6/22/07 Here are links to several articles describing the diagnosis of celiac disease. These  are summaries, and attempting to summarize a summary is always a bit risky. But I’ll give a brief introduction to each article:

  Start by reading “Ten Facts About Celiac Disease”, published by the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness. Celiac disease is very common and is often mis-diagnosed. The only treatment is a life-long commitment to the gluten free diet. The diet is much to complicated and expensive to be entered into lightly. It may do just enough good to mask important symptoms in people who not actually celiac.

  This article from the Celiac Sprue Association outlines the three step process that leads to a celiac diagnosis. The article stresses that the diagnosis must be completed before the patient begins a gluten free diet. Why? I’ll use myself as an example. If I went through the testing procedures, they would reveal that I have no trouble processing gluten. And, of course, I don’t. I have solved the problem by eliminating gluten from my diet. Confirming my celiac disease at this point would be for me to make myself sick by consuming gluten for several months.

  But, why do we need a formal diagnosis? Why go to the pain and expense involved in a biopsy? This article answers these questions simply and without medical jargon. The article published by webMD.com goes into more detail. I know many people who follow the gluten free diet simply because it improves thewebMD quality of their lives. There is a lot to be said for that point of view, but it is important to consider all the information that is available.

  Finally, I suggest that your read this article by the National Digestive Diseases Information Center, an agency of the federal government. It’s worth the effort to wade through it since it contains a vast amount of information. Click here to study the Easy-to-Read version of the article.

  Is there any way I can help you? I remember the panicky days just before and after my celiac diagnosis in August, 1999. E-mail me at gfceliac@gmail.com. I have no medical credentials, but I have “been there and done that”.

6/21/07   Gluten free food bars help celiac’s dine defensively. Think of all the advantages:

there are dozens (perhaps hundreds) of varieties and flavors available.

they take up little space and do not require refrigeration: food bars belong in every celiac’s pocket, purse or brief case for use whenever we are in a gluten-toxic environment; they can be a real life saver when you are on an airplane or in an airport.

they are pre-packaged, thus eliminating cross-contamination issues and letting you know exactly what you are eating and how many calories you are consuming.

  Here’s a link to the 67 food bars available from The Gluten Free Mall. You may feel like you already have too many options, but I feel the need to point out that my personal favorites are Bumble Bars and Lara Bars. In both cases, the bars can be ordered on-line or purchased from the retailers mentioned at the sites.

6/13/07   I enjoyed my first experience with the “Peanut Butter Cookie Mix” produced by The Cravings Place and available at The Gluten Free Mall. My wife, my son (our cook for the evening), and his wife also loved the cookies. My pre-school age grandsons wolfed them down and certainly did not act like children eating traditional “diet food”.  Yes, you really can have good tasting gluten free cookies. Click on the picture at the top of the article if you interested in pricing or purchase information.

To get the technical details out of the way, we used reduced fat Skippy peanut butter and Earth Balance buttery spread, a dairy free margarine. Later, an experienced dairy free cook told me that we might have had better results if we had used the version of the margarine that comes in sticks rather than in a tub.

The mixture is labeled gluten free, wheat free, nut free, egg free, dairy free, and bean free. (It is not sugar free.) When I see a long list of ways in which a product is “free”, I sometimes wonder what has been left except a healthy price tag. But that was definitely not the case here. The taste and texture was excellent. We sampled them fresh from the oven, three hours later, and a day later. In each case, they tasted great and there was relatively little crumbling. There would have been even less crumbling if we had stored them in a firm container rather than in a zip-lock bag.

We refrigerated part of the dough and baked the remaining cookies five days later. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the cookies were definitely less crumbly and as good if-not-better tasting than the original batch. This was great news for me: as the only celiac in my household I have no real need for a batch of 40-50 all baked at the same time.

The next time I try this mix (and I certainly will try it again), we will use almond butter or something similar. Why purchase a nut free product and then flavor it with peanut butter? Why is this product pre-sweetened? According to the information on the package, the Cravings Place has avoided pre-sweetening in many of its mixes. They seem to have the skills needed to fill all our needs.

Disclosure: I am being compensated by the Gluten Free Mall for my product reviews but will never let any compensation get in the way of giving you the best possible Gluten Free and Celiac Information I can.

7/14/07 My bi-weekly gluten free update is a few days early.  This weekend. I’ll be at a family gathering in the Seattle-Tacoma area. I have some notes on local gluten free restaurants, so hopefully I’ll have great ideas for articles when I get home. Anyway, here is the update:

  I started a weight-loss diet on June 5. I’m pleased to report that I have lost seven pounds. I’m not bragging, but I know that being accountable to someone is extremely helpful so I vowed to announce my weight in each of my update articles. “Portion control” seems to be the key for me. When I was first diagnosed, I jumped to the conclusion that all gluten free food was good for me in any quantity. I’ve learned a few portion control tricks that I will share with you in future articles.

  I also reported that one of my favorite gluten free restaurants had gone out of business. The restaurant is in the Portland, Oregon, area so I put details on that page, but I also wrote an article because this situation has implications for all of us. As a matter of fact, I think it’s important enough to repeat here: I learned about this restaurant through word-of-mouth publicity and heard about its demise in the same way. I double checked before I reported this fact in this blog — I found that no one had bothered to take down the restaurants web site. All the telephone numbers were disconnected so I took this as evidence that I had heard correctly. The search engine also listed several other sites (including mine) that had made positive comments about the place. It will take several months for these comments to disappear from the internet.

The morale of this tale is that we celiacs need to talk to one another. The internet is a great source of clues, but they are only clues. Exchanging e-mails is almost equally good. I’m glad that I am in a position to share your comments with the 3000+ visitors who come to this site each month. Please e-mail me at gfceliac@gmail.com. Or if you prefer, leave a comment in the space at the bottom of this (or any) of my articles.

 I recently wrote articles on gluten free restaurants in each of the six New England states. This is “homework” for my vacation this fall. If you’re interested, have a look at my article “Gluten Free Restaurants in New England”.

7/12/07 One of my favorite gluten free restaurants recently closed. Why — you may ask — am I broadcasting this information to every celiac in the nation who has access to this blog? I think it is a great example of a problem that faces all of us. Obviously, everything in this article is Paul’s Point-of-View rather than verifiable facts. This is the first article on this blog that does not link to other articles. Anyway, here’s what happened:

The Flambe was an excellent restaurant for celiacs and for anyone else who enjoyed great food. Our celiac support group held social events here. However, there was no printed gluten free menu and the otherwise excellent website did not mention that the restaurants was celiac friendly. As far as I know, they relied solely on word-of-mouth publicity to attract a celiac clientele. Is that why they went out of business? I have no idea. but I certainly know that celiacs are hungry for information about gluten free opportunities.

The restaurant’s website still functions. I tried the phone, found it disconnected and I already heard about the closure at our celiac support group meeting. Otherwise, I too would be confused.

What’s the morale of this story? I’m getting used to the idea that restaurant chefs and managers do not always communicate with their web masters. I’ve seen too many examples of this since I started this blog. We’ve got to do it ourselves. I’m proud to offer you this blog as one way to share the information that we all need. Please leave a comment at the end of this or any other article or e-mail me at gfceliac@gmail.com

A second morale is that a web site allows better communication that any printed resource. I am not so niave as to think that everything on the internet is true or up-to-date. On the other hand, printed lists (particularly those in books) are almost never updated. I’m proud to be the "father" of this blog!