Yesterday, I had the privilege of spending time with the most talent site designer I know. Some ideas that had been floating around in my mind months were suddenly moved to ‘center stage’.

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Today I informed the management of Romano’s Macaroni Grill that they have the dubious distinction of the “most complained about” restaurant chain featured on this website. I will continue to list them on this site because they do offer a gluten free menu. Please be aware that my articles contain both positive and negative information. Both are important.

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This is a time for fresh starts. I began this website in 2002 and the gluten free world has changed so much during that time. In 2002, we were desperately looking for scraps of useful information that would nourish us without causing too much discomfort. Now we have a huge variety of products (that very different in quality and price) and a wealth of information, some of it contradictory and confusing. My task is to help you choose the best possible products and services and make the best possible decisions.

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Believing that the gluten free life style can be fun and fulfilling is a lot like believing in Santa Claus. Some days are harder than others.

I hope you’re enjoying a wonderful and ‘safe’ holiday season

Today I added new material to our “Gluten Free Pizza Restaurants” power page. We now list nine national pizzeria chains plus at least 55 individually owned restaurants in at least 24 states. Eventually, we will enable everyone in the nation to enjoy a gluten free pizza in a ‘safe restaurant’.

When I was writing this article, my mind wandered back to 2007 when I wrote an article stating that my dream that gluten free pizza would be readily available. A short time before that, I reported to you that it was impossible to find a gluten free pizza in Portland, Oregon. I couldn’t find that article. I assume that I deleted it in a moment of despair. Life is getting easier for the people who live gluten free!

“Christmas time is here by golly…disapproval would be folly.” So would wasting any more of your valuable time as Christmas descends upon us. I too used the internet to deal with several issues that I need to resolve before I hang up my stocking. I’d like to share a few of the things I discovered today:

♦ If you need last minute recipes, download this “survival guide” published by the California almond board. (I hate to think that Christmas is something we have to ‘survive’, but I realize that life is not that simple.)  The guide contains several well photographed and well described recipes, all containing almonds and being gluten free.

♦ This website also contains a section called “Life on the Go” which talks about using a stash of almonds to keep you going as you ‘shop till you drop’, using almonds as ‘airplane food’ and using them as an emergency meal when necessary.

♦ Are you prepared for a blizzard?” Every home should be , especially when special needs food is a necessity and the weather is unpredictable. My wife and I have been snowed in during two Christmases since we moved to Oregon. Fortunately, our son has access to a four-wheel drive truck and lives at a much lower attitude. We still need to be ready for whatever happens.

♦ Here’s an article about last-minute Christmas gifts that can be made by children with adult assistance. This can help solve two ‘emergencies’ — gifts that need to be prepared and children who need something to keep their mind off Santa Claus.

♦ “The ‘gift therapist‘  is a video maker who can help you solve two ‘holiday hassles’. Most of her raw materials come from Good Will or The Dollar Store. The food used in some of her gifts does not have to be home made. Her method is to present her very inexpensive gifts in an exciting way. What a combination — gifts that look great, cost very little, and can be prepared at the last minute! Click here to see her in action again.

Amazon (dot com) offers a tremendous variety of gluten free gift basket. This article shows you 19 baskets that I would love to give or receive. If you want to do some more electronic window shopping before you decide, try The Gluten Free Palace or The Royal Basket Company This firm is currently offering a 15% discount plus free shipping.

This gingerbread house kit which includes all the ‘safe’ gingerbread and all the gluten and allergen free plus allergen free frosting and candies.

Gluten Free Angel Food Cake was one of the biggest hits at our annual Thanksgiving Dinner. Even a few of my gluten-wary friends (the relatives who eat gluten free food only to placate me) seemed to be enjoying it. To the best of my memory it is the first angel food cake I’ve had since my diagnosis in 1999, but I loved it.

The cake came from a mix produced by Kinnickinik foods and was nut and dairy free. It was made in a dedicated facility. My only concern was that it required 12 egg whites (which adds to the cost and preparation time) and the mix needed to be sifted before preparation began.

Saturday November 26 has been declared “small business Saturday”, and many gluten free food related enterprises are small — sometimes very small — businesses.

There are so many of them that listing them would be absolutely impossible but are a few ideas:
most of the places mentioned on our ‘Gluten Free Pizza Restaurants‘ and ‘Gluten Free Bakeries‘ power pages definitely fit in that category. The independently owned stores on our ‘Gluten Free Supermarket Shopping‘ page also qualify.

Many gluten free support groups list area restaurants and stores that are small businesses. Here are listings from the groups from Indianapolis, western New York state, Portland (Oregon), and Denver. These are only examples.

