Gluten-free diet?

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

Im interested in knowing more about this, if any one has any inform to share..
Im currently going through information online, but it would be useful if someone on here is on this diet due to the results of disease/organ failure..
Im interested to know how much it effects your life trying to find gluten-free products (ie, food, make-up, etc) and where are the best places to find them..
I'd like to know the benefits of this, and if it does improve any thing health-wise..
Im also interested in the consequences of not sticking to this diet in the long run :s

any one?

[LittlePinkFaery]

I can't help you really but ASDA and sainsbury's have a good range of gluten free.

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

cheers :]
I shop from sainsburys, so i'll be checking it out on my next run..

[Tainted]

Tesco also do quite a large range of gluten free products too.

A good friend of mine is on a gluten and wheat free diet and finds it very hard to stick to, when she does have a weak moment it can be very bad for her in that she'll be on the loo all night

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

Eep! i guess she has the allergie version, so to put it :[

My doctor wants me tested.. i think he believes i have the probleming with "absording nutrition" version ;/ ..im so technical with words!

[panda_eyes]

My dad's on a gluten-free diet. He cut wheat (and then gluten) out of his diet for a trial because he was experiencing bloating, indigestion, irritability and other symptoms and they seemed to coinside with eating foods with wheat in. He found his symptoms pretty much disappeared after a couple of weeks, but when anything he ate was contaminated with gluten, his symptoms would flare up really badly. This can happen with as little as a couple of breadcrumbs -_-;

Although it's quite a difficult task, he has removed all gluten from his diet. However... this hasn't been the best way to go about it because it may be a condition called coeliacs disease that is causing the adverse reaction, but testing for it requires eating gluten/wheat again several times for various blood/intestinal tests. As it causes him so many problems to eat gluten, he now doesn't want to be tested for coeliacs; but if he were diagnosed with it he could get gluten-free foods on prescription, free gluten-free recipes, advice and help etc.

My advice would be that if you are wanting to cut gluten out of your diet for a specific reason, it may be worth getting tested for specific causes before removing anything from your diet. It may not apply, I just thought that sharing what happened in my dad's case may help!

I should also mention that when he started the diet he lost weight and felt better than ever, but that may not apply to everyone. It's also much more expensive to buy the bread, crackers, pasta, cakes etc, but sometimes the best thing to do is to look for things that are naturally gluten free, rather than those which normally contain it but have been made without. They tend to taste less cardboardy.

Er, hope some of that helps! I went off on one a bit.. ^__^

[cherrystarlet]

Well I'm allergic to wheat - seriously allergic aswell! It causes no end of pain and discomfortable cause I can get ill from the slightest contamination from anything containing wheat. But once you are diagnoised, and you realise how good you can feel from not eating it, it's very easy not to eat it!

When they were testing me orginally, I had a lot of kidney damage and they thought it was due to being allergic to gluten as seriously cases of coeliac can cause damage to the liver and kidneys and also prevent you from absording vitmains from food and bascially end up malnutritioned. But turns out my immune system was fighting wheat as a disease so my immune system was constantly active therefore my kidneys had no protection and were damaged from the toxins that were being produced from my body trying to digest wheat but not being able to! I was sick for a long time because of this but getting better now - over 3 years later!

Only thing I will say, I found the test for coeliac horrible! Its not very nice what they have to do but its worth doing to know if you are cause you will end up damaging yourself if you continue to eat it and your allergic.

After all the years of abuse, my stomch is left very sensitive now so I cant really stomach too much diary so I have to be careful what I eat. I take reactions to the stupidest stuff sometimes and have to cut it out for a while until my stomach settles down! Kinda like IBS nearly.

I find the Sainburys range great- but we don't have them in Southern Ireland so I have to travel North and stock up! Tesco's Free From range is definately getting better - it used to be terrible! And of course, your local health food shop will be your best friend! Let them know what you want and they will find it for you - wheat-free liquorice was like the holy grail for me and they found it for me and now keep it in stock!

Anyway! Not sure if that helps at all but that's my story

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

That was helpful :]

Im too not sure what my doctor thinks is going on with me, as i mentioned im still having problems gaining weight :s
..and then mentioned to me to get tested for Tissue Transglutaminase.. was the first i heard of it.. i may not have it, i wont know till i get tested in a week or so.. but it left me abit confused, as im able to eat all foods (i have no allergies) and i dont experience bloating and pains when eatting wheat/gluten foods..
Im hoping he will find something, or even just a treatment to help me gain my average weight-to-height ratio..
But if i do have it, and im put on a gluten-free diet, i dont see how it'll help with my weight gain :/ even worst! if i lose more weight ><

Obviously it would be explained with my doctored if that is the case, so im just digging around to know about it more

[cherrystarlet]

I know what you mean - it’s a bit scary when they tell you all this stuff and you have no idea what it means or what to do with it!

