbs (because of the quinoa flavor), but everybody ate the burgers just fine.

I would've preferred to have the bread crumbs, but I don't always have them on hand. Time to start turning leftover waffles into bread crumbs and freezing them, I guess.

Updating to say that I wonder if it's normal to feel this normal. 

Through the help of this board, I've learned how to be strict with my gluten-free diet and my chronic anxiety has improved by about 80%. I used to have literally days where I would go in circles worrying about the same issue over and over again. Now my mood is comparatively quite normal. I still have times where I worry about stuff, but it doesn't consume my life nearly the way that it used to.

The biggest change that I've made is that I've virtually eliminated glutening at home, since I've gotten rid of most gluten in my house and purged my kitchen from CC. If my husband wants to cook a gluteny prepackaged item he can do so on his own dedicated pan and with his own dedicated spatula. I've also tightened down my rules on when I will and will not eat food provided by other people. (Usually not, unless the foods are simple 1 ingredient foods or the person has been educated on celiac.)

Maybe being strictly gluten-free gives placebo help for my anxiety. If that's the case, give me more of this placebo. 

Thanks for the input. I think that I'm going to use part bread crumbs and part quinoa flakes and see if it works.

I did google and found a recipe but it wasn't really similar to the one that I wanted to make, so I wanted to see if anyone here had actually tried it.

I'll update after I make them.

I have a black bean burger recipe that I want to make but don't have enough bread crumbs. Do you think that quinoa flakes would work?

The recipe is here:

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I love Amy's dinners!

At home I cook from scratch, but on the road, they can be a real lifesaver and are sometimes cheaper and easier than trying to buy a bunch of ingredients and figure out how to cook with limited facilities.

I especially love that Amy's makes stuff that is gluten-free and DF.

Oh another thing that I thought of, is that since being gluten-free has forced me to read all labels, I've started being more conscious of what is in products.

I wouldn't say that more is better! I ate gluten with every meal for my gluten challenge and it was a total disaster. I would think that smaller amounts would increase the chance that you could actually finish the challenge.

When we make meals together the meals are gluten free. If there is something with gluten in it (for instance if forgetful friends bring bread to share), it goes into a designated zone in the kitchen far away from prep cook area. I usually walk by and hiss at it...

 

Totally LOL'ing at that one! 

My first was born at 41w5d and I was eating gluten back then, but again, up to 42 weeks isn't considered post dates anyway.

I think that a good rule of thumb for what needs cleaned and what needs replaced is to think, "If this was dropped in a toilet, would it be possible to sanitize it?" If the answer is no, then you need to replace it.

For example, no way that you could make a wooden spoon clean enough to use again, so that is an item that needs to be replaced.

Whereas, a glass dish could be cleaned and sterilized, so that's fine to keep.

Does anybody have a recommendation for low sugar, non-dairy, and gluten free salad dressing packets to take on the road?

Personally, I found it easier to just switch the house over to 99% gluten free. I'm the cook, so that works fine. If the gluten eaters want to eat gluten, there are plenty of opportunities outside the house. I've found a bread recipe that everybody, including our gluten eaters enjoys.

The only glutenous items that are kept in the house are normally prepackaged and carefully segregated. I keep one dedicated gluten pot for my DH and a dedicated gluten spatula to make his items. If gluten items temporarily come in the house they are bagged and put in a fridge and gluten eaters consume them carefully or remove from the house. 

I stick to the basics when I grocery shop: meat section, dairy section, fruits and veggies section. While there are foods with gluten in these areas, most of these foods are naturally gluten free. For grains, rice is a good choice, and many stores now stock quinoa. If you stick with real foods, you can eat very well without making a lot of side trips to pick up specialty items. Since it's summer, you can also get great flavor out of grilled meats and vegetables (heck, even salads -- grilled romaine with a caesar dressing is one of my favorite summer salads).

 

If you start looking into specialty foods, remember that the gluten-free items are generally pricier and often full of empty calories. With a few exceptions (pasta, occasional bread and crackers), I tend to avoid them in favor of the items I mentioned above. I find I don't miss most of the foods that contain gluten as much as some do.

