BlessedMommy

Do you only eat products made in dedicated gluten-free facilities? If so, why? If not, why not?

That is a great idea!

Thank you!

The birthday party went fairly well although I think that I looked a little paranoid when I asked people to remember to use the tongs for the chips. Next time I'll just portion out mine ahead of time and forget reminding people to use tongs.

My MIL told me that at the next birthday party, it will be a grilling party and they have an extra grill to use for gluten free only items. And I can put down aluminum foil on it to ensure that we're not CC'ed. Yay! 

I think that you're right. People don't really "get" it, as much as they try to and I don't really care to seem any more paranoid than necessary. I'll just set aside mine and say nothing.

If you're at a family gathering and let's say that you know for sure that something is gluten-free, because someone else brought a prepackaged item and you took it out of the package yourself and put it in the bowl. Then you put tongs in the bowl so people won't be handling their food and then touching the gluten-free stuff.

Then someone proceeds to grab those chips with their hands. 

Is it preferable to simply quietly grab your chips and dip first (and do the same with any other guaranteed gluten-free food item)  or to remind everyone to please use the tongs?

I mentioned that people should use the tongs to maintain cleanliness and prevent gluten contamination and someone made a comment about me being OCD over it. 

With another gluten-free food item, I simply got what I wanted and as soon as I saw someone CC'ing them, I didn't get any more.

What a great idea to use plain tuna! Thanks for the other brand suggestions too.

My kids don't have any furry pets, so when the neighbor's cat comes by, they like to spoil it for awhile before it goes home.

Is there any canned cat food that is gluten-free? My kids and I like to keep some on hand to feed the neighbor's cat and it makes me nervous at the thought of cleaning out the bowl afterward.

It is totally irritating! People can cheat or do whatever they want, just be quiet about it. Don't say that you're celiac and and then proceed to just eat whatever, it just makes it for people who are doing their best to eat 100% gluten-free. 

It doesn't really matter what people eat, provided that they don't mislabel it and make it harder for the next guy. Oy!

I don't mind the fact that OG food is overpriced and not the tastiest, because at least they have options. And the fact that it's not cooked on premises makes it safer. Generally I go out to eat because friends or family want to and not because it's the best food. My food at home is a lot better!

We live in the country, so I'm sure chickens are fine from a legal standpoint.

Though I'm sure that she's tried to be careful to wash things when making food for me, I'm sure that she's done stuff like use wooden utensils and use a cast iron pan for both gluten free and regular food.

And when I was dining when them at a church function, she was trying some of the gluten free lasagna that I had brought and stuck her glutenous fork into it to get a last bite. So I know that she's not as aware of CC as I would like. For now, I've been taking charge and preparing things myself. Lately the family gatherings (birthday parties) have been at my house and I've asked my inlaws to bring pretty generic things to them (like asking them to bring whole tomatoes and I will slice them myself on my dedicated cutting board).

My birthday party is on Sunday and we are having a pizza party. I've asked the IL's to bring gluten pizza and I'm making all the gluten-free myself.

I'm thinking about getting chickens. Having fresh eggs would be awesome! They kids would also enjoy taking care of them.

Any pointers or things to consider?

I've been gluten-free for over 4 years. Overall I've tried to be quite careful with my diet since the day I committed to it, but I've learned even more from this forum about preventing cross contamination.

At high levels of gluten, I get severe reactions. However, at low levels I do not. The most I get at low levels of gluten (say if I ate a bean tostada at Taco Bell that got CC'ed) is the start of an itchy skin rash or my skin burns and flames to the touch. (I don't eat at Taco Bell ever anymore, FTR)

Due to my history and symptoms, I think that it's highly likely that I have Dermetitis Herpetiformis, though unfortunately my dermatologist never thought to run a biopsy for DH.

My family and friends are overall quite supportive, but how should I approach them if I'm feeling the need to be more careful than before, though I've not gotten visibly ill from minute amounts of CC?