With coeliac though, even though you might not get the symptoms of say 'traditional' allergies like bloating/pain ect, your body cause still be allergic but it just comes out in different ways. A friend of mine is coeliac and she had no idea for a long time cause the only thing she ever experienced was a high temperature when she ate something with gluten in it - turns out her body was trying to digest it and going into distress causing the high temperature and she ended up with some organ damage because of it too. Coeliacs with severe 'allergies' to gluten can suffer internally and no other outward symptoms expect unexplained inability gain weight as your body isn’t able to break down gluten and struggles so badly with it that, it can in the long term ,affect your stomachs ability to break down other food, then the gluten 'blocks' it from digesting properly.

So if you are suffering from that form of allergy then it would make sense once you remove it and your body is able to work properly, then you will be able to digest food properly and gain nutrition from it and therefore hopefully gain some weight!

I didnt get symptons of the 'allergy' bit until I was 24! And apparently I have been allergic to wheat all my life, so thats were I got the kidney damage. But it just came to a head and my body went to into distress aswell trying to tell me something was wrong and I just ended up in hospital from eating toast!!

I would love to hear how you get on with it - it can sometime be a long drawn out process to get to the bottom of whats actually wrong but if you need anyone to chat to about it - you can always PM me

[blu3linn]

i became diagnosed with coeliac disease when i was about 14 (now 22), after my mum had been fighting the doctors since i was born, as something clearly wasnt right as i was so little and skinny, always on the sofa after been eating and always have runny squishy poos, and not too mention always complaining about having belly aches.

finding out was a bit of a release and the thought of becomming better was nice. buut, when you have been eating normal food all your life, switching to a gluten free diet is quite hard (and i still give in sometimes) everything you know as nice and soft bakery products you can kiss goodbye, they don't exsist. gluten free flour is quite hard to bake with and in norway where im originally from, we have a *coeliac union* where we share information and occasionally there is baking courses arranged as well, which is really needed. i dont like cooking, so i haven't actually been to one. i know from what my mum tells me, pizza bases are quite OK to make.

there is gluten in so much unessecary these days (tortilla chips? what happened to the corn??), you have to be really cautiones and read on everything, but luckily this new allergy advice labelling helps alot! most cooking sauces contains wheat and gluten too.. so you can either buy the overly priced ones from the gluten free sections, or you can start making your own. i find glutenfree food to be very expensive, and luckily my boy dont mind cooking me glutenfree food from scratch, as he likes cooking.
also in norway, when you have been properly diagnosed with coeliac disease, you will recive benefits for teh rest of your life towards buying special gluten free products, as they know they are pricey. it is about £170 a month.

only thing i can say about moving to england is that i do miss that money, as i make shit money here and i just cant buy as much glutenfree food as i wish to, and instead i have to come up with other things to eat instead of something i would normally eat.

another thing i have just been informed about is that alot of coeliacs have really low b12 levels. so i need to go and get this checked out as i've been feeling really run down and rather limp for quite some time now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
very handy to have read =)

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

:cherryscarlet:
I was going to ask you how long it was until you found out but 24yrs! eep..
It kinda pisses me off that up to now, no doctor ever mentioned it to me or even tried to test me till now :/

I was born a fat baby (fuck no? lol) but by the age of 2 i lost it quick :/ so i was going under tests for years.. so im annoyed that all the doctors i've seen, and all the different locations i've changed docs with, only one (who just took the time to read through my doctors notes before seeing me) mentioned this ><

:blu3linn:
I know what you mean by feeling limp :s
I have the occasional bad dizzy spell where im completely blind for a few seconds >< but it always feels like forever.
I dont do much excise, i try to just to try and get my enegry levels up, but i still find i need a whole day just in bed :s even if i havent done any thing stressful for days, i still get the odd day of feeling exhausted and tired..
I always thought i had a good diet.. i eat alot of iron filled foods and meats..but it never seems to be enough

I like cooking ^^ so it shouldnt be much of a problem.. though i share my meal time with my boy, so i may end up cooking two lots of different things so he doesnt have to suffer like i will xD

but fuck! i love freshly baked bread D: i suppose i could try it out with a bread-maker?

Mmm.. im so looking forward to this *gulp*

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

O'! and also, what is it like in terms of going out to eat? whether it be the local cinema, or a fancy restaurant..
I just realised my uni lunch hours are going to be shit if i end up on this diet :[
I love spending it in either Starbucks or McDolnalds..

[iamtheparty]

only thing i can say about moving to england is that i do miss that money, as i make shit money here and i just cant buy as much glutenfree food as i wish to, and instead i have to come up with other things to eat instead of something i would normally eat.

