Gluten Freedom: A New Perspective on the Way I Eat

One of the best parts about being diagnosed with celiac disease, in my opinion, is that anyone can have it. According to The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, “one in 133 Americans have celiac disease”, estimating that about three million Americans are affected by this health issue every day. The support from others who have this disease has been a blessing in disguise. I have gained new knowledge, recipes, advice, and much more from others who went through the same things as I have. One woman in particular has had a great influence on my outlook towards gluten-free eating. Eating gluten free can be a tough experience, but it is how you decide to deal with this change that will affect the rest of your life.              

When I was first diagnosed with celiac disease, my family and I had barely any knowledge of what gluten was. As a result, my mom decided to find a book that would help all of us comprehend what exactly we would be getting ourselves into. Shauna Ahern, the author of the highly acclaimed novel Gluten-Free Girl, shares her story of living gluten free, but adds a different perspective. Growing up in Los Angeles, California as a child, she always knew something was off, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She was fed processed foods, frozen TV dinners and brand name products for most of her life and thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until she was constantly falling ill that someone suggested she look into celiac disease. In May of 2005, while Shauna was living in Seattle, Washington as a high school English teacher, she was diagnosed with celiac disease. Instead of thinking about the things she would be missing out on in the food world, like most people do, Shauna exclaimed, “yes!” when she found out. Not only does she have one of the most joyful, excited and eager standpoints towards gluten-free living, but she provides her readers advice, creative recipes, no gluten of course, a memoir of her experiences and also an approach of how to eat well regardless of if you are a celiac or not.

            Throughout Shauna’s writing, her happiness shines. She finally felt well enough to enjoy the things she truly loved. In her case specifically, changing the foods she ate and exploring every available option lead her not into a gluten-free mindset, but into gluten freedom. The entire memoir is about learning how to make better choices with the foods you eat to make life better. Shauna wants people to be able to find a way to love food as much as she does through their own discoveries with different foods and ingredients. As Shauna continues on her own journey of gluten-free living, she encourages all of her readers to follow her lead. She expresses the change she has undergone saying “ I felt a shift happening in my life. All through out my childhood, I heard no. Now, after knowing my own story and cooking gluten-free food, spontaneously everything in my life pointed to yes.” (Ahern 231) Now more than ever, Shauna is opening up the eyes of many to this way of eating. Her upbeat, happy attitude and life changing experiences provide an inspirational viewpoint on eating to better your life. It is not about eliminating or taking away the “toxins” of your life that you are eating, but unlocking all the wondrous possibilities of eating something that makes life better and most importantly, food that you love.

            As a celiac myself, I was able to relate to a lot of what Shauna wrote about in her memoir. Even though I am not a cooking genius, I have learned to find new ways of cooking gluten-free and obtained helpful advice on how to eat stay away from gluten at restaurants, while traveling and much more. For most people eating gluten free, there are moments when you miss certain foods or experiences with food and Shauna addresses these doubts towards eating gluten free, but she is always able to turn those feelings around. She gets her readers thinking about how much better life will be as they resist that craving. I am truly convinced that she cares about food and providing everyone with the chance to eat in the best way possible for their body. Her use of pathos throughout her book changed the way I think about celiac disease. The visual images that Shauna describes such as “the bite of the garlic; the subtle depth of the tomato sauce; the fresh mozzarella, better than [she] had ever tasted” on her slice of pizza made my mouth water just reading it. (Ahern 201) All of her experiences tug at your heart while you are reading and inspire people to make the best decisions for themselves. Flashing back to a specific non-gluten free memory and then taking that experience to create something wonderfully delicious and without gluten is how Shauna is able to open the eyes of her readers and realize the possibilities that await someone in their own journey of eating what’s healthiest fro themselves. Upon finishing this book, I have gained a whole new perspective on eating gluten free. No longer will I sulk over foods I cannot eat, but instead, uncover all the new and exciting foods that will accompany me in my own journey as a celiac.      

           

Works Cited

Ahern, Shauna J. Gluten-Free Girl: How I Found the Food That Loves Me Back and How You Can Too. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007. Print.

National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Ed. Tina Battistoni. Celiac Central, 2011. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. <http://www.celiaccentral.org/celiac-disease/facts-and-figures/>.

