Gluten Free Corn Chex!!

Corn Chex is now gluten free!  I'm so excited.  I love this cereal.  And I can't eat rice, so I've been waiting for something corn-based to come along that wasn't in a dinky box, overpriced, and hidden away in the "nutrition" or "health food" isle.

It finally made it to my local grocery store, and it has "gluten free" listed in about 50 different places on the box, with an explaination of what it means on the back.  I love it!!  Hooray!!

Wines I've Tried That Work for Me

Wine seems to be a hot topic on the celiac.com forum, so I've decided to post wines I've tried that seem ok to me to drink in hopes it will help others when they just can't decide what to try.  I don't want to go posting to the forum when I don't have clear evidence these wines are gluten free, so I'll put it in it's own section on the right column of my blog this evening sometime.  Then it's clearly just IMHO.  :)

Update:  Ok it's up.  I'll keep it updated as I try new ones.

Picazzo's Pizza

I had gourmet pizza last night and it was fantastic!  If you are gluten intolerant and want a fun (though slighly pricey) night out, check out Picazzo's Pizza.  Almost everything on their menu is, or can be, made gluten free.  There are only a couple of things off limits.  It's the first time in a long time that I've been able to sit down and consider eating anything on the menu!  

I ordered a gluten-free pizza with chicken and artichoke hearts.  It was a little skimpy on the sauce, but otherwise delicious.  What a luxury to eat the leftovers for breakfast!  I recommend this restaurant to anyone living in AZ or OR.  They go to great lengths to ensure your pizza is safe from cross-contamination (even though nothing is ever guaranteed 100% at any restaurant) and the staff seemed very well educated on Celiac, which made for a very relaxed evening.  I enjoyed a great meal, free from illness or sleepiness.  Ah, heaven!  :)

gluten list resource

http://www.healthnowmedical.com/info/gluten_foods.html

Here's another great list of things to avoid when going gluten free.  Sometimes the memorization drives me mad.  IMHO, labels should be absolutely explicit where gluten-containing foods are concerned.  Nothing should be hidden.

Outback Steakhouse

When I first started this gluten-free diet, I thought I'd never have anything good again.  I lamented about it endlessly.  But tonight was a triumph!  Chocolate Thunder from Down Under is gluten free!!  I used to crave this dessert when I was pregnant and who knew it was one of the only things I ate back then that was ok?  I cried when I found out this was ok to eat, and tonight's meal was absolute bliss (they have an entire gluten free menu and the salmon was absolutely delicious!)  I look forward to eating more very soon!  :)

Gluten Free ala Dustinland

I found this hillarious cartoon last night about going gluten free.  Check it out!

Celiac Prevalence Studies

I found this essay today and it’s a fascinating read. It takes a good look at actual disease prevalence vs. formal diagnoses. Doctors have been diagnosing Celiac disease since the ancient Greeks. I’m sure Celiac is as old as agriculture itself, but modern medicine seems to have forgotten all that common wisdom gathered over the ages. It seems really backwards at times. Especially since 42% of the American population has genes that predispose them to gluten intolerance. Wow!

Chocolate Cake!

I have had a baking phobia for awhile…not sure where it started, but I was supposed to bake a gluten-free cake for my son’s birthday last month and I just couldn’t do it.  I spent a lot of money buying all the ingredients…took me 2 hours in the store to figure it all out.  I was originally going to make a potato and corn starch cake from scratch, but when I saw the price of xanthum gum (a whopping $12 for a small package!) I opted for Bob’s Red Mill chocolate cake mix.   I finally made this cake last Sunday oh my goodness it was the best cake ever I’ve made! I wasn’t sure it would taste good since raw gluten-free batter always tastes terrible, but once baked it was indistinguishable from a wheat cake, and it was so rich and chocolaty! I made my own frosting from the directions on the back of the Ghiradelli cocoa powder can, but with less sugar. It was amazingly good. My whole family ate this cake pretty quickly! I can’t wait to make it again. Now…if only I could figure out chocolate chip cookies. Yeah I know of some really good recipes but it’s this fear of baking I have to get over…one chocolate cake at a time. Oh what a problem to have! lol

FDA and Food Allergies

I put a link to the FDA page on food allergies in my blog roll.  It’s interesting to see what the thought process is.  For some reason, they don’t take neurological symptoms into account when making their allergy labeling laws, unless you count “Sense of Impending Doom” which my boyfriend says, and I quote, “LOL!  Sorry but that’s just stupid!!”

