This will seem counter to your intuitions, but the first thing you should NOT do is go out and buy every gluten free thing that you can find. I know, you will want to and it is exactly what I did:
The day we found out our daughter had celiac disease, my husband and I headed straight to Whole Foods. We spent FIVE hours strolling the aisles, spent hundreds of dollars and rushed home to prepare a smorgasbord of gluten free childhood delights we were sure our family would love - namely cheese pizza, macaroni and cheese and cookies. Sadly, the meal ended with ALL of us in tears. I mean we were literally all crying - it tasted horrid and we could not imagine eating this food for the rest of our lives.
Almost three years later, some of the foods that we ate that first night are now our favorites that we eat regularly and I can make it through Whole Foods (one of our favorite shopping venues) in less than thirty minutes with my cart overflowing with gluten free food we love. The point being, you may not like the gluten free food the first time you eat it.
First of all, if your celiac child is like my daughter, they feel awful because they have probably been sick for a long time. My daughter remembers not wanting to eat in general because her stomach hurt so much. So no food tastes really good at this point.
Second of all, gluten free food is different. It takes time for your taste buds to change. I still remember the first time I baked a loaf of gluten free bread. I did not like the taste of it, but I also could not stand the smell of it baking. Start with some of the simple changes outlined below and give yourself time to feel better and time for your taste buds to adjust.
Food You Can Eat Now
Breakfast Ideas
- Yogurt, Smoothies,
- Enviro Kids Koala Crisp (my very picky eaters never turned those noises up at this cereal)
- Nature's Path Honey'd Corn Flakes
- Fried eggs
- Pocono Cream of Buckwheat - We absolutely love this! Buckwheat is good for you and naturally sweet so it is a winner all of the way around. We make a double serving, and refrigerate half for the next morning. Top with milk, sugar and cinnamon!
- General Mills Rice Chex Cereal General Mills reformulated their formula for Rice Chex to make it gluten free. Make sure you buy the one says gluten free on the front of the box.
Lunch and Dinner Ideas
- Steamed rice - Lundberg Farms is GF
- Lunch meat - Hormel Natural Choice lunch meats are GF. To make ham roll ups roll some lunch meat and cheese together and stick a fancy toothpick in it.
- Hot dogs - Boars Head are GF. Most kids don't eat their hot dogs on buns anyway. Heinz Ketchup and French's Mustard are GF.
- Thai Noodles instant rice noodles - just add water and microwave for three minutes. Leave off the seasonings or go light on them.
- Baked Potatoes
- Any kind of meat just be careful how you prepare it.
- Nachos - Tostitos with melted cheese on top. (If you are using shredded cheese, make sure it is gluten free. Some manufacturers coat shredded cheese with flour to keep it from sticking. In the beginning I shredded all of the cheese myself. I now use Tillamook cheese).
- Peanut Butter - Jiff is GF.
- Corn Thins - These served as our initial replacement for bread and sometimes still do. They hold up well in a sack lunch and are good spread with peanut butter, butter and cheese, ham and cheese. They are made by Real Foods and sold just about everywhere.
Snacks
- Smoothies - Yogurt is good for your digestion (assuming you do not have a dairy allergy), it is cold and it tastes good. Yo plait is GF. Some of our favorite types of Smoothies are on the recipe page. The Chocolate Strawberry Soy Smoothie is dairy free.
- Fruit and veggies: Do not underestimate the value of fruit and veggies. We eat more of these than anything else. Bananas and apples can be very filling. In fact, recent research showed that people who ate an apple before lunch actually consumed less calories during lunch. That is how filling an apple can be. We love trying all of the fruits as they come out with the seasons, blueberries and raspberries in summer, apples and pears in the fall. I often just leave a bowl of carrots on my kitchen bar - they seem to disappear amazingly fast.
- Cheese: Assuming dairy is okay, cheese will probably also become a big part of your diet. Frigo cheese chicks are GF. For variety, try different flavors - my kids love Gouda and sharp cheddar.
- Chips - Cheetos, Plain Lays, Tostitos. Go to the following link for a list of Frito Lays gluten free items. Frito Lay Gluten Free List
- Air popped popcorn: Some of the microwave popcorn is gluten free but I get tired of having to check on it all of the time. We bought our own popper and make our own popcorn. Of course this is how we grew up, but you'd be surprised what a treat this is for kids of the microwave popcorn generation.
- Hard boiled eggs
- Pudding: Kozy Shack. My kids like the chocolate but not the tapioca.
Drinks
- Nestle Hot Chocolate
- Juices that are 100 percent fruit juice
Desserts:
- Haagen-Dazs ice cream - Ice cream itself is gluten free but may contain products which are made from gluten so avoid ice cream sandwiches, cone products, cookie and ice cream flavors such as Oreo, and flavors which contain brownie pieces, cookie dough and cheese cake etc.