Have you definitely checked that out? I used to work with a man who was allergic to gluten and he was 'prescribed' gluten free food for free. He'd collect literally a trolley full of gluten free food every so often.

[cancankant]

http://www.csaceliacs.org/gluten_grains.php

I found this really interesting listing of foods and whether or not they are gluten free.

I am not on a gluten free diet, but I am a vegan (by choice), so I understand your concerns about eating out, etc. I would think certain kinds of restuarants would really cater to that sort of diet - organic, raw food places, "health food" type restaurants, etc. If you're in a bigger city, it helps. I have learned to pack lunches pretty exclusively. There's usually choices at convenience stores (once you know what to look for). Regular resturants may be a challenge, but you need to be very specific and ask questions. Don't take the "*shrug* - 'I don't THINK it's in there'" treatment from the servers.

I wouldn't think it would be huge if you're not suffering from symptoms due to gluten consumption, but that's a question for your doctor. If it's an occasional meal out (that may have gluten in it somehow), but it's not causing you pain or harm, I don't think it will be a big deal. If it is, you may need to find a good core group of places where you can eat and then be sure to always pack a snack just in case. Salads would be a good choice, but you might have to bring your own dressing. Plain meats, etc. would work but marinated things (or sauces) might get dicey. In general, processed foods would be more susceptible to hidden gluten.

My town actually has a specialty gluten free store, but any health food store should have products geared towards special diets.

http://www.celiachealth.org/pdf/GlutenF ... ideWeb.pdf

[Rhaeniel]

My reasons for going wheat-free (not gluten specifically, it's the wheat that was the problem for me) were due to endo, but the reason doesn't really matter..
I think it's silly to go spending tonnes of extra cash on special 'gluten-free' products when there are plenty of alternatives out there that simply don't contain gluten in the first place.

I switched to eating mostly rice and potatoes for carbs, as that gluten-free bread is not only far more expensive, it falls apart and it's really dry and not very tasty.
So, I got experimental with rice-based alternatives. Chinese supermarkets are great for this - glutinous rice cakes/mung bean cakes are a brilliant, sweet, sticky alternative to wheat-based cakes. Also, rice-paper rolls are a great alternative to wheat-based pancakes or wraps. You can also get rice-noodles or mung-bean noodles instead of wheat noodles.
I love making rice-papaer rolls filled with sticky Japanese rice (sushi rice) and vegetables, cheese or shredded meat. They're great eaten fresh or deep-fried and lovely dipped in Tamari Soy Sauce (wheat-free soy sauce) and wasabi.
Other than that, there are plenty of potato-based crisps you can sqitch to if you're a crisp person - there really is no reason to buy expensive, special "gluten-free" snacks when there are plenty of normal-priced alternatives that just don't have gluten in.

Oh, and cereal - well there are a few cereals without wheat, but you have to be careful with things like oats when it's gluten you need to steer clear of.. you can get gluten-free oats and some nice cereals in the gluten-free aisle like Mesa Sunrise, but they're all more expensive than they should be, simply because they say 'gluten-free' on the packet ¬_¬


there are loads of ways to eat gluten-free without spending any more than before, but you do need to be prepared to make a lot your own meals from scratch, so that you know exactly what's gone into it.

Good luck!

[Tahti]

I was diagnosed as a coeliac when I was 12 I think. It was one of the major changes in my life because I suffered from gluten psychosis for years (still have the after effects) and a huge range of other problems - insomnia, malnutrition, depression etc. I did absorb food properly until I came off gluten (I had a BMI of 14 or something when I was 11 - ouch...) Unfortunately my absorption was affected so badly by it that I still have problems to this day but that is another matter...

It's one of the most underdiagnosed diseases yet I think it's one of the most horrible because of all the painful effects it causes. Doctors can't actually find it in a blood test unless you've been eating gluten solidly for months, because if you are a coeliac and you eat gluten your blood produces antibodies to fight it. However, if you have only eaten it in moderation it will not show up on a blood test... Which is why a lot of people still keep struggling with their intolerance...

A lot of things contain gluten that you would not even realise also sadly enough I tend to eat only fresh fruit and veg and protein, because everything is so dodgy. (I am severely intolerant so even the slightest amount can set me off) if I feel like eating stodge, I make it myself, because I don't think any of the processed stuff supermarkets sell is very good. I stick with potato and rice flour, they are the only ones that don't set me off. I can give you a list of amazing gluten free books/cookbooks if you like!

It takes a while to get used to, and walking by a bakery shop will always seem like some terrible hellish form of torture, but feeling healthy and happy is the most important thing!