Blogs and websites like this one small businesses. (FYI, this site is a one-man operation) Many of them are supported by advertising. Supporting these advertisers does not change your costs in any way — the firms involved have chosen to pay for advertising on our web sites rather than elsewhere. One word of caution: many of the ads are placed by computers rather than by human beings, so you need to shop defensively even when you are on a gluten free website.

FTI: Since Thursday is a holiday, I will be publishing the weekly newsletter on Friday. Enjoy your holiday!

Serving gluten free biscotti, cheesecake, and baklava will give your holiday celebration an international flavor.Here are three recipes for gluten free biscotti .This site includes both a biscotti and a cheese cake recipe. (Click here for more cheesecake recipes.) Try this recipe for walnut orange biscotti. Here’s another recipe that you might find helpful. If you prefer to watch a You-Tube demonstration, click here.

Baklava can be prepared gluten free and will surely add an international touch to your holiday feast. Try this recipe. This recipe is vegetarian as well as gluten free. If you prefer a You-Tube demonstration, click here.

I’ve posted at least seven articles about gluten free desserts. You can find them by scrolling down to the bottom of the article and click on the tag (it’s probably red) that says ‘gluten free recipes’. Your computer will create a special page containing excerpts from each of the articles. Click on the excerpt to read the entire article. Topics cover biscotti, cheesecake, baklava, tiramisu, brandy balls, rum balls, fruitcake, and eggnog.

Eat, drink, and be merry — without compromising your gluten free diet, alienating your wheat eating friends and relatives, and without spoiling the joy of the holiday season.

Every celiac or gluten intolerant person should read these articles annually:

♦ Surviving the Holidays Gluten Free

♦ How to Survive Your Family Christmas Party

♦ Socializing with Celiac Disease

You may be surprised to see the word ‘survive’ in the first two titles. Are things really that bad during the holiday season? Short answer: yes. Let’s face it, the holidays can be stressful and gluten issues may add to the hassles.

There are two books that should be in every celiac’s library. Put them on your Christmas wish list if you don’t already own them:

The Gluten Free Bible is one of the few books in the world that deserves to be called a bible. Jax Peters Lowell lays it all on the line on page 283: “Family holidays are the most stressful times for an celiac…” and then gives information about how to reduce or eliminate the stressers that have to do with celiac disease or gluten intolerance.

Chapter 9 of ”Celiac Disease and Living Gluten Free: the First Year” is devoted to the issue of handling the holidays.

I also have some “recommended reading” for the wheat-eaters that we’ll be celebrating with. I’ll publish them in a separate article tomorrow. Actually, I think it would be great if everyone in the family read all the articles and talk about them. (FYI: this link will not be active before noon tomorrow, November 13).

I’m painting a pretty grim picture of the upcoming season. Fortunately, these grim pictures are erased by joy and happiness. So, let’s lighten up for a few minutes. Did you know that celiacs have their own Christmas carol? Click on the graphic below to hear it being sung by its composer. I suspect that he lives with celiac disease.

Here’s how to equip a gluten free kitchen. The article was written by a person who takes care of a gluten spouse and also writes a blog on frugal living.

What a combination!! !! The article is titled “Frugal Gluten Free Living: Kitchen Tools that Stretch Your Budget and Your Time“. Obviously, gluten free cooking can be done in almost any kitchen, but every gluten free cook should consider these ideas. Also obvious is the fact that this article should be published in November, when people are developing their gluten free Christmas shopping lists.

Horseradish is the root of a plant and therefore is gluten free but subject to cross-contamination during the processing that transforms it into an edible condiment, sauce, or dressing. We need to be concerned about the other ingredients involved. Very few commercially prepared horseradish sauces are labeled ‘gluten free’, but that could because the manufacturers assume that we assume that the sauces are ‘safe’.

FYI, horseradish is the root of a plant that is not part of the radish family and obviously has nothing to do with horses. Click here for more information.

People who live gluten free have three options: We can abstain from consuming horseradish, we can assume that there is no problem, or we can prepare our own horseradishes. Click here and/or here to read several recipes for horseradish sauce.

I’ve begun a list of my favorite gluten free blogs in the right sidebar of this page. The people who write these blogs are people who see living gluten free as an opportunity for creativity and service to America’s gluten free community. I am proud to be a member of that group.

What is the difference between a blog and a website? I had to look that up before I could write this article. A blog is updated and expanded daily (or at least frequently) and is usually the work of an individual or a small number of people. Websites are expanded periodically, but that is not their major characteristic. A blog is never finished. A website always gives the impression that it is complete.

Click on one of the blogs listed in the right sidebar. You will be taken to my comments about that blog. Somewhere in my article, you will find a link to the blog itself.

