We’re Writing a Book!

It sound awesome. I look forward to purchasing it when it comes out. One recommendation I would make is to let those who are GF know to wear a Medical ID and to put a chapter in on traveling. I work for a school and am the Educational Tour leader. I have to carry a suit case of food with me when I travel. The new company I’m with is trying hard to make the travel safe, but you never know. So it’s all all about planning.

Good outline and suggestions below. Best wishes and remember: that little voice in the back of your head that says you can’t is a liar.

I started reading the outline with all kinds of suggestions, by the time I was done you had covered everything in my brain and much much more. The only thing I might add is personal accounts of people’s gluten free journeys and their set backs. But seriously, I want this book now! Good luck!!

GF & vacations
What to do if you’re the only one in the house that’s GF
How to overcome being glutened

looks brilliant very thorough. Have you got related health issues in
there, eg osteoporosis and so on if you don’t stick to the diet. Also
worth a mention about planning ahead – not just restaurants but ice
creams at the theatre etc – my daughter is coeliac so all sorts of
disappointments to avoid! We have had a lot of problems trying to
educate her educational establishments too, not sure if you could
include basic ‘fact sheets’ for this type of thing?

Don’t forget to include weddings in the social situations. I’ve received backlash for not eating the cake and/or other parts of the meal and for asking questions to keep myself safe. While I am not celiac, if I eat gluten, I become fatigued and my joints ache, among other GI symptoms. It’s hard for people to understand if a specific diagnosis is not made.

Looks good to me. I disagree that youneed to be dairy free unless you havean intolerance to dairy products. We receive many good nutrients from dairy, especially if you use raw milks.

Hi Andrew & Rebecca, I am curious as to why most GF recipes seem to be filled with so much spice. I just like to eat “regular” tasting food. I have been using Jules GF flour using all my “old” gluten recipes.
Maybe you could have resources, such as what certified flours, grains, etc. are available. Happy Editing!

Consider adding a section about the Standard American Diet and the problem with inflammation and auto immune disease which is likely the cause of some food intolerances. My point is that many people try to continue their same diet with GF alternatives to the detriment of their health and weight. You do a good job of featuring recipes which reflect a new healthier way to eat!

I was always looking for information about how to make sure I’m getting all my nutrients, vitamins/minerals on the GF diet … it would be good to highlight alternative grains (& recipes) for quinoa, millet, buckwheat, oatmeal, etc. There is potential for nutrient deficiencies so it would be great to have a chapter on how to avoid being deficient. Also, debunking the myth that GF products are “healthier” … for example, just because you are trading out processed food for gluten-free processed food doesn’t change the fact that you are still eating PROCESSED food. Talking about a whole-foods approach would be helpful, too.

This looks fantastic! You’ve organized your chapters nicely and your topics are engaging. Here are two suggestions.
(1) Add a chapter at the end titled “Tips and Recipes from our Readers.” This would allow you to publicize your GF magazine, spark excitement about your book in the GF community, and give you guys some great additional material.

(2) Add several worksheets at the end of the book that people can scan and stick on their fridge, such as: “A Well Stocked GF Kitchen”, “Essential Steps to GF Living”, “Fast GF Meals” (including shopping lists). This will help your book be practical and user friendly to those who are new to the GF diet; and those are the people who will be most interested in buying your book.

Hope this helps. Happy writing! Laura B., writing teacher from California.

I think for me it is hard to get through to people that the ” allergic reaction” is not something am epi pen can fix. My family cannot grasp the idea that a food can damage or effect a body and not have a quick fix. No matter what I try to show them. Also trying to get through peoples heads that ” ‘remade seasonings, and spices” have wheat. Lie u said the hidden wheat, and gluten. That is a huge thing!
Thanks for all your pod casts, and the magazine, I really appreciate them.

I think what took so long for me to get fully Gluten Free in the begining was because I became so scared to eat so many things because I didn’t know what the large words meant on the labels. Also, I had no idea that I should stay away from dairy at the first. I would suggest that you put in some foods to get you started. Something simple besides just salad all of the time until someone can get use to making the large full meals from scratch. You might also want to suggest places that are known to sell GF foods (Grocery Stores). Some have whole sections for GF products. I would like to see a card put in the back with statistic info and the basic info for being GF on one side, and on the other side put what to ask when out to eat or info for the chef for fixing your food. You might also want to mention family history and how Celiac is a genetic disease. Encourage people to make their own gf cook book to cook at home, some of their favorite inventions that they have came up with of found to fix. Please talk about the health benefit to being gf. Dealing with food allergies I think should be a topic in it too. A lot of people who have Celiac or an intolerance also have other food allergies and some that develop after becoming GF. I think this would be important to deal with since they will probably feel like they are cutting more and more foods out of their diet. Finally maybe you can add a few other people’s short stories in the end. Make sure to emphasize food safety!