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GET EDUCATED ABOUT GLUTEN
Now that you have at least a few things you can eat, it is time to get educated. Thankfully there are many gluten free resources. Some good ones to start with are:
Books about Celiac Disease -
Gluten Free Cookbooks
There are several great gluten free cook books, but I have found that most of my old favorite recipes are very easy to convert.
- Wheat Free Recipes & Menus by Carol Fenster
Additionally, there are so many great recipe sources on the internet that you could almost go without buying a gluten free cookbook. When I am looking for a new recipe, I just do a search such as "Gluten free recipe for -----"
A couple of sites to try include:
- RecipeZaar Over 470 gluten free recipes but limitless more you can easily convert.
- Gluten Free Goddess The Gluten Free Blogging Diva - there is a great community of gluten free bloggers that not only share recipes but their gluten free life experiences. I wish I could list them all, but this is a great place to start.
Magazines
- Living Gluten Free is a great magazine. It is very informative and addresses current issues all celiac's face. Most recently were articles on enriched gluten free food, reading labels and whether the flavoring in yogurt contains gluten.
Organizations/Support Groups
- Celiac Disease Foundation holds an annual education conference and sends out a very informative quarterly newsletter that provides support, information and assistance. Membership is available and includes
a copy of Guidelines for a Gluten-Free Lifestyle, the Quick Start Diet Guide and quarterly CDF Newsletters.
- Celiac Sprue Association CSA is the largest member-based non-profit celiac organization in the United States. In addition to the information on the web site, you can signup to be a member and receive their quarterly newsletter, Lifeline. This newsletter contains gluten-free recipes, medical articles, contact information for gluten-free food manufactures, human interest stories, ads, and a variety of other items of interest to those with Celiac Disease & Dermatitis Herpetiformis.
- Gluten Intolerance Group mission is to provide support to persons with gluten intolerance's, including celiac disease, dermatitis herpetiformis, and other gluten sensitivities, in order to live healthy lives. They hold an annual education conference. The Gluten-Free Restaurant Awareness Program (GFRAP) is one of their programs. Through it, you can find restaurants that provide gluten free meals.
- National Foundation for Celiac Awareness NFCA is a non-profit national organization that is affiliated with the leading researchers in the US who are working toward the goal of finding a cure for Celiac Disease. In addition to finding recent news on celiac disease, you can sign up for an email newsletter and they have an event's page with various events across the United States.
- R.O.C.K. - Raising Our Celiac Kids is a support group for families with celiac disease or gluten intolerance. In the beginning, this group was a great source of support, encouragement, love and advice. It was also encouraging for my daughter to be around other kids that have similar diet restrictions. Follow the link above to an article on the group with local state by state contacts. If you cannot find the group through this link, search for ROCK, celiac and the name of your state.
Other Resources
- Celiac ListServ is an un moderated discussion list for those with gluten-related intolerance's. The topics cover a range of issues from what to eat at Disney Land, recent scientific research, recipes, where to find mail-order gluten free food. Available in a digest version so your email is not constantly overflowing. It is very helpful when there are changes to mainstream products. Recently, Lays changed the ingredients on their BBQ chips which were a treat for us. I found out about this change from the listserv. This list is free to anyone with internet access.
- Delphi Celiac Disease On-Line Support Group is another on-line support group for people with celiac disease. This group also provides great information on the gluten free lifestyle as well as support.
- The Gluten Free Kid My daughter's web site. It has been a fun place for children with celiac disease from across the world to get connected
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SORTING OUT THE PANTRY
Now that you have found enough food that you will not starve for the moment and you have learned a lot of new information, it is time to get back in the kitchen. Have you been wanting to reorganize your kitchen, get some new appliances? Well now is the time.
Deciding How Far to Go Gluten Free
Eventually you are going to have to decide how far to go on the gluten free lifestyle change. Most likely, similar to my family, only one or two of you are gluten free. In our family, my oldest daughter was initially diagnosed with celiac disease followed by my realization that I, at a minimum, have gluten intolerance. If you have very small children, it may be easy to just cook gluten free for them. I know some families with toddler and preschool aged children who bake a gluten free pizza for the little ones and still order carry out for themselves.
However, if you have older children (my daughter was nine when she was diagnosed) I recommend that the entire family try to eat gluten free, at least when the gluten intolerant child is around.
First of all, no matter how good of a show the child puts on, it hurts when other people eat gluten around them! My daughter's worst experiences have been when other students have brought donuts into the classroom and she has had to not only smell them but also watch her friends eat them!! It is hard enough for my celiac daughter to see her friends eat gluten, much less her own siblings. It is bad enough that they have to constantly eat different food out in the real world. Shouldn't their home be a safe haven where they don't feel constantly deprived and where they can eat almost everything in the refrigerator and pantry?