Replacing Gluten with a Celiac’s Choice

          Eating out or buying your gluten-free foods from a store has made huge improvements in today’s society for a celiac, but I am forgetting about the most self-satisfying way to eat gluten free: Cooking something with your own two hands. Knowing that you were able to cook for yourself is a great accomplishment, especially for a freshman in college, but the fact that it is gluten free makes your wonderful creation a hundred times better. Like every recipe, the first time making something new can be intimidating, but with time and persistence, anyone can create something magnificent to put on their plate. This is exactly the case with any gluten-free recipe.

 Some people think that when they eat gluten free, they have to give up some of their favorite recipes. This is not always true. With the advancements in the celiac world, there are many ingredients that can replace the gluten. Sometimes, the outcome tastes even better than the original recipe. During the beginning of eating gluten free, I began to miss certain foods that I used to bake all the time. I had no clue how I was living without bread, I craved thick and delicious waffles in the mornings, and life was torturous without a chocolate chip cookie after dinner. I was really starting to miss gluten.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

For those of you that have experienced the temptations of eating a little bit of gluten or at some point will have these feelings, think about other options or replacements. It is definitely not the end of the world if your favorite morning breakfast has gluten in it. Now, there are a great number of different ingredients that can be substituted into your recipe to make it gluten free. According to Karen Robertson from Celiac.com, “Gluten-free flours are generally used in combination with one another. There is not one stand alone gluten-free flour that you can use successfully in baked goods.” Some of these gluten-free flours include arrowroot flour, buckwheat flour, corn flour, and many others. Don’t be afraid to try out different varieties of flours when cooking a recipe. Sometimes the first go at any recipe can be disastrous. I’ve baked gluten free cookies that flattened out so much they filled the entire cookie pan once and also extremely crumbly bread.  The most important thing to do is to no give up. You just have to figure out which combinations create the best replacement in the recipe.

Recently, I visited my grandma. She is an amazing cook and I am so lucky to live only ten minutes away. She has always been known to cook amazing dinners and baked goods for us and when she found out that I was now a celiac, she immediately started looking for different ways to cook her food and many gluten-free recipes. When I went to my grandma’s house the other day, we decided to try and make a few foods that I have greatly missed. Waffles, chocolate chip cookies and the food I missed the most, bread, were our recipes on our list to bake. With most of the recipes, can easily replace the gluten. It’s as simple as using your gluten-free flour blend in place of regular flour. It is very significant to add some sort of flour thickener though in order to maintain the same consistency as the normal recipe. Xanthan gum is a great thickener and although it is pretty expensive and took my grandma and I looking all over town for it, it does the trick very well in a gluten-free flour blend. As Anne Barfield states, “In its function as a thickener, stabilizer, and emulsifier, xanthan gum partly replaces the elasticity and plasticity of the gluten that occurs naturally in wheat, barley, and rye.” After a long in the kitchen, my grandma and I successfully created some of the best tasting gluten-free foods. Some people when tasting our bread said that they would have never known that there was no gluten in it and that is was a wonderful. Others said that it had a denser consistency and a sponge-like fell to it. Everyone who tasted it loved it though. Any food made from your own kitchen can be amazing, but knowing that I was able to replace any gluten in the recipe with other ingredients was the best feeling in the world. 

Gluten-Free Bread

Here are some pointers when making a recipe gluten free. First, don’t get discouraged if your recipe looks different. My chocolate chip cookie dough was a little crumbly but the end product tasted amazing. In addition, it might take a few tries to get the recipe just they way you like it. While making my gluten-free bread, I did not cook it long enough and the end product was still a bit uncooked in the middle, but it still tasted wonderful. Lastly, take be afraid to take a risk. Mess around with the recipe, try different gluten-free substitutes and get creative. When you have finally perfected your gluten-free recipe, there is nothing better in the celiac world than to be able to re-create your favorite food, but this time gluten-free.  

Gluten-Free Waffles

Gluten-Free Bread:

Ingredients

1 cup warm milk (about 110ºF)

1/4 cup sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 1/2 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, melted, cooled

2 Land O Lakes® All-Natural Egg

Directions

Combine milk, sugar and yeast in small bowl; set aside 10 minutes. 