It would be helpful to let people know that an intolerance to gluten is something that builds up over the lifespan of a person’s life. A lot of people believe that pain and discomfort is normal as you get older. IT IS NOT NORMAL! It is so nice to be pain free. I saw a difference on the 3rd day of this diet. I always thought eating whole foods would be a lot more expensive, but in reality it is a lot cheaper. We over eat because our bodies are hungry nutritionally. Most of the time we are hungry we feed our food addiction instead of our body’s nutritional needs. When our nutritional needs are not met, we get hungry shortly after eating and again feed ourselves with the same foods adding more calories and therefor gaining more weight. Eating whole foods is more satisfying curbing the binge eating and the excessive empty calories that do nothing but feed our addictions to bad foods. If you are having trouble resisting those addictive empty calorie foods, then you probably are getting gluten in cross contamination.( I have found the same thing with sugar and sugar additives ) Oh, when you eat whole foods you are satisfied with less food, and they start to taste so much better the longer you are on a more natural diet. Because of this you also lose weight. With intolerance to food, your body does not know what or how to deal with it. This is what gums up the way the body works, causing all sorts of complications. (much like sugar in a car’s gas tank). Since I have been on this diet, 5 months now , my blood sugar A1-C went from 7.1 to 5.8. I had trouble with my daily blood sugar dropping so low that my doctor took me off of the Lantus (insulin), Byetta (exenatide) (NO MORE INJECTIONS AFTER 8 YEARS OF BEING ON THESE MEDS), no more Glipizide. I now take only Metformin and Onglyza. My daily blood sugar now ranges from 102 -119. My blood pressure medication has been cut in half. I used to have constant urinary tract infections and pelvic floor pain. No more since I have been on this diet. My allergies are even better. I have lost 35 lbs which is great but the elimination of the constant pain and infection is the main thing that keeps me on this diet. I know right away if I have gluten because the pain comes back and I will suffer 2 -3 days depending on how much I consumed. Sorry about this being so long. Going GF has changed the quality of my life for the better.

I would love a section on which products taste good and which are awful and should be avoided.
PLEASE!’

What about a list of additional autoimmune diseases/symptoms/conditions that are commonly associated with celiac? Like, hashimoto’s, chronic fatigue or restless leg syndromes. Other health issues or blood tests you should check annually? Like vitamin absorption levels or thyroid. And maybe a section on how to talk to your doctor. Especially if you are in a rural area, don’t have insurance or have access to specialists. Or the flip side of the coin (my case) seeing a BUNCH of specialists to treat a myriad of severely debilitating ‘unrelated’ symptoms and no one can see the whole picture. An ‘empower yourself in the dr’s office’ just in case your dr isn’t connecting the dots. We have to be managers of our own health, sometimes in spite of our health practitioners. And it’s ok to fire your dr if you need to. Find someone who can help you make decisions about your health.

Talk about how it’s like being a little bit pregnant. It’s either all or nothing, as even one noodle will trigger the inflammatory response that can last up to 2 or three weeks, and how even though you may not test positive for celiac, you could still be very sensitive and only by eliminating altogether will you know if you are sensitive for sure.

Also talk about how gluten free foods are still junk food, and possibly not needing to substitute one crappy glutinous food for another crappy non glutinous copy cat food. Maybe thinking of shunning grain altogether. Also, talk about why wheat is so polluted in this day and age, and it’s not like the grain our grandmother’s grew up with. Also maybe gluten enzymes to take when you accidentally get exposed to gluten and you want to minimize your exposure. Also homeopathic carbo vegetalis to help reduce your drastic reaction to gluten exposure, and while not making it something you can eat, at least the homeopathics and enzymes will minimize the damage. These are all things I discuss with my clients.

One thing that was brought to my attention was what alcohol is gluten free. I notice that if I drink certain things I tend to get all my gluten symptoms whereas others I am ok. I have not been able to find a great list what is off limits and what is ok

Under cross-contamination we need to be aware of accidental contamination such as I discovered. Supermarkets sell rotisserie chickens that are labeled gluten free, but I found some supermarkets prepare several different flavors of rotisserie chicken and not all are GF, and they are all prepared on the same skewer at the same time, so the chicken lableled gluten free may have been sandwiched between two other chickens that are not GF.

I personally would love to see a section on cleaners like laundry detergent and hand soap. It seems really tricky to find out if they are gf. Thanks

Inspire.com and yahoo groups have great support forums. I had to go GF for gastroparesis and found these sites for this disease, but they have support for so much more, especially Inspire.
Inspire is a great place for those who don’t have a support system in the real world. It’s saved my life, literally.
Your book sounds amazing!
Good luck.

Hi, thanks for writing this book, I for one will be buying it. I am new to a gluten free diet and am overwhelmed at the moment. I also need to avoid wheat so would it be possible to write some things on avoiding wheat as well as gluten. Also maybe a page on inspirational quotes from other sufferers as some days when you are feeling down and have eaten something that brings on your symptoms it is easy to want to give up, but reading how others cope may be helpful to newbies.

Your outline reminded me of potlucks. Potlucks at work have always been tricky for me especially when a kind coworker says she brought gf or cooked gf with me in mind. Even the most wonderful intentions can lead to an upset stomach so I’ve found a way to politely decline unless I have seen the box and read the ingredients. Sometimes my best strategy is to take a portion of the dish home to later throw away if I’m not certain it’s gf.

I’ve never been tested to see if I am allergic to wheat and I’m too old to go for fads, passed the Sheeple stage years ago. I do however know my body. Weight gain is one of the worse things when we do gluten, but not by far the worse. I usually have a hard time digesting something with lots of gluten, and pass blood when I do. I get tired and feel bloated and I do thing I actually show bloating, and sinus problems too. God knows what else it does or causes.

For us it makes sense to avoid as much as possible, we feel better in our home. We have our own cows, but a pig, have chickens, and grow most of the vegetables we eat, all non GMO. We cook with cast iron, Lodge, only one left made in the USA. Have our own well for water. So why have all this right and use a GMO wheat, something that we can see from abstinence have those effects on me and my family. They have different symptoms in addition to mine.