 They also don’t know what percentage of the population is sensitive/allergic to gluten.  Hmmm. Is that just the Wheat Lobby doing their job?   You can read more here on their thought process in making labeling laws.

 My dream: EVERY food product that contains gluten or has a sub-ingredient of an ingredient that contains gluten must say “contains gluten” clearly on the package.  I say, make THEM do the work for a change instead of me having to memorize tricky “hidden gluten” ingredient names, google products, and call manufacturers every time I go shopping. (Thank god for BlackBerries!!)  I am really getting sick of getting sick.  Ya know?

Why PWN Shouldn't Eat Sugar

I was about to write this post when someone on the Narcolepsy Network Forum posted about getting sleepy from eating Christmas goodies.  So here’s what I wrote there: 

PWN should not eat sugar. Heidi L. sent me a link to a scientific paper that explains that glucose binds to orexin neurons and keeps them from working. Presumably, if you’re one of those PWN that’s lost 90% of your orexin neurons, you’ll want to maximize the output of the remaining 10%. Keep in mind that you can’t store glucose in your brain. It’s stored in your liver, which sends it up as needed. Your brain requires a lot of energy through the proper channels. But if you are constantly spiking your blood sugar, well, that can’t be good can it? I’ve had to avoid sugar for years because it makes me sleepy.

Also consider that the sugary items you were eating contained wheat gluten, which several of us find exacerbate our symptoms immensely.

The premise of the paper (see link below) is also a good reason to avoid getting Type 2 Diabetes since that would keep your blood glucose levels high even if you don’t eat anything. I know there’s a blood/brain barrier but obviously glucose has to get in to feed your brain. Following a low-glycemic diet might work well for you. Your body is capable of converting just about anything you eat into glucose; fats, proteins, and more complex starches & sugars. Natural foods like fruits & veggies and healthy meats will give you all the energy your brain needs without the sleepiness. The longer it takes for your body to break down the food, the better it is for you, although you have to watch your fat consumption because fat packs twice as many calories pound-for-pound as sugar does. High fat diets will also cause diabetes.

As far as sugars go, High Fructose Corn Syrup is the worst, (and a misnomer.) It’s 50/50 glucose/fructose floating separately from each other in both of their isomer forms. Your body doesn’t even have to work to break down the corn sucrose…some industrial chemical process has done that for you. Since your body uses d-glucose most readily, HFCS is going to spike your blood sugar more than any other type of sugar you could consume. If you’re drinking sodas to keep awake…well maybe try some coffee or tea. The aspartame in diet soda isn’t going to be any healthier.

Here’s the paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16731510?dopt=Abstract

Gluten Free Brownies

When we went to the store to stock up on food before the impending snow storm that didn’t happen, I found Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Brownie Mix.  It’s made from sorghum flour, potato starch, and corn flour.  I figured, what the heck?  Snowed-in with some Silk Soy Nog and Gluten Free Brownies?  Awesome!  It was very gooey to mix and I had to use a spoon instead of a mixer.  I used a 9×9 pan instead of a 9×13 because it’s all I had, and I ended up with something almost entirely like a whole-grain chocolate cake. 

 While it was cooking I did some resarch on sorghum.  It’s a grass/grain like wheat, but it doesn’t contain gluten.  Awesome, right?  Since I have a history of Narcolepsy symptoms from grains, I ate this brownie cake with the understanding that it might not be the answer to my cake needs.  

So how was it? Heavenly! I didn’t get any Narcolepsy symptoms from it, but I could only eat once piece because it was pretty rich. Oh what a problem to have, right? We’ll see how I react to it over time, but I’d say if I didn’t fall down or crawl into bed by now, I should be ok. Cross your fingers! 

It’s been really difficult over the past few years to experiment with foods that trigger my own symptoms when I don’t really have established rules to work from. I’ve spent years trying to figure out what the basic rules of my food sensitivities are so I could better avoid offenders and find tasty new alternatives, but it was really hard. As a result, my diet’s been pretty simplistic and, at times, bland. 

