How to Find Gluten-Free Foods in a Gluten-Filled World

As I mentioned in my previous article, it has been 11 years since I was diagnosed with celiac disease/gluten intolerance. During that time, I’ve discovered many things that have helped me improve my quality of life in spite of my disease.

In addition to finding things that taste good to me, I’ve also discovered how to make my life much more pleasant and enjoyable.

One of the major areas of my life that I truly enjoy are meal times with my family.

The things that I’ve learned have helped me to become the leader in my family as far as meal times and our diets go. I have learned how to make meals the enjoyable and close times of sharing that they are meant to be…not complaint sessions to whine about the food and how much they dislike what I'm serving them.

The times of closeness and sharing result from the elimination of the complaints and whining. The removal of the associated disunity and discord begins with your food selection.

Here is a reality: You will probably never get the rest of your family to like everything that you eat. So, you need to be prepared to cook for them and to cook separately for you; or, for the gluten intolerant member(s) of your household and the rest.

That process begins with food selection. The fact is that you will need to select foods that they are used to and like AND to pick foods that you can eat and enjoy, also.

I’m sure that you already know how to select foods that the non-gluten intolerant members of your family will eat and enjoy. So, I’m only going to talk about how to select foods that are safe for you or the gluten intolerant members of your household… Just remember to keep your food and theirs separate.

How to Identify and Avoid Foods that Are Likely to Be Contaminated With Gluten

At first, you will probably find that it’s hard to eliminate gluten. Unfortunately, cutting-out just some of the gluten from your diet isn't going to help. To see any results at all, especially the elimination long-term effects such as various autoimmune diseases and cancer, you must avoid it completely. If you are gluten intolerant or have been diagnosed with Celiac disease your day-to-day well-being and, in fact, your life may actually depend upon how successful you become at removing gluten from your diet.

There is plenty of information available for the gluten-free chef, once you get over the shock of finding out you need such a change, so don't despair. The information may not seem easy to find at first, but there is an active community of gluten-free cooks eager to share with you. I have links to information and other sites that are gluten-free at Elegantly, Gluten-Free. Check the signature box for this article for a link to my website.

Plus, there are other places where you can find information about gluten-free living:

• Your personal physician may be able to provide you with information you can use.

• Your doctor may be willing to refer you to a nutritionist.

• Or, she may be able to put you in touch with a registered dietician.

• Find as many people as you can who also need to avoid gluten -- start or join a support group.

• Locate books on the subject at your public library or a bookseller.

• Google and similar searches can yield a wealth of links to useful and accurate information.

At first it may seem just too challenging! But, you can do it. Learning how to identify and avoid foods likely to contain gluten takes patience and persistence.

Gluten-Free Living Begins With The Choices You Make!

The simplest place to begin might just be with whole, unprocessed foods. Foods that don’t need a UPC code because they aren’t processed at all. If you have an apple in your hand, you know it doesn’t have gluten in it. The same goes for a tomato or a broccoli stalk. When all else fails, you can still have a baked potato!

As you may have noticed, labels are now required to list wheat as an allergen if it’s in the ingredients. Usually they’re right, but not always!

Also, they do not have to list rye or barley or oats as an allergen, or any of the other possible sources of gluten. You, or the one(s) you’re cooking for, are the one(s) who’ll get sick if you miss something, so don’t complacently trust the manufacturer’s label.

Sometimes they just don’t know, and sometimes they seem a little careless, but either way, you shouldn’t eat it unless you’re confident it’s safe. The "school of hard knocks" will soon teach which food processors/manufacturers you can trust.

One thing you will definitely need to watch out for in the processed foods arena are food production lines that are used for other, gluten-containing food products. If they are not properly cleaned after a run where gluten-containing products were processed, cross-contamination will probably occur and you or a loved one may end up sick. A similar situation occurs in some food processing plants where they use gluten-containing flour or other, similar substances to dust the conveyor belts as a non-stick measure.

Always look at each ingredient in the ingredients list. The list of eight common allergens makes MOST of the problematic foods easy to see. However, there are other things that may contain gluten in processed foods. If wheat is listed, you can stop right there. If it isn’t, you need to read in more detail.

While you can easily figure that wheat, barley, rye, triticale, etc. are no-no-s, you’ll have to dig deeper than that to be safe. You probably know that "flour" usually means wheat. You should also know that "malt" usually means wheat or barley. If you find something like "hydrolyzed plant protein" in the ingredients, you need to ask what sort of "plant protein" is it?

"Starch" is another big question – what kind of starch is it? Corn starch would be fine, but if the label doesn’t say, then it might be wheat starch. Unless you know which it is, avoid it, or find out from the manufacturer what is in that specific product.

Some manufacturers have very good information available on their websites. Some have phone numbers for you to call with questions. You can also email or write them. Once I find a manufacturer whose brand of a particular food is safe, I usually stick with them when possible -- but I still always check the label again; Each and every time.

They aren’t responsible to warn us when they change the ingredients, and some change frequently. How often have you seen "new, improved" on a label? That means the ingredients have changed.

You can find some good lists online to help, too. Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG) has information available on their website such as Gluten-Free Diet Instruction (safe and unsafe foods), as well as Easy-to-Find and Easy-to-Fix Foods.

Celiac.com provides two useful lists for reference -- a safe foods list and an unsafe foods list. Again, check their websites or look in the right-hand column on the Elegantly, Gluten-Free website for useful, informative links.

Become A Gluten-Free Living Fanatic

You’ll need to become a fanatic about checking labels of everything you eat. Doing that while shopping or at home is one thing. You’ll also have to do that, or the equivalent, wherever else you might eat. Learn to politely but firmly decline taking anything you’re not sure about.

Of course, these same requirements of eating -- and not eating -- with regard to your health will also apply wherever else you might eat, whether you’re at work, or travelling, or at a pot luck, for example.

If you’re taking a sack lunch for yourself, you’ll be able to control what you eat, but if you’re hoping to share a dish with others, caution is needed!

One thing that I do is to prepare food ahead of time when I'm going to eat somewhere I know that there will be a lot of gluten around. Most of my friends appreciate the gesture when I bring my own food and recognize that they just plain are not set up to meet my needs.

When I do that I get the best of both worlds. I get fellowship and friendship as well as safe food!

I hope that this will give you some ideas about how to select safe, gluten-free foods. It's a learning experience so be Patient, Persistent and Prepared!

In my third article I'll be talking about how to setup a gluten-free area in your kitchen to help avoid cross-contamination with the non-gluten-free food in your household.