Combine flour blend and salt in large stand mixer bowl; beat with stand mixer on low speed, gradually adding yeast mixture until well combined. Add butter and eggs; beat, scraping bowl occasionally, until well mixed. Increase speed to high; beat until batter is very smooth (about 3 minutes). 

Cover, let rise in warm place 1 hour. 

Grease 8x4-inch loaf pan. Stir dough; pour into pan, leveling top. Loosely cover with greased plastic food wrap; let rise until just above top edge of pan (20 to 30 minutes). 

Meanwhile, heat oven to 350°F. Bake for 42 to 50 minutes or until top is golden brown. Remove bread from pan; cool completely on wire rack. 


Gluten-Free Flour Blend: To make flour blend, combine 2 cups rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour and 1 teaspoon xanthan gum. Use appropriate amount for recipe; store remainder in container with tight-fitting lid.

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookie:

Ingredients

2 1/4 cups Gluten-Free Flour Blend (see below)

1 teaspoon gluten-free baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum

3/4 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 Land O Lakes® All-Natural Eggs

2 teaspoons gluten-free vanilla

1 (12-ounce) package (2 cups) gluten-free semi-sweet chocolate chunks or chips

                         

Directions

Heat oven to 375°F. Combine flour blend, baking powder, baking soda, salt and xanthan gum in medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine softened butter, brown sugar and sugar in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Continue beating, scraping bowl often, until well mixed.

Reduce speed to low. Beat, gradually adding flour mixture, until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9 to 12 minutes or until light golden brown. (DO NOT OVERBAKE.) Let stand 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from cookie sheets. 

Gluten-Free Flour Blend: To make flour blend, combine 2 cups rice flour, 2/3 cup potato starch, 1/3 cup tapioca flour and 1 teaspoon xanthan gum. Use appropriate amount for recipe; store remainder in container with tight-fitting lid. Stir before using.

Gluten-Free Waffle:

Ingredients

1 cup brown rice or 1 cup rice flour

1/2 cup potato starch (NOT Potato Flour)

1/4 cup tapioca flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup oil

2 eggs (or not...see notes)

1 1/2 cups buttermilk (regular milk works, too)

1 teaspoon sugar

Directions:

1. Mix all ingredients together with a whisk, and pour into waffle iron, in batches.

2. Add a bit more milk if too thick or a bit of rice flour if too runny.

3. Can be made without eggs, if necessary; just add a little more liquid to make up for them

Works Cited

Anne Barfield, Anne. Alamo Celiac. Gluten Intolerance Group, 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.alamoceliac.org/actipsxanthanfree.html>

Bennet, E. Food.com Home of the Home Cook. Recipe. Scripps Networks, 22 Feb. 2003. Web. 1 Feb. 2013. <http://www.food.com/recipe/gluten-free-waffles-54529>

“Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (Gluten-Free Recipe).” Recipe. Landolakes.com. 2013. 25 Feb. 2013.

< http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/1470/chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies-gluten-free-recipe>

Robertson, Karen. Celiac.com. Ed. Scott Adams. Celiac.com, 2013. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.celiac.com/articles/863/1/Gluten-Free-Flour-Alternatives-by-Karen-Robertson/Page1.html>

“Sandwhich Bread (Gluten-Free Recipe).” Recipe. Land O' Lakes. Ed. Christopher J. Policinsk. Land O'Lakes, Inc. , 2013. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. <http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/3074/sandwich-bread-gluten-free-recipe>

Eating Out, Celiac Style

            In the beginning, dining out can be very overwhelming. This time you are not the brilliant cook in the kitchen. Instead, you are putting your faith in the hands of some stranger to prepare your gluten-free meal. The inexperienced may not discover that there are tons of hidden gluten ingredients until they have some sort of reaction later or realize that there was gluten in that dish. It is very important to be accustomed to the dining out opportunities since almost everyone goes out to eat. Whether eating at a five-star restaurant, a Taco Bell, or as in my case, a college cafeteria, knowing how to find the gluten-free options is essential to a successful dining experience. As you become more and more comfortable with gluten-free ingredients and foods, you will find that dining out is not all that bad. I know that as I first started to go out for food as a celiac, I felt very shy, nervous and not sure of how to go about making sure my meal had no gluten, but now I have no problem with going out. Leaving your position as master gluten-free chef at home might be difficult, but try out these helpful tips as you begin to explore the many places of eating in this gluten-free world.

