Gluten Free Vegans? New To Board.

[shandango]

I am gluten free and recently vegan. Not officially diagnosed with celiac, blood test came back negative, but I know I am at least gluten intolerant and am just going with it. I am also allergic to rice and lactose intolerant. The lactose issue was what made me finally give up my beloved cheese and follow my complaining stomach to go completely vegan. Never been a big meat eater so that was easy (used to be veggie for years).

Just looking for other gluten free vegans to chat and know I'm not alone. Gluten free is a frustrating world when you don't want to spend all your time in the kitchen and it becomes all the more frustrating when you can't eat rice or the flour made from it...

How do you cope? I get frustrated but remind myself everyday that it's either this or I suffer with pain.

[seamaiden399]

I am gluten-free, mostly vegetarian and have been vegan at various times and experimented with vegan recipes quite a bit. Your being rice intolerant as well made me think Breads from Anna might be a good mix for you- I am fairly certain that they have variations that are dairy free as well as rice and gluten-free. The recipe calls for eggs, but you can substitute egg replacer (Ener-g Foods) for excellent results. I recently reviewed their bread, if you are interested- it is quite a beautiful loaf with bean flours and others standing in for the rice. Tastes great, too!

This exact product won't quite work for you, but there should be one that does in the product line.

There is a gluten-free forum called vegiac that you might enjoy, as well as a vegetariangf board on Yahoo that might be helpful. Not being able to eat rice definitely puts a damper on things as far as mixes go- but you might try socca (garbanzo bean crepes). Chebe mix turns out best with eggs, unfortunately, although it is easy to make dairy free and is naturally rice-free. Corn tortillas will work, though- they are great homemade. I think you will find vegan cookbooks have lots of great recipes that are easy to make gluten-free... and while not being able to have rice makes it more complex, you can have quinoa, millet, buckwheat, wild rice (i believe it is a different variety). You might also search for gluten-free vegetarian and gluten-free vegan blogs. Mine is vegetarian (Book of Yum, if the link above doesn't work) and I have some vegan recipes, although finding ones that are free of rice may be a challenge. At least side dishes are easy! Hope this helps a little. Welcome to the board!

-Sea

I am gluten free and recently vegan. Not officially diagnosed with celiac, blood test came back negative, but I know I am at least gluten intolerant and am just going with it. I am also allergic to rice and lactose intolerant. The lactose issue was what made me finally give up my beloved cheese and follow my complaining stomach to go completely vegan. Never been a big meat eater so that was easy (used to be veggie for years).

Just looking for other gluten free vegans to chat and know I'm not alone. Gluten free is a frustrating world when you don't want to spend all your time in the kitchen and it becomes all the more frustrating when you can't eat rice or the flour made from it...

How do you cope? I get frustrated but remind myself everyday that it's either this or I suffer with pain.

[shandango]

I am gluten-free, mostly vegetarian and have been vegan at various times and experimented with vegan recipes quite a bit. Your being rice intolerant as well made me think Breads from Anna might be a good mix for you- I am fairly certain that they have variations that are dairy free as well as rice and gluten-free. The recipe calls for eggs, but you can substitute egg replacer (Ener-g Foods) for excellent results. I recently reviewed their bread, if you are interested- it is quite a beautiful loaf with bean flours and others standing in for the rice. Tastes great, too!

This exact product won't quite work for you, but there should be one that does in the product line.

There is a gluten-free forum called vegiac that you might enjoy, as well as a vegetariangf board on Yahoo that might be helpful. Not being able to eat rice definitely puts a damper on things as far as mixes go- but you might try socca (garbanzo bean crepes). Chebe mix turns out best with eggs, unfortunately, although it is easy to make dairy free and is naturally rice-free. Corn tortillas will work, though- they are great homemade. I think you will find vegan cookbooks have lots of great recipes that are easy to make gluten-free... and while not being able to have rice makes it more complex, you can have quinoa, millet, buckwheat, wild rice (i believe it is a different variety). You might also search for gluten-free vegetarian and gluten-free vegan blogs. Mine is vegetarian (Book of Yum, if the link above doesn't work) and I have some vegan recipes, although finding ones that are free of rice may be a challenge. At least side dishes are easy! Hope this helps a little. Welcome to the board!

-Sea

Thank you! I will definitely look into the boards for vegans and vegetarians. The rice thing definitely makes things interesting but I'm getting by. I'm not sure if I can have wild rice or not, my rice reaction is pretty bad so I've been too scared to find out. I would love to find some more "premade" foods I can have, been diligently looking. So far I sucked it up and started baking.

But thank you again for your reply! Oh and I recently came across a great recipe for gluten free vegan/vegetarian recipes Open Original Shared Link. It's called Karina's Kitchen and has been a godsend for me!

Shandango

[MySuicidalTurtle]

I am a gluten-free vegan, too. It takes awhile to get the gluten-free thing down, just as it does the vegan thing. You can still eat lots of things you like, just home-made or substituted differently. There are flours that are rice free, at least! What i did was just eat naturally gluten-free things until I learned the ropes. It is better to be limited in food than to be sick all the time. You will be much happier!

