How Do I Know

[shan]

how do i know what it is that is making my daughter get the reaction? fromwhat i and her teacher are giving her, it would seem she is fine, yet every second week she seems to be getting a reaction!!! does baby powder have gluten? could that be a problem? and if i bake at night, with regular flour, could there still be flour in the air the next morning and could that be a problem? does baking paper have gluten? and paper cases for cup cakes? do i have to get these from special shops? i am so confused!!

[Juliet]

Honestly, this is the hardest aspect of going gluten free - cross contamination. And it will always be an issue, even if it only occurs occasionally, until a drug or possibly the much touted enzyme therapy becomes available. There's a good chance it is the regular flour floating in the air or covering the counters/dishes/silverware, or maybe the baby powder. I used corn starch for baby powder just to be on the safe side. No baking paper (cup cake liners, parchment paper) I've come across has gluten, but there's always a chance yours might I guess. It could also be the plates or pans you use if you haven't replaced them or bought separate stuff for your daughter since the diagnosis. Our kitchen & house is completely gluten free, and we had been this way for over a year when my son started reacting to gluten somewhere in his life. He doesn't eat the food from restaurants, but he does occasionally eat out with food we bring, and he of course plays with other kids. However, he never eats their food. His soap, toothpaste, shampoo, and lotion were all OK. So I had no idea where it was coming from. I resorted to wiping down every table & chair he ever ate on that wasn't at his house, wiping his own hands twice before eating whenever we're out (even if he hasn't played or really touched anything), and checking my own cosmetics again to make sure they had nothing in it. I did find that one lip balm I was using very occasionally had wheat germ oil in it, and a lotion that I also used very rarely had wheat germ oil in it, too. I know these two items did not account for everything, but it could have accounted for some. And the extra diligence in keeping everything clean seems to have helped as well. We haven't had a cross contamination issue for over a month now.

[ArtGirl]

and if i bake at night, with regular flour, could there still be flour in the air the next morning and could that be a problem?

That's a real possibility. It would be better if you stopped using regular flour. If others in the family must have gluten foods, then buy them ready made and keep them separate.

You can make many very delicious baked goods that the whole family will like just as much as if it had gluten in it. Another positive aspect of this is that your daughter will at least have a gluten-safe home and where she isn't always confronted with being told she can't have something the rest of the family has.

[Nantzie]

Also keep in mind that baking paper does not provide enough of a barrier on a cookie sheet or whatever to protect her food from previous gluten on the cookie sheet. It actually can leech up through the paper. If you line the pan with foil first, then put the baking paper on, it should be fine. If your pan is scrupulously clean, I'd worry less about this, but for the life of me I have the hardest time getting that gummy residue (from cooking spray) off my baking pans. If you always use baking paper, your pans are probably much safer than mine ever were.

If you bake with gluten, you really need to do a good cleaning afterward. Get all the stuff you need out before you touch the flour so you're not reaching into drawers or cabinets to grab something, leaving gluten residue on the rest of the stuff in the drawer.

I don't think that cupcake liners have gluten. I know I've never had a problem with them.

You didn't mention how old your daughter is, but if she's in the younger years, you have to make sure that all her arts and crafts supplies are gluten-free. For example, Play-Doh IS gluten. It's a wheat dough. There are other brands that also have wheat, but some that are fine.

Her teacher should also check her hand lotions (lots of them have gluten). I know my aunt who is a teacher is always having to use lotion because all the paper she works with dries her hands out.

It can be really frustrating knowing that she's getting glutened, but not being able to figure it out. It does get easier to figure out after a while though. After a while you feel like you'd make a good crime scene investigator.

Nancy