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

Cheers :]

Eep! ..well i have a BMI of 15 and im 20 ^^' double ouch! *high-five*
And im quite surprised you dont look that skinny, from what i can tell ;P

Hmm, i do eat alot of meat and veg, but i wouldnt be surprised if i was taking in a larger amount of gluten without realising it seeing as its used as an thicken agent, "bulk" in some products and even as a non-stick agent in processed factory foods :s ..so its not always spotted as a main ingredient or not even labelled at all

I found this site which pretty much answered every thing!
with pages if info, answers and recipes ^^

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mostof_coeliac2.shtml

The doc told me that they are able to test via blood test, where as before you would be expected to go to hospital to have a tube search through your intestines for signs of inflammation etc..
But i did notice some research suggest they do both, but it was never clear on what country it was refering to as it seems the US have a different attitude towards this :s

[Tahti]

Hahaha I wish!!! I don't have that now at all, I'm about a 19! I had a 14 BMI when I was 11... XD It took me about a year to get back to a healthy weight once I started the process of re-absorption...

Yeah you'd be surprised how much wheat and such is used as a stodge filler, I have to read all the meat products I buy unless they're organic fresh blah blah from a butchers (which means I can never afford them on my student budget *eye roll*) sausages always have wheat or gluten in general in them, ham, frozen chicken, et cetera... Dried goods too, like packets of soup..

I've found alcohol doesn't make my digestive system too happy when I drink it unfortunately... If you like beer, prepare to stay well away from it in future!! ;O Gluten intolerance runs in my family on both sides, a lot of my relatives from previous generations died from various digestive organ cancers which we've assumed now came from years of gluten intolerance...

Whenever I eat any tiny bit of gluten I get depressed, bloated, and have horrible stomach pains... I spent most of my childhood complaining about my tummy lol... I do have a terrible weakness for croissants unfortunately haha!! If I don't eat right either I get odd 'dizzy' spells where my eyes black out and stuff... I remember wandering around for about 2 minutes once not being able to see anything... scary stuff! :S

Edit to say : Lots of places now sell gluten free food, I too have a love for spending my lunch hours in coffee shops lol... They usually sell if not specified gluten free food (ask if its made with spelt - if it is, don't eat it) and otherwise they usually have nut bars, fudge, chocolate...

Good luck on your health quest anyway, I hope you find out all you need!

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

Never had much of a taste for beer any way im more of a spirit and rum girl
I was quite sad when i found out its in quite alot of sausages their my favourite comfort food..

My nan did have problems with wheat i believe, i need to ask her more on that as it my be genetic..

But its more promising that some coffee shops offer that service :]

[Tahti]

Some countries offer them more than others too, Finland is absolutely amazing for gluten free food (and they don't overprice it to like they do in Ireland ;/) I was quite disappointed to find out how unknown the intolerance is over here, not sure on how good it is in England...

You can buy gluten free sausages though, so not to fear! lol.. I found out today that the jelly I'd been eating has wheat in it. Why put wheat in jellies?!

Saw you liked making bread - glutenfree bread is easy to make in a breadmaker, obviously it won't taste as fabulous as 'real' bread but its pretty good nonetheless! I perfected my recipe for it a while back, I like putting cardamom in it though to make it like a sweet bread... nom nom for breakfast with strawberries ;D

[TwiggyDEVOUR]

Yeahh i did notice some one mention about benefits to help buy gluten-free foods, which would help alot as im a student in london ^^'

Thank fuck! lol i just hope they taste just as good but eep, didnt think it would find its way into jelly and i was actually thinking today in the supermarket that i suppose i could buy jelly instead of custards and pastry :[

I did find a recipe with advices using a type of gum "xanthan gum" to help gain a soft texture as many have said that gluten-free bread is like eatting a brick lol
Arrgh, i love fruit loaf! ^^ with plenty of butter.. but the benefits of making it yourself means you have full control of what you want in it :]

[Sick Puppy]

My little brother, Declan, suffers from the rare condition of Anaphylaxis - which is an allergy so severe, it can kill him in minutes if he comes in contact with the trigger.

His "trigger" is wheat, gluten and rye. So for about 11 years now my family have been living wheat and gluten free - to avoid any accidents or mishaps. His allergy is so severe, we have had to make conscious decisions as to where we live - my family live in the country and have to really make sure that they don't live ANYWHERE NEAR wheat fields and what not - as when it comes harvest time, if dust should fly in his face he could get really sick...

Gluten-free foods and wheat free foods over here are thankfully not that expensive - but we really prefer to make our own food from scratch - with a few simple ingredients. Although my family don't NEED to eat it - my mum has actually found she is a lot less sick and bloated now she avoids it...

I have some cracking gluten free recipes lying around, so if you are interested, hoy out - I would be more than happy to post some