Second, it will be a bigger adjustment in the beginning for the entire family to go gluten free, but it will make things easier in the long run. It will greatly diminish the cross-contamination issues in your kitchen. Occasionally, my four and eight year olds who do not have celiac disease will eat gluten items. Wheat products such as bread and cookies are just messy. By the time I clean them up, and then clean the crumbs up from the kitchen, it usually seems hardly worth that slice of bread. Plus, I barely have the energy to cook one meal every night, much less too.
That being said, we do have a designated gluten area and toaster in our house, and my non-celiac's take wheat bread sandwiches to school in their lunch boxes. This is an easy compromise for me because the food is eaten out of the house and, most importantly, not in front of their celiac sibling.
Finally, even though my daughter was the only one diagnosed with celiac disease, I thought it was extremely important for me to experience what she was going through so I could be as supportive and helpful as possible. I know this may seem extreme - but I can sympathize with her because I know what it is like to go to a party and not be able to eat everything. I am also very motivated to cook great gluten free food because I know how it feels to see others eating pizza and to want some that is gluten free and just as good as my friends. That same motivation keeps me constantly searching for new and better products. As a side note, this is also how I figured out that I am gluten intolerant as well.
I know that not everyone has the time and resources to go completely gluten free, but just try to go as far as you can. Everyone will benefit from you efforts.
Sorting out Safe versus Unsafe Food
Now is the time to go through the food items in your kitchen and sort out the gluten versus the gluten free items. Arm yourself with as much information as you can and clean out your cabinets and refrigerator. Why not donate the gluten items to a local food shelter?
Reading Labels : You need to become familiar with safe and forbidden ingredients and then read all labels carefully. If an unsafe item is clearly listed, then it is an easy decision. If it is one of the items listed below as a possible hidden source of gluten, check with the manufacturer. I take my cell phone with me so I can call before I buy it. This is also another reason that I love the Celiac Food SmartList mentioned above.
By now you know that gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. So those are obvious ingredients to go without.
Some, but not all, UNSAFE FOODS AND INGREDIENTS:
Here is a condensed list of some of the more common unsafe, gluten containing ingredients and food:
- bran
- couscous
- kamut
- malt
- matzo
- rye
- seitan
- semolina
- spelt
- wheat
Follow this link for a thorough list of UNSAFE FOODS.
Some, but not all, SAFE FOODS:
- amaranth
- arrowroot
- beans
- buckwheat (make sure it is not combined with wheat flour)
- butter
- canola oil
- cheeses (except Roquefort)
- chickpeas
- corm
- flax
- maltodextrin (that is made in the USA - this does not apply to ingredients listed on medicines and vitamins)
- manioc
- meat (plain)
- polenta
- quinoa
- rice
- sesame
- tapioca
- vinegar (except malt)
Follow this link for a thorough list of SAFE FOODS.
Hidden sources of gluten:
In addition, if the ingredient label lists one of the following, you will want to call and double check. They may or may not contain gluten:
modified food starch
hydrolyzed plant protein
hydrolyzed vegetable protein
mono- and diglycerides (probably okay in the US)
artificial and natural flavorings
fillers
seasonings
A word of caution:
In theory, if something is clearly labeled and all of the ingredients appear to be gluten free, then the item should be safe to eat. Unfortunately, cross-contamination can be an issue that is not found on the label. Recently I purchased sun-dried tomatoes and the ingredients were clearly all gluten free. Nevertheless, as is my common practice, I dashed off an email to the manufacturer to double check. I received an answer back that they could not guarantee the item to be gluten free because of the manufacturing processes aka they use gluten on the food production lines and do not clean them before processing the tomatoes. A similar thing happened with corn tortilla chips that should have been gluten free but were fried in contaminated oil. Therefore no matter what the label says, I double check everything with either the manufacturer or one of the food list mentioned below.
How do you handle all of this?
For me, all of the lists of safe and unsafe items were somewhat overwhelming in the beginning which is why I adopted the gluten free philosophy that simpler is better. Thus if something has more than five ingredients and is not clearly labeled, I will not buy it. I would rather go without than spend all the time it is going to take to find out if it is gluten free. I have also found that in most instances it is quicker and easier to make it myself and find reassurance in knowing what all of the ingredients are and where they came from.
Initially, as you figure out what kind of ketchup, syrups, jellies etc. are okay, this is going to take you a lot of time. The good news is that once you get your list of main ingredients that your family eats regularly, things get much easier. I can now go to the grocery store and know what is safe to buy. Nevertheless, every time I buy something, I read the ingredients label and check the front of the package to make sure the item has not been changed (i.e., "new and improved" is a signal to check the ingredients again with the manufacturer). This is also why I like the listservs mentioned above. Ingredients changes by mainstream manufacturers show up on these lists relatively quickly.