This bargain roundup focuses on cutting shipping costs when you order on-line.

The Gluten Free Pantry provides free shipping on orders exceeding $100. That requirement is easy to meet if you work with a gluten free friend. After, all the merchant is interested in is that the entire order be paid with the same credit card and shipped to the same address. To order, click on the graphic at the end of the article.

Katz Gluten Free (dot com) does not add a shipping charge to order over $30. During the hot summer months, a $6 surcharge is levied on shipments that could not reach their destination in two days. Click here for details.

Dad’s Gluten Free Pizza Crusts offers free shipping to introduce customers to its products. Enter the code TRYONE and they will give you the opportunity to try one without a shipping charge. Shipping is always free on orders of then or more crusts.

Tom Sawyer Gluten Free Flour includes free shipping in its listed price. That, of course, does not automatically make it a bargain, but since the product is manufactured in Arizona it is probably a good bet for a person who orders it from Maine or Alaska.

E-cookbooks are collections of recipes posted on-line giving you the opportunity to download groups of recipes rather than searching for and downloading individual pieces. Some e-Book publishers charge a relatively small fee, but the ones listed below are complimentary:

Thanksgiving Your Way. Includes a count-down checklist, dinner and dessert recipes, Thanksgiving traditions, and decorating ideas. All the recipes are not gluten free, but the substitutions will be obvious.

Hassle Free Holidays. Again, all recipes are not gluten free, but there are lots of great ideas.

Unbelievably Good Gluten-Free Recipes. This is not specifically a holiday cookbook, but everything is gluten free and the suggestion are useful all year. The recipes were submitted to Rudi’s Gluten Free Bakery during a recent nationwide contest.

Ancient Greeks suffered from Celiac disease, but researchers did not connect the problem to wheat gluten until the early the last years of World War 2. Before that, a number of different strategies were tried. Here is a video report by one of the “banana babies“, the celiacs who diagnosed in the early 1930′s. (FYI: This is part of a long and technical video about many aspects of celiac disease. You will only need the watch the first 15 minutes here a short speech by a ‘banama baby’.

If you want to learn more about the banana babies, read this account about a person who was diagnosed in the early thirties.

Next Friday, I’ll write about the first celiac disease patients who were diagnosed gluten free in ancient Greece more that 2500 years ago. The following week, I’ll write about the modern approach to celiac disease and what came to be known as ‘the gluten free diet’.

People who live gluten free are cautioned to “read every ingredient label on every package that you purchase”. I wish I had a gluten free doughnut for every time I have dispensed this information. Of course, this caution is meaningless when the ingredient list is written in jargon that is meaningless to anyone with the possible exception a professional food scientist. Perhaps these suggestions will help:

Wheat is considered one of the eight major allergens. Products containing wheat must be labeled appropriately. Looking for the word ‘wheat’ in the ingredients list will help us reject most products that are unacceptable on the gluten free diet. All we need to be concerned with is barley and rye. This short cut will not work perfectly if the product is produced outside the United States or if there is reason to believe that the product is mislabeled.

Read this article from Gluten Free Living magazine’s website  titled “Top Ten Ingredients That you Really Don’t Need to Worry About“. Keep in mind that there are some gluten free experts would disagree with this information. FYI, I agree completely with what is said in  the article.

PLEASE NOTE: When I first wrote this article, I made a mistake that totally changed the meaning of the last paragraph. What you have just read is the correct version.

Here is another article on the same subject. Times change. New discoveries lead about all subjects — including our gluten free diet.

You may find one or more of these terms on an ingredients list. Click on one of the words and you will be taken to an article that I have written about that ingredient.

annatto | caramel coloring | chocolate | emulsifiers | hydolized protein

maltodextrin | modified food starch |

MSG | sprouted grains | vinegar |

Like much of the content of this website, this is a work in progress. I will be adding more material. In the meantime, I have linked this article to our power page “The Gluten Free Diet”.

As I mentioned in Thursday’s newsletter, the F.D.A. has requested our input on the best definition of ‘gluten free’. I have drafted a letter, asking for your thoughts on what I had written, posted the survey on-line, and linked you to it.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I neglected to post the survey on my site. Anyway, I am posting my letter here and also in the place where I promised it on Thursday.

Thanks to the alert reader who noticed my error and alerted me to it. I depend on you, my friends. I promise to be more careful in what I do and more punctual about reading your letters and comments.
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The Food and Drug Administration has asked for input before determining America’s official definition of ‘gluten free’. I have drafted a letter that I intend to send before the October 2 deadline and many of you have shared your thoughts about how I could improve it. This is your last chance. On September 25 I will begin the task of finalizing my letter.