Since I’ve discovered the gluten intolerance, I’ve felt quite a bit of freedom in trying new foods as long as they fit into the ‘gluten free’ model. It’s like, all I have to do is follow what everyone else has already discovered and I’ll be ok. This could be a misleading way of going about things, but there are times when this has worked remarkably well. Where once I thought I couldn’t eat ANY cookies ever again, I’ve found at least one gluten-free alternatives that works just fine without any consequences. I want to expand this to include other treats because I used to love baking and it would mean a lot to me to bake once again on a regular basis. 

I’m not going to limit my experimentation to baked goods, certainly, but it’s my current project. My son has a birthday coming up here pretty quick and it would mean a lot to me to be able to share his birthday cake with him, instead of just watching the family eat it and trying to not care. To think I could bring a safe treat into work for a meeting and actually eating it too instead of feeling angry and frustrated while I watch them munching away, well that would be heavenly. But the only way to find these safe treats is to eat them, right? 

There are those that would consider it unwise to go back to grains trying to find alternatives, but I say, if it doesn’t make me sick, sleepy, or paralyze me, it’s friggin awesome!! 

Evil Salad

Yesterday I ate at the cafeteria because, even though I brought my own food, I was really craving a salad.  Plus it was super cold out and I wanted some decaf coffee, which I can’t consume regularly, so I have to find someplace to buy it on occasion.  So I went in and told them I wanted a salad but was afraid to order because I can’t eat gluten.  They recommended the greek salad they had (which had extra non-greek-salady things in it like artichokes and garbonzo beans) and swore up, down, and sideways it was gluten free.  So, like a sucker, I got it. 

It was extremely tasty, which always makes me suspicious, but I ate the whole thing.  And then the sleepiness hit.  Ooooh I was so sleepy I wanted to put my head down on my desk and sleep all afternoon.  I could barely think, which is bad when I have to do calculations and mix chemicals all day long (it’s ok, not dangerous ones!)  I was so mad…”Not gluten free!” I thought.  Ha! 

I was dreading feeling sick that night and was praying that I would only have to deal with the extreme sleepiness and nothing more.  ”I can handle sleepiness” I thought.  It’s hard but not physically painful.  Well turns out they were right.  I didn’t get sick.  So it was something else in it that made me sleepy (like that’s difficult.)  I won’t order it again, but I do sort of trust their judgment on the gluten thing.  Sort of. I tried a different salad today that didn’t have dressing and I did just great. :)

It’s times like these that I feel so defeated. I work so hard to feel “normal” every day. When something like this happens I get very frustrated. Like what’s the point of trying when it’s so easy to lose it all? It’s like I’m taking 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but I’m still going forward. (no, the Paula Abdul reference is not lost on me. An “American Idol” ad just happened to come on the TV at the moment that I wrote that.) So I can’t get too discouraged. I’m still working my way up the learning curve, after all.

A Successful Night Out

Last night I went to a party at the Adrianna Ballroom in Portland, OR. As soon as I got my tickets, I was concerned about the dinner menu. So I e-mailed one of the party organizers, who put me in touch with the staff at the ballroom. I was very polite and simply asked if there would be any gluten-free food, or if I should simply eat ahead of time and skip the dinner. They were courteous and sent me the dinner menu right away. I decided that the salad and the beef would probably be ok to eat, so I e-mailed them again just to be sure the beef didn’t have any hidden gluten in a seasoning or marinade. They were very nice and promptly sent me the ingredients, which were fine.

When I got there, I was a little nervous, because we arrived late and everyone had already been through the buffet. I was worried that they had mixed the utensils and cross-contaminated. However, despite the mess on the buffet tables from sloppy serving, the salad was at the very beginning (with separate optional dressings…very nice!) and the beef was at the very end on its own table because it was being sliced by the kitchen staff.

The dinner was amazing and I brought my own cookies in my purse for dessert, so I didn’t feel like I missed out on anything. My first gluten-free dinner out was a success. I did not get sick or sleepy from the food at all. We had a lovely time!

