Question by Youth in Asia: My girlfriend just got diagnosed with Celiacs disease. I need a list of some Gluten-Free foods?
Anybody actually have a gluten free diet? I know the stuff you can pull off Google, like arrowhead root and stuff but I’d like some practical stuff. Like McD’s Fries I hear are acceptable. Anybody got great meal ideas or anything?
Best answer:
Answer by tiggsy
Nope. Macdonalds fries are not edible for celiacs. They are reconstituted with flour.
So far as fast food goes, most of it will be off the menu for your gf. Even the odd bits, like salad without dressing, may well be contaminated by being handled with implements that were previously used for other things.
There are places you can get gluten free food to go, but they are not your regular places, mostly. Though I believe that Wendy’s salad bar has a fairly good selection – but since it’s serve it yourself, it’s very likely somebody will have used the same spoon to pick up croutons and then salad… cross contamination.
Even a hint of gluten will damage your gf’s health. The life exptectancy of celiacs has been shown to be directly related to how well they adhere to a 100% gluten free diet.
Gluten is the protein in wheat, rye, barley, spelt and a few other closely related grains. It’s not in corn, rice, or oats, although oats are mostly contaminated during processing, so you would need to buy ones that are certified gluten free (meaning they were processed in a gluten free environment).
Your girlfriend is going to get a crash course in label reading – unless she wants to go entirely the natural route. Processed food almost always contains gluten for one reason or another, often just as a flavoring (malt), or to thicken, bind, stop stuff sticking together (grated cheese), as a carrier (in blue cheese), and so on. And if you buy a pack of something one time that you checked, and it was gluten free, it doesn’t mean that another pack bought on the same day or on a different day will also be gluten free.
Manufacturers change ingredients without any warning or mention on the front of the pack, depending on price and availability. So the only way to be safe, if you’re buying processed food not specificatlly labeled “gluten free” (and sometimes even if it is), you have to Check the Ingredients Label of Every Pack Every Time You Buy.
Having said that, there are lots of foods that are gluten free. Meat (not meat products), fish, non-blue cheese bought in a block or sliced (not necessarily processed cheese), eggs, fruit, vegetables and nuts are all gluten free, so long as there is no coating or sauce.
There is a set of cereals called Chex, in lots of different varieties that is changing over to a gluten free recipe. Check every pack before you buy as there are still some “normal” ones out there. The gluten free ones have a flash on the front that says “gluten free”.
Many pizza places and other restaurants like PF Changs do gluten free menus. It’s impossible to know how thorough they are about avoiding cross-contamination, though. There’s a lways a risk if you have a kitchen that prepares gluten free food alongside the normal stuff that some gluten will get transferred accidentally.
Give your answer to this question below!
Kettle and Boulder Make Gluten free Potato Chips
Nana has an amazing gluten free line of cookie bars
All Frito Chips are Gluten Free
Corn Tortillas are gluten Free
Potatoes, Eggs, tomatoes, and carrots are naturally gluten free so that’s a plus there. Kinikinik brand products, an glutino also do amazin bread products that are gluten free. Whole Foods and Trader Joes carry Gluten free products. Ralphs and Albertsons have a gluten free aisle as well.
Meal Ideas- Corn Tortilla- Gluten free pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and Hormel pepperoni which also gluten free. Layer on foil and put in the broiler.
Fosters Chicken is gluten free.
As for canned beans, soups and veggies, read the labels carefully to make sure they do NOT contain modified starch, which could be WHEAT. Most modified corn starch will state what it is. If it doesn’t don’t eat it.
I am in the same boat you are. Great thing is that is that it doesn’t have to change your life much. Here is a web site that has a list of foods that are very acceptable. Main thing is that you need to be careful in what you are getting and if you go out to eat at a restaurant make sure you advise the restaurant that you are extremely allergic to gluten. You will be surprised at the number of restaurants that are out there that have a gluten free menu.
The best list that I have found is at http://www.glutenfreeinfo.com/Diet/glutenfreeinfo.htm
For the restaurants that are gluten free or have a gluten free menu you can look at
http://www.glutenfreeregistry.com/
I hope that helps.
Celiac disease, that impedes the digestion of gluten. Avoid nearly every convenience and packaged foods. A whole foods diet is ideal. A gluten free diet is free of a protein found in wheat, kamut, spelt, barley, rye and critical. She should continue to eat some wild rice, buckwheat, millet, amaranth, quinoa, teff, oats, and sunflower seeds. Ideally, she can prepare these from 100% grain sources.
Everyone should avoid genetically modified (GM) soy and corn products, because their safety has not been tested. These foods are not labeled as GM in the US thanks to the effective political bribery and media lawsuit efforts of Monsanto.
For a balanced diet, she should prepare a variety of dried beans and eat it with an acceptable grain for a complete protein. She should also eat a variety of fruits and vegetables. Eating them whole is best. Steaming and frying in just a very little olive oil is also OK. If she wants juice, squeeze it from fresh and avoid pasteurized, preserved, treated, heated, added, colorized fruit like drinks. She needs some oil for health, but too much saturated fat, even from vegetable sources, can be damaging to health in the long-run.
Personally, I avoid dairy in the US because it most often is tainted with genetically modified bovine growth hormones and antibiotics. Cow milk also has proteins that can leach calcium from bones. That’s right, cow milk is not the best source of calcium. Soy milk is not an acceptable alternative, because soy in the US often contains GM soy products, aspartame or sugar. For calcium, she should eat leafy green vegetables. For vitamin D, just get out in the sun for a little while. Your skin can produce this vitamin. If you must supplement your diet, make sure that the supplements do not involve genetically modified organisms (GMO), these are not tested for long-term health effects and some laboratory tests have shown fatal results. It’s cheap to make vitamins from oil products using GMO, but how do we know that the modified gene sequences are as good as natural foods? It’s not been tested and we don’t know and it’s probably not as good as the real thing.
Too much dairy and meat can lead to high blood pressure, cardio vascular disease, diabetes, obesity, and some types of cancers.