Whenever I want to cook something new, I do research at home before I go to the grocery store to check for new ingredients that I might need. This always takes a little extra time but saves me from buying food that I cannot use.
Gluten Free Food Lists
While learning to read food labels is a basic survival technique on the gluten free diet, gluten free food list can be handy at times. So here is a summary of some of the best.
You have to use these at your own risks! Ingredients change frequently!!
These are only meant to be starting points. You must verify ingredients yourself.
You are your best and most reliable source of information.
Gluten Free Lists you can Purchase
This one is at the top of the list because it is my new favorite gluten free food list. The night I received it, I stayed awake reading it in bed from cover to cover. It is small and handy enough that you can easily carry it with you.
It has over 25,000 products listed alphabetically by category.
So you are at the grocery store and want some taco seasoning. Just turn to that heading and there is a list of GF brands. It also includes over-the-counter pharmacy products. Finally, it would be handy for travel when you are in a new area and not always familiar with the local brands.
This is a great resource for newly diagnosed. What I would of done to have such a handy list the first couple of months we were gluten free!! Because of new products and changes, it will be update annually with a new list available in the spring. You can also get product alerts on line.
Our life line when we first started the gluten free diet. The Smart List is software you download which contains gluten information on thousands of products. I download the software to my computer at home and to my PDA that I take everywhere with me and to my daughter's PDA that she carries in her backpack. You simply type in an item name like "ice cream" and it gives you a list of manufacturers and what they say about their products. You can also search by individual manufacturers.
A 450 page list of commercially prepared gluten-free sold by the Celiac Sprue Association for $. It also provides information on gluten-free friendly stores. I read this cover to cover when we first diagnosed and carried it with me to the grocery store. Unless they have changed the format recently, the only downside to this is that it is in a huge blue binder making it rather cumbersome to carry around.
I have not personally viewed this list. It is published by Triumph Dining publishes and contains 20,000 brand name and store brand products that are GF.
Free On-Line Gluten Free Lists
This is a free list that is complied by members of Delphi Forums, an on-line support group. The list is dated December 2007. Follow this link for updates to the list. Celiac Disease On-line Support Group updates this list
An on-line list of the gluten-free status of brand name food products
An on-line source for gluten free medications.
Direct Links to Food Manufacturers
Lastly, check out the direct links to individual food manufacture's gluten free list and/or allergy statements on the side bar of this page.
To get started and for some more ideas on safe food, go to What Lines the Shelves of Our Pantry. Here you will find our favorite pasta, pizza crusts, cookies and tips on where to shop and mail order food.
Sorting Out Appliances:
Because of contamination issues, clean anything out of your kitchen that could have the residue of gluten on it. The main items you are going to want to replace with designated gluten free items are your cutting boards, strainers, wood spoons, toaster and any other porous items. You don't want to cut your celiac's fruit on a cutting board that has been used to cut bread. We also replaced our grill on our BBQ. A lot of marinades contain soy sauce which is made with wheat. I bought all new cookie sheets. It may not have been necessary (a good scrubbing can probably get any former gluten residue off) but I was a little too paranoid to use my old cookie sheets for my now gluten free cookies. Clearly label all appliances that are contaminated with gluten.
Labeling Food Containing Gluten:
We have a dedicated gluten area in our pantry where we put our "wheat" toaster and bread. You may not have this option, but I like to keep the crumbs out of the main kitchen area. We also have a dedicated shelf in our pantry and refrigerator that are clearly labeled as the "gluten areas."
Someday you will get out of the house again, so you want these areas to be clearly labeled for your babysitters (and sometimes spouses) so they will know that any food in these areas is off limits when you are gone. Yes, I am paranoid but I have seen too many family members and babysitters confess that they understand the cross-contamination issue then dip a knife with wheat crumbs on it in our gluten free butter. Eliminate the concern by eliminating this option when you are not around to monitor.
Other sources of gluten to be on the lookout for:
Do not forget to check out other sources of gluten that you may be ingesting. Anything that you can ingest through your mouth can be a source of gluten. This applies to, but is not limited to, medicine, vitamins, Chap Stick, lip stick, Play Doh, toothpaste. Even bug spray and sunscreen can have gluten in it.
Note however that the adhesive in envelopes and on postage stamps does not contain gluten.
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CELIAC DISEASE AND NUTRITION
Once you get enough of a handle on your diet that you are no longer starving and feeling like you actually still do have food options, you are going to want to consider what you need to eat to have a healthy gluten free diet.
The names may seem unusual at first (buckwheat and quinoa were new terms for us) but there are a variety of healthy whole grains that are safe to eat on the gluten free diet.
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Getting Started Gluten Free 
by Danna Korn Great book for families starting on the gluten free diet. 
by Peter H.R. Green, M.D.
by Jax Peters Lowell 
This is my favorite cook book for gluten free baked goods. The