You may, of course, submit your own letter. Click here for information about how to do it. If you prefer to add your comments to my letter, scroll down to take the survey. There are three sections to my comments, and you are welcome to express your ideas at the end of each section.

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Yesterday, I discovered that I had failed to read and respond to the comments that you tried to share with America’s gluten free community. It won’t happen again, I promise. Skim through this site and you will see many more comments than you read yesterday. Here are a few general thoughts:

First of all, let me salute the person who wrote about a situation where he had pre-ordered a gluten free meal at a wedding reception and received a totally inappropriate meal prepared and served by people who lacked the resources and/or the intention to serve gluten free food. What’s so unusual? We’ve all had that experience. The difference here is that this person was willing to attach his comment to an article titled “The Lighter Side of Gluten Free“. We all need to dine defensively (as this person did) and do everything possible to promote celiac-awareness. But there also times when our choices are whether to laugh or to cry. This writer for making the best choice.

Thanks to one of your comments, I added Boar’s Head products to the article “Are Cold Cuts Gluten Free?”

Your goal is provide a lunch for your child that is healthy, appetizing, and gluten free. Here are two things in mind as you strive to achieve this goal during the 2011-2012 school year:

♦ a lunch provided by the school is not automatically better than the one you provide. The school lunches are probably better than ones provided by the average parents. But this website is not read by average parents, whoever they are. You know that “we are what we eat”.

♦ dining out is a bit stressful to persons of any age who live gluten free and  eat in  restaurants or cafeterias. It would certainly be reasonable to expect a cafeteria to serve a meal that contains no gluten toxic ingredients,  but what about concerns for cross-contamination, etc? Why add to family stress levels?

I suggest that you read these three articles about healthy school lunches. These are not specifically ‘gluten free’, but the substitutions will be obvious.

♦ Here is an article that kids in the upper elementary grades can read for themselves with he help of the audio track that is included.

♦ These ideas for healthy school lunches are not specifically gluten but will be useful if we remember that the terms ‘whole wheat’ and  ‘whole grain’  almost always interchangeable and that gluten free tortillas are readily available.

♦ Here are more ideas for healthy gluten free lunches.

Celiac disease is hardly a blessing, but if a person has to have a chronic disease, I’m glad I have this one.

I have absolutely no symptoms as long as I stick to my diet.

I have no expenses for drugs, medical tests, physical therapy, or surgery. This more than offsets the fact that my food costs more.

Whenever we eat out, I get to choose the restaurant.

People still ask me specific questions about the gluten free diet, but there are no more blank stares like the ones I faced when I was first diagnosed ten years ago.

I have the privilege of overseeing this internet site, which I totally enjoy doing, gives me the feeling that I am contributing something useful to the community, and is source of income and personal satisfaction.

I plan to write more articles like these. Celiacs — like everyone else — really need to lighten up these days. Help me out. Share ideas with me so that I can republish them for the benefit of America’s gluten free community. E-mail me at gfceliac@gmail.com.

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This month’s survey asks how our gluten free lifestyles has changed in the last three years. You can share your ideas by using the form below if you have not yet responded to the survey.

You can also sign up for our giveaway of four copies of Triumph Dining’s “Gluten Free Restaurant Guide”, which lists 6500 U.S. restaurants that provide gluten free options. Just write your name and mailing address in any or all of the comment spaces in the survey.

This week I updated our website by

continuing to publish the series “Gluten Free Coupons and Bargains” and changing the procedure slightly so I am the only one who has to place his or her name on many mailing lists.

publishing “Back-to-School” articles on Tuesday and Friday. I will continue to publish similar articles twice weekly between now and the time school starts.

upgrading the “Gluten Free Supermarket Shopping” power page to make it easier to find the gluten free list published by each the supermarkets.

adding information about using tags to the “Finding Gluten Free Information” power page.

learning about and informing you that the Gluten Free Grocery in the Chicago area has closed its doors.

During this past week, I “grew” the website by:

adding a new power page “Finding Gluten Free Information“. Right now, it contains two search engines that should make it easier for you find gluten free information on our site and on the internet. More tools will be added during the next few months.

realizing that the weekly schedule I published last Sunday was totally unworkable. We need a weekly schedule. I’m experimenting now and will announce the new schedule as soon as possible.

beginning a series of “back to school” articles meant for parents of gluten free children. I’ll be publishing these articles on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Children living gluten free need all the support we can provide. Click here to go to the first article in the series. To read the entire series, click on the tag “back to school gluten free”.

adding a new pizza restaurant chain to the “Gluten Free Pizza Restaurants” power page. Extreme Pizza offers ‘safe’ pizza in 13 states.