 

Finally, for staples like soy sauce, consider ordering online from Amazon or other grocers. You'll need to buy in bulk, yes, but prices are so much better for these gluten-free items. Have fun! (I love grocery shopping and discovering new foods and meal ideas!)

Which soy sauce do you get?

I'm looking on Amazon and so far all the options are substantially pricier than just buying San-J from the grocery store.

I like to try to focus on the good and I thought that it would be fun to have a thread where we share the things that we're thankful for, in regards to celiac/NCGI. 

1) I'm thankful that I can't eat cake and cookies at events anymore (unless I make or bring something of course). That is like an auto regulator on my sugar and calorie consumption.

2) I'm thankful that overall I eat healthier since going gluten-free. I've become a lot more focused on fresh fruit and veggies and whole unprocessed foods.

3) I'm learning to develop a thicker skin and not care as much about what other people think

Anybody have anything to add to those?

Has the Beyond Meat brand hit the UK yet? I love their chicken free strips! Very pricey, but tasty. (and certfiied gluten-free)

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It will get a lot easier in time. Hang in there!

Others have given you great advice, the only part I would like to add to the original part is that celiac has a lot of disorders that go with it. You honestly never know what direction your symptoms can go. I never dreamed that I would have a mini-stroke on gluten!

These days honestly I can look at other people eating cake and it has no effect on me. None. In fact I'm glad that I have a medical excuse not to eat dessert at most places, it's probably what's kept me from gaining weight. LOL!

Stock up with some safe yummy gluten-free cookie ingredients and other staples and you'll get some safe treats figured out in no time. I feel that I've become a much better cook since I went gluten-free.

In fact, a few months ago, I brought gluten-free doughnuts to a gathering to share and my doughnuts got eaten a lot faster than the regular gluten ones. 

I agree, the fad diet comments are extremely frustrating.

What is also frustrating is that a lot of people do not realize that there are completely legitimate reasons why some people don't have a diagnosis and yet still have to eat gluten-free. It's not a fad for me, it's absolutely a medical need. Just because someone had a doctor who didn't put the pieces of the puzzle together and order the tests in time or didn't have medical insurance or had atypical symptoms, or didn't realize that they needed to stay on gluten for diagnosis, or couldn't tolerate a gluten challenge doesn't make them any less deserving of avoiding that which they know is poison to their body.

I fall into that category, I will never attempt another gluten challenge, because I'm not guaranteed to survive next time!

Due to the severity of my response to the gluten trial, I would rather treat it like celiac rather than just a sensitivity, because if I do have celiac and didn't get it diagnosed, I will be harming myself if I'm lax on the diet. 

But, a lot of articles on the internet seem to insist that unless you have that slip of paper from the doctor, you're following a fad, so I just try not to read them anymore.

I see celiac (or NCGI if that's what I actually have) as an opportunity to learn to grow a thicker skin. As another non-diagnosed strictly gluten-free person said, "I don't care what people think, I only care what they try to feed me and I probably wouldn't eat it anyway because I don't trust them." 

I almost always make a cooked meal for lunch. But we're different than mainstream, we usually make the big meal for lunch and just have leftovers for supper.

I usually have lots of fresh vegetables around, so I throw together a salad or a raw veggie plate and then do the normal entree like stuff. Some of our favorite entrees if I'm feeling fancy are enchilada casserole and tater tot taco bake. More basic ideas are some sort of soup put together with what I have on hand, stir fry, bean burgers, veggie wraps with hummus, gluten free pasta with sauce, etc. Tacos/burritos are also nice.

No, no explanation. He just says that test isn't specific, and it could be just an infection.... If he had some bad infection shouldn't it be treated? I just don't get why he is blowing off that result?

My thoughts exactly. If your kid has an infection, then it needs to be treated. They ought to be trouble shooting to figure out the infection, if they genuinely think that's what caused the elevated Ttg.