Gluten-free

[Luanne]

For the people that can't eat gluten. Do you sometimes feel like you just can't eat? I feel like I eat the exact same things all the time because there is nothing else I can eat. It is starting to get frustrating for me. I can't eat much dairy either which just makes it worse. I miss milk.

[Mama Geek]

Can you try silk?

 

Dh can't eat a lot of dairy but he can eat some like cheese, yogurt, small amounts of ice cream.

 

What are some of the things that you like that maybe we can help you come up with substitutes for?

[Luanne]

I have tried silk (my father drinks it) and I can't stand the taste of it. I can have a little bit of cheese and yogurt, but not icecream.

[NicAnn]

I felt like that in the beginning. It's hard. Now we eat well, and eat a lot! We are dairy free too.

 

We eat a lot of curries, stir fries, and Mexican dishes. Try Daiya cheeze on enchiladas and you won't taste a difference!

Hummus is a favorite here. Pot pie made with Pamela's drop biscuit recipe. Turkey meatballs over rice.

[athena1277]

When dd started eating GF (she has celiac disease), the best advice I got was this: Look at your favorite recipes that you can no longer have. Identify the ingredients that make it unsafe to eat and then look for a substitution for that ingredient. I have converted several of my recipes so that i only have to make one dish that everyone, including dd, can eat.

 

Also, look up Living Without. They have lots of recipes and advice for people on restricted diets, including those with multiple food allergies/intolerances.

[Luanne]

Thanks for the suggestions.

[ElizabethB]

What do you miss?

 

Oat milk is good for sauces and in coffee or hot cocoa. Rice milk is good for cereal and lighter dishes, desserts.

 

There are a lot of ethnic foods that have no gluten or milk. Asian food, middle eastern food, Indian food, Ethiopian food, etc. (The Ethiopians make a sourdough "bread" called injera that is gluten free, it is made from teff flour.)

[Luanne]

What do you miss?

 

Oat milk is good for sauces and in coffee or hot cocoa. Rice milk is good for cereal and lighter dishes, desserts.

 

There are a lot of ethnic foods that have no gluten or milk. Asian food, middle eastern food, Indian food, Ethiopian food, etc. (The Ethiopians make a sourdough "bread" called injera that is gluten free, it is made from teff flour.)

 

 

 

I forgot to mention that I can't eat tomatoes or have anything spicy at all either. My stomach is very sensitive.

[ElizabethB]

 

 

I forgot to mention that I can't eat tomatoes or have anything spicy at all either. My stomach is very sensitive.

 

:grouphug:

 

You can make your own version of these ethnic foods to your own specifications.

[Karen in CO]

Sorry. It is hard to start with. I try very hard to keep focused on the world of things we can have instead of what we can't. I substitute what we can and find new recipes full of things we can have.

 

For the record, here is our list of things people in my family cannot eat:

gluten

dairy

raspberries

apples

tomatoes

mustard

soy

peas

tree-nuts

citrus

cinnamon

a lot of spices

 

corn

onions

peanuts

mushrooms

 

plus I am also allergic to pork and chicken but serve it to the rest of the family

 

With all of that, we eat three meals a day plus snacks and don't typically feel deprived. It initially was very hard and depressing, but we focus on our improved health and the wide variety that we have.

[justamouse]

For the people that can't eat gluten. Do you sometimes feel like you just can't eat? I feel like I eat the exact same things all the time because there is nothing else I can eat. It is starting to get frustrating for me. I can't eat much dairy either which just makes it worse. I miss milk.

 

I'm gluten free and dairy free (though I just dipped my toe in the Raw Milk world and didn't need an epi pen, yay!) And, I've been doing this for a year.

 

At first you feel as if there's nothing you can eat. Yup. That's when you realize how gluten heavy your meals were.

 

Make a list of what you CAN eat, and work a *menu* from there. Why a menu? Because you will get hungry, and if you've *planned* for it, you can either just whip something up, or reach for it.

 

Almond milk is SO easy to make and so good for you, and so much cheaper than buying it! And, if you make it with dates, vanilla, and a dash of cinnamon, it's totally yummy.

 

soak 1 cup of almonds over night

 

then, in the blender put almonds, 4 cups of water, 1 tsp of cinnamon, vanilla (about an inch if you use the bean) and 3 dates (pit them first). Blend it up. Then strain it in a tea towel --I use an old flour sack I have. Then keep the meal! Add it to stuff! If you make some almond meal pancakes or cookies, they come out so good!

