Tips for a Successful Gluten-Free Lifestyle
1. Learn How to Read Food Labels. Gluten is added to things that you might not suspect. You must learn to read food labels properly to ensure that you are purchasing safe items. This particularly applies to canned and packaged foods.
2. Research Gluten-Free Specialty Products. The gluten-free marketplace is rapidly expanding. With an increase in diagnosis rates, the gluten-free market is responding with more and better tasting gluten-free options. Today, there are pizza crusts, pasta, cookies and cakes, all that taste delicious. If your local supermarket doesn’t have these types of products on the shelves, speak to customer service and in most cases, they can order them for you.
3. Purchase Gluten-Free Cookbooks. There are hundreds of fantastic gluten-free cookbooks available at bookstores nationwide and online. Pick up a few and learn to make delicious gluten-free recipes that your whole family will enjoy.
4. Prevent Cross-Contamination. Learning to prevent cross-contamination is vitally important for maintaining a gluten-free diet. This means learning to keep gluten-free foods separated from food that contains gluten. This also applies to cooking surfaces, utensils, condiments, frying oil, boiling water and food preparation areas. But don’t worry if the rest of your family is not on a gluten-free diet. A kitchen does not need to be 100% gluten-free as long as you have a well thought out process in place to prevent contamination of gluten-free food. 9. Educate Your Family
5. Introduce Your Family to the Gluten-Free Diet. In order for you to be successful, your family and those that you live with must understand the gluten-free diet and how to prevent cross contamination. Remind your family not to mix utensils, pots and pans, to wipe out the toaster and to clean up after using gluten-containing ingredients. If they don’t seem eager to learn, make some of the delicious recipes seen in Delight Magazine and they’ll be sure to come around!
6. Join a Celiac Support Group or GF Dinner Club. Celiac support groups exist in every state in America and bring people together to find ways to manage a gluten-free diet. Most meetings bring in speakers to educate you on the new trends and vendors always attend to sample their products. Gluten-Free Dinner Clubs are starting to pop up in most major cities and tend to be younger folks and families going out to dinner at gluten-free friendly restaurants in the local area.
Last, but certainly not least, remember to schedule annual visits with your doctor to ensure that you are healthy and properly following a gluten-free diet!
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I was diagnosed in November 2010 with Celiac Disease and follow the Gluten Free diet. Most of the time my food plan is successful and I feel well. However, almost always when traveling out of town or on any trip (just one day) ......there is trouble......my reaction is feeling like I have the flu and headaches as well as an upset bowel. This usually passes with a day or two..........how does one know....salad is salad isn't it?
Jackie
Posted by: Jackie Ross 13218 Cnty Road 384 Newberry MI 49868 | 07/17/2011 at 10:20 PM