Eating at Work

The building I work in has a nice big lunch room with a full-sized fridge, lots of counter space and microwaves, etc.  We have community dishes and silverware.  But lately there have been no forks, so I brought my own.  I already have my own bowl since I was on a soup kick for a while last summer, and I hide both in a bottom cabinet in a plastic grocery bag.  

So yesterday I went to eat my tuna salad and my fork was gone!  I panicked, then noticed it was in the community silverware holder.  The one with all the yucky crumbs at the bottom.  I’m sure I probably put it there by mistake after washing it, just out of habit.  I pulled it out and it was covered with these dried pink blobs.  At first I was stumped and then I remembered.  OMG cake!  The cake with the cherry frosting that was on the table the day before.  Someone used my fork to eat cake.  The horror!!  I turned the water on scalding hot and scrubbed and scrubbed.  But there were a few crumbs stuck between the tines.  I thought maybe if they didn’t come off in the scrubbing that I’d be fine.  But 11 hours later I got really tired and had to go to bed early (I ate an early lunch…I kinda do a brunch since I usually have to skip breakfast.)  I thought maybe it was the Tai Chi I did earlier, but no…as soon as I went to bed the seizing and paralysis started in.  All I could do was try to fall asleep.  I’m switching to disposable forks from now on.  

I’ve never encountered this problem before because most of the foods I’m sensitive to are easy to see and avoid.  But man, gluten is so pervasive and insidious!  Argh.

Cookie Quest II: The Rice Flour Test

Ok, so I actually bought 2 kinds of cookies yesterday, but I could only test one at a time. Otherwise, I’d never know which one caused a problem if I had one.  So, corn starch/soy flour: check.  On to rice flour.

For those who know me personally, rice has not been my friend for many years. I have had to avoid all grains. In the past, when I tried rice I could eat it once, but twice always sent me to bed right away for a long nap. However, having just discovered the whole gluten thing, I can’t say for sure that the rice I tried 4 years ago was really gluten-free. Some of it was in casseroles. So begins the rice experiment. 
Tonight I tried a gluten-free chocolate chip cookie made exclusively of rice flour. It was a pretty hefty size so I only bought one. Surprisingly, it was bland, just like that dream I had weeks ago. I felt ever so slightly funny when I ate it but I didn’t have any subsequent problems of any kind. However, given my rice symptom dose dependence in the past, I’ll have to do a more extensive test to find out if it’s really something to avoid, but at least I know I can eat one rice cookie in public every year without incident.

So now the aside… Man I was dying to eat this thing all day. I had it in my backpack but I knew the golden rule:

never test new food in public!

Not at work, not on the street or in a restaurant. Not unless I want to end up in the ER with doctors pinching me, stabbing me with needles and threatening to catheterize me if I don’t confess to taking street drugs. An uneaten cookie is a small price to pay to avoid that kind of humiliation and pain. Don’t you agree?  Besides, I had important work to do at work…I didn’t have time for naps and cataplexy. lol

The Prophetic Dream

I’m not quite sure what to write for my first post, so I’ll tell you what happened to me today. First I’ll start with 3 weeks ago.  I went 100% gluten free and since then I’ve been having nightmares about food every night and even during my daytime naps.  I walk through CostCo looking at the giant shelves of gluteny goodness, teary-eyed thinking I’ll never partake of their sugary goodness again.  But one dream 3 weeks ago was different.  I dreamt I was eating gluten-free chocolate chip cookies — and nothing happened.  No brain fog, no sleepiness, no cataplexy, no growing 2 pants sizes in 30 seconds.  Nothing.  Happened.  I have never had this dream before! Since then I’ve been sort of obsessed with trying a gluten free cookie…just to see what happens.  But I was afraid to ruin that image of perfect cookie bliss.  Today was the day.  I bought Glutino Vanilla Dreams, which are mostly corn starch and soy flour.  I liked the ingredients because they used more fructose and xylitol than sucrose (I try to be fairly sugar-free as well as grain-free.)  The consistency was exactly like a wheat cookie and they had quite the lemony flavor.  And then I waited for the inevitable.  And guess what?  Nothing happened!  Nothing.  Happened!  My dream came true.  I must have been the happiest person on earth.  My mouth was happy and my brain was clear.  Never have to two met so unanimously over a cookie.   So why am I so happy over a darned cookie?  I will post more on that soon!