[RiceGuy]

Wild rice isn't related to regular rice, so it might work for you. I believe I read someplace that it's not actually rice at all. Aside from that, there's Kasha (roasted buckwheat), which I really like. It can be eaten as a hot or cold cereal, or used in place of rice or other grains. There's also amaranth, millet, sorghum, and teff. I haven't tried quinoa grain, but the flour I tried was so bitter, I couldn't use it. I've read the grain must be rinsed to get rid of (or reduce) the bitterness. If you can eat corn, then there's another option for you.

Though I bake a lot, I don't use any rice flours. I find rice flours to be gritty by comparison to all others. I think you should be able to sub sorghum or millet flour in place of rice flour. Bean flours are also good, if you get decent quality, fresh ones. Watch out for the stone ground ones, as they are typically rancid due to excess heat created during the milling process.

I don't find it difficult to find yummy things to eat each day. I prepare all my food from scratch, so perhaps this makes it easier, since I don't have to read labels as much. Not eating prepackaged items is healthier, and also reduces costs. It does require more time than tossing some package into the microwave, but I really enjoy experimenting with food.

[shandango]

Thank you all. I'm thinking about trying the wild rice thing, of course with epi-pen in hand and friend near by to drive in case it goes wrong but I miss rice. It was one of my favorite foods, hence the reason I am now allergic, I ate it as much as people in asian countries do for most of my life.

Thank you for the other tips as well. So far I have been using other flours to cook with but I have found it is difficult to find Fresh flours, most seem to have that spoiled taste to them. I do most of my shopping at Wegman's since that is the only grocery store around here that carries any specialty foods. Eventually I hope to turn to the internet but for now Wegman's will have to do.

Quinoa is really good fried in Olive oil. And yes, I do recommend soaking it first. I can't remember for how long it should be soaked but when I made it I'm pretty sure I soaked it for about an hour. I haven't used quinoa flour for anything b/c it's more expensive then the rest but as a grain it's good stuff.

[Janessa]

Hi I am vegetarian and I just found this bakery called Shabtai Gourmet that has all kinds of goodies Gluten Free, Casein Free, Lactose Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free & Corn Free and it appears that at least most if not all are also rice free

I got the ring tings (think hostess choco cupcakes with cream centers) and they are so good!

wild rice is a grain so it is related to rice the same as wheat is related to corn is related to teff, so if you can eat other grains than there is a good chance you can have it.

[purple]

Hi, my dd, 17, is gluten-free/v, she's gluten intolerant. Vegan for almost 1 year. I just made english muffins-plain and cinnamon-raisin, for her. I thought they were great. Recipe posted on the baking section under Wonka's reply. Millet and sorghum are the flours.

If you need any specific recipes I will try to help. gluten-free/vegan can be challenging esp. w/o rice. I prefer to bake with sorghum. I recently made wraps so she could have "tacos" They were great. Ditto on glutenfreegoddess, she has bread recipes. Her town is dry so you may need to reduce the water in her baking recipes depending on where you live.

I also recently tried vegan cheese sauce, it was good too and you can pour it on pizza or nachos.

Scratch cooking is so much healthier just not fast. Make extra and freeze.

https://www.celiac.com/gluten-free/index.php?showtopic=52000

[dilettantesteph]

I was a gluten free vegan. I have been lactose intolerant for years. I have currently added about one tablespoon a day of cheese, so I am not quite all vegan anymore, but almost. It isn't that hard. Certainly a lot easier than being sick all the time.

[fnord]

Thanks for the link to vegiac. I've been vegetarian for most of my adult life, and vegan for the past five years. My recent discovery of celiac/wheat intolerance is closing off a significant part of my daily diet and I'm in the beginning stages of being concerned about eating a vegan diet without any wheat products. I've been having thought about introducing small portions of meat 1-2 times a week simply for nutritional purposes. Totally sucks - not my thing at all. I assume other vegetarians/vegans are dealing with this, as the loss of whole grains is a blow to the vegetarian diet.

[shandango]

Well I'm getting by so far. I made cookies last night. They aren't as good as I wanted them to be but with a little tweaking I think they will be much better the next time I make them, I don't think I used enough peanut butter.... for flavor.

Thank you everyone for your tips and suggestions!

[stephanie19]

I am also a gluten-free vegan. I highly recommend checking out Dr. John McDougall's information. His eating plan isn't necessarily gluten-free but can easily be adapted to exclude gluten (particularly if you follow the Maximum Weight Loss Plan guidelines, which exclude flour products to begin with). Although I eat a lot of rice myself, other starchy foods like beans, potatoes, sweet potatoes, buckwheat, millet, quinoa, etc. could easily be used instead. After reading a lot of health-related information, I think his way of eating is ideal from a health standpoint. He has several books and cookbooks out, but lots of information is available for free on his website: drmcdougall.com. Hope you find this helpful!