            You may be wondering what restaurants are the best to have a gluten-free meal at? There are a great number of different sit-down places to choose from when deciding where to eat. It is definitely a lot easier to choose a place that has a greater variety of gluten-free options, but that doesn’t mean you have to go there. At the restaurant, you should begin by asking the manager or your waiter if they have a gluten-free menu to choose from. As the awareness of celiac has grown over the years, the demand for gluten-free options has greatly increased. As I mentioned before in an earlier blog post, the advancements in gluten-free products have developed over the past few years and in a recent article in The Atlanta Business Chronicle states that “gluten-free menu items grew 61 percent between 2010 and 2011, reflecting [this] greater consumer demand” (Bedford 9C). Nowadays, it is a lot easier to find gluten-free foods or meals, but be careful. For those people that are highly sensitive to gluten, cross-contamination may be your biggest enemy. In all cases, don’t be afraid to ask questions, talk to the chef, send something back, or not eat at all there. It is not worth getting sick because you decided to not speak up about your food concerns. If you are worried about offending the chef, don’t be. He/she is there to make your dining experience the best for the sake of the restaurant’s business. I will admit that at first, I just tried to find the gluten-free options myself, but trust me, that was the worst decision I could have made. As I gained more confidence, I would not stop talking to my waiter until I was assured that I would be eating gluten free.

              On the other side of eating out, there are the easy and quick ways to dine. Fast food restaurants are everywhere and hard to resist for some people. Most places will have some indicator that certain choices are gluten free. A lot of the processed foods sold there have hidden gluten in them though. It is important, again, to ask whoever is taking your order if something has gluten in it.. Since the uncertainty of gluten-free meals at a fast-food restaurant is a lot higher, I would suggest doing some research before going out. There is an immense amount of information about gluten-free foods. You could also look around or ask for a nutritional guide that lists the ingredients. Be persistent until the meal in front of you is gluten free.

            As a college student, I consider myself very lucky to be attending Santa Clara University. The campus provides many options for students to succeed in education, jobs, volunteering, etc. Like it has at many other universities, the gluten-free trend has resulted in an increase of the gluten-free choices and products. Just today I noticed that a new item was added on one of the menus. Now, if I crave the saucy, cheesy goodness of pizza, I can get my own personal pan pizza, and yes, that’s right, it’s gluten free. A lot of the items on the menus around campus will say if it is gluten free, but I still find myself asking if the gravy used for the special that night contains flour or if the sauces used on my gluten-free pasta have wheat in them. I cannot stress enough the importance of asking questions. It is the safest way of staying clear of any gluten. If no one is sure that there is no gluten, just choose another item on the menu. Throughout the last two quarters, I have learned a lot about what the campus has to offer in regards to gluten-free products. Now, I know so much about the food choices I can eat and what I specifically can and cannot have. No matter where you end up, the knowledge of gluten-free eating continues to grow and eventually you will become a master of gluten-free living.

            Eating out for most people is a part of their lifestyle. Just because now someone is eating gluten free doesn’t mean that this habit has to change. Many managers are recognizing “the gluten-free-movement [is going] to stick around for the long haul” (Bedford 9C) as the number of people following a no gluten diet continues to increase. You are not alone in this quest to find gluten-free options when eating out. Be picky. Ask questions. Talk to the cooks. Watch your food being prepared. It’s your choice to make sure that your food is gluten free. No one else cares as much as you do about your health, but you’re not the only one that is looking out for him or herself as well. It is so much better to know that you can successfully sit down and eat your food without the worries of eating any gluten. Your body will also thank you for this as well.

           

Works Cited

Bedford, Giannina S. "Gluten-free becoming a staple at restaurants." Atlanta Business Chronicle. Atlanta Business Chronicle, 10 Feb. 2012: 9C. Web. 20 Feb. 2013. <http://robinson.gsu.edu/resources2/files/news/2012/southwest-effect.pdf>