I was thinking something like this:

"You know, I didn't really know what I was doing when I started eating gluten-free. This whole process has been a learning experience. And I've recently learned that in order to prevent complications like villi damage and nutritional deficiencies I need to be even more careful than I've been. Even if my outward reaction isn't violent, the internal damage can still be done. So would it be okay with you if I leave a set of dedicated kitchen utensils at your house?"

(this would be directed to my MIL)

What do you think of this approach of explaining my new information that I've learned?

The VitaMix is so worth it! Now that I have seen first hand what it can do, I consider it as indispensable to my kitchen as my stove or refrigerator and I will cheerfully fork out the $$$ for another one at whatever inflated price they're at, whenever mine dies. (but I won't have to do that for a long time, because my VitaMix has a 7 year warranty, so I'm guaranteed to have a functioning blender at least that long!)

The nice thing with the variable speeds is that you can do so much with them! At low speeds, you can make salsa. At high speeds (and with use of the tamper) you can make fruit ice cream. It blenders my whole grain waffle batter. It makes soymilk in 1/4 of the time as the cheaper blender. 

I can make sorghum flour, teff flour, rice flour, etc. etc.

I'm sorry for the stress that has put you through! 

Personally I had neurological symptoms in the form of stroke like symptoms after a series of severe headaches. I went gluten-free and I have never had any recurrence of TIA's.

Hopefully someone who has symptoms closer to what your child does, can chime in!

I also wanted to mention that I grind lots of gluten-free flour in my Vitamix dry container.

We absolutely love our Vitamix! Given the quality of it, we have no qualms with the $500 that we spent on it. 

I have made coconut butter in it before and it turned out great. 

Since we went through 3-4 cheaper blenders before getting the Vitamix, I was more than happy to go to something more reliable. The company is great and has great service too. When my container started leaking, they sent me a new one right away and only requested that I recycle the old one.

I want to learn how to do more with polenta. Any suggestions?

Thanks, that's good to know! After 4 years gluten-free (and with lack of insurance), I will probably never know for sure if it's DH, but it's good to know that my lack of GI symptoms doesn't mean that it was all in my head.

Curious if people with DH typically bypass the normal celiac symptoms and have mostly skin flare ups?

I am not diagnosed with DH via biopsy but had a severe gluten related skin rash during my first pregnancy. I've been gluten free for over 4 years and the way that I know that I may have gotten tiny bits of gluten is usually itchy or flaming skin--no GI symptoms whatsoever.

I agree, there is a mourning process. I have been gluten free for over 4 years and I think that I'm still dealing with a bit of sadness that I will have to continue to eat this way forever. And it's not because gluten free food tastes bad, but I'm more mourning the loss of spontaneity, if that makes sense. The loss of being able to order something off a restaurant menu without stressing or eat food that a friend has made, without playing the 20 questions game.

So, you're not alone!

This is a good list! One thing that I would like to add is that once a restaurant informed me that all their tofu has gluten in it, because it's a soy product. What?? Unless it has flavoring added (usually in the form of soy sauce) tofu is definitely gluten free.

I was going to suggest getting your own set of utensils and pans and preparing your food separately as well.

Does anybody have any recommendations on which types of pizza pans are best?

I'm looking to get away from non stick pizza pans, since they get scratched up so easily. (I have a dedicated gluten-free house, but having scratched up pizza pans is still annoying!)

Has anybody tried the stainless steel or cast iron ones? Any other recommendations?

I think that getting DX'ed is a more important for kids, than for adults. Adults have total freedom of choice to eat whatever they want and refuse whatever they want. 

I still would suggest that every adult who reasonably can, gets a diagnosis, because it is a lot easier to deal with other people if you have a DX. But you can eat a gluten free diet without one. Some doctors believe that patients won't take the gluten-free diet seriously without a biopsy, but in my case (see story below in my sig), I figured that if a $3,000 hospital bill wouldn't make me take the diet seriously, than a biopsy probably wouldn't do much better. LOL!