 

And here--Against All Grain is a great blog with such good recipes. And she has a cook book that's coming out. The Paleo Mom is also a great blog, and Sarah is a research scientist and the information she has on her blog is nothing short of amazing.

 

We also don't eat soy, or corn, but I just work around that.

[Eagle]

When we first had to cut out many foods (including wheat) I found it very overwhelming. I did lots of searches online and in cookbooks for new recipes. When we found one that we liked, I printed it out or photocopied the page and put it in a binder. Otherwise I wouldn't remember all the options available because we had only had the dish once (compared to what we used to eat, which we had eaten dozens of times and was therefore prominent in my mind). After a while planning meals became easy because I would pull out the binder and flip through to find what we wanted to eat. If I wanted a snack and was wandering aimlessly by the pantry cupboard thinking of all the things I could no longer eat, I just pulled out the binder and everything in front of me was something I COULD eat. I ended up making a list for in the binder of other foods I could eat (not just recipes to make) because it made me feel good to see a list of choices for food and also jogged my memory for tasty options when all I could think about was things I could no longer have. So my snack list contained things like apple slices, chickpeas, miso soup, potato chips, cucumbers and pepper slices.

 

It does get easier over time. I no longer miss wheat, although I do miss the convenience of not having to make everything we eat from scratch. (Ds has severe allergies)

[Mom-ninja.]

I don't really miss certain foods. As another poster said I miss the convenience of just being able to pick something up.

[Luanne]

I don't really miss certain foods. As another poster said I miss the convenience of just being able to pick something up.

 

I think this is a big part of it. I don't always have time to spend on making something to eat and it gets frustrating.

[Eagle]

 

 

I think this is a big part of it. I don't always have time to spend on making something to eat and it gets frustrating.

 

It really helps to make lunch items that last several days. Quinoa salad, cut up veggies and hummous, soup, veggie sushi. It is nice to be able to pull a prepared dish out for a few days in a row and add something simple like a cut up apple and some berries -- and voila! lunch is made.

 

My son is only 5 but is getting to already be a help in preparing food. He can read the recipe and get the ingredients and kitchen tools out. If we need a can of something he can open it himself (yay left handed can opener!). He loves adding ingredients together and stirring, and is getting pretty good at measuring things too. He even peels carrots (insanely slowly and not well.... ). But cooking time has become part of what we do and is a together activity. We essentially build it into our day as another subject.

[Uff Da!]

It took about a year before I started seeing all I could eat. We have a rice cooker and, on lazy days, I make rice or microwave bake potatoes. We do the shredded cauliflower pizza crust (it has cheese in the crust) and use Pamela's pancake mix for pancakes, cookies, banana bread, biscuits and so forth. Lettuce wraps and corn tortillas wraps can replace sandwiches if the expensive GF bread isn't in the house. A lot of soups (chili!) I will throw fritos on top. The crock pot is a good friend.

 

It gets easier. I don't think much about it now as the gluten habits are gone.

[Plateau Mama]

It took about a year before I started seeing all I could eat. We have a rice cooker and, on lazy days, I make rice or microwave bake potatoes. We do the shredded cauliflower pizza crust (it has cheese in the crust) and use Pamela's pancake mix for pancakes, cookies, banana bread, biscuits and so forth. Lettuce wraps and corn tortillas wraps can replace sandwiches if the expensive GF bread isn't in the house. A lot of soups (chili!) I will throw fritos on top. The crock pot is a good friend.

 

It gets easier. I don't think much about it now as the gluten habits are gone.

 

Just an FYI for the OP, Pamela's contains milk.

[AimeeM]

My daughter is gluten/wheat free (Celiac).

 

I have to say, between Publix, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods, we have found GF/WF alternatives to most of her favorite foods. We've found pastas, sauces, marinades, snacks, breads... and she loves all of them. I've been able to convert most of her favorite dishes to GF/WF; courtesy GF pasta, flour, and bread crumbs, she can have her favorite dish - chicken parm.

 

The only thing we haven't found an alternative for it her absolute, all time favorite - spinach mozzarella ravioli (from Costco) with the seasoning/cheese packets. She's sad about that.