What Do You All Think About gluten-free Foods?

[CaroCakes]

Hi! I'm a student intern for a celiac magazine and I was hoping to get teens and kids opinions on gluten free foods and dealing with eating gluten free at school and in restaurants. I'd love to hear your guys' opinion and experiences and quote you in the magazine, if you're okay with that. I'm fairly lucky, I go to Virginia Tech and all the nutritional information for every single food item is online, so I know exactly what I can eat and what I can't. Unfortunately, I'm fairly limited to the salad bar and a few mexican dishes, but it could be wayyyy worse. I would rather skip all the "fake" gluten free foods. Aside from kinnickinnick bread and brown rice pasta, I just accept the fact that I can't eat baked goods or breads. The gluten free alternatives are unappetizing and expensive, so I just do without. How about you guys? Do you all bring baked goods if you know you're going to a party that will have non-gluten free goodies?

[Lisa]

Hi and welcome to C.com!

We have many members with college experience and always willing to share if your inquiry is on a personal level.

If professional, you should contact the Administrator of Celiac.com and submit a request to poll the membership.

Thanks

[looneylinahon08]

I've found that some foods can be worked with. Just last night my boyfriend made me a chocolate pie and it is delicious! We use the gluten-free pantry brand for pie crusts and they turn out well (a bit sugary, though). It's normal for them to crack though when being baked. I'm nineteen and I was diagnosed at 11 so I've had plenty of time to find foods i like. I've found that if you add about 3/4 cup of half and half cream to most brownie mixes, you get a delicious and normal-tasting result! Even my brothers were eating them and they despise gluten-free desserts. I really love Annie's mac and cheese (it has american white cheese as opposed to the normal yellow cheese). You just have to remember to cook the noodles longer than it says on the box or they're really hard. If you tamper with the recipes you can usually get good results from most things. Pamela's baking mix works pretty well, but the gluten-free pantry mixes work the best in my opinion. I actually have a recipe used by most people for some delicious monster cookies, and it's not a special gluten-free one, but it's still gluten-free. I kind of gave up on bread, although kinnickinnick has good stuff. I stopped using a toaster though and started buttering and cooking my bread on stovetop and it tastes pretty good! Also, about the restaurants... I've only found one place that has fries that I can eat. It's a place called Gateway Market in Des Moines, Iowa. Usually I stick with steaks, baked potatoes, or shrimp though at restaurants. And at school, I'm pretty limited in choices. I basically ate grilled chicken and fruit for lunch and dinner everyday, and I'd have an omelette for breakfast. It kinda sucked.... But as for parties, I just take my monster cookies and everybody loves those!

[lovegrov]

I'm not a kid or teen but I work at VT in the publications department. Just thought I'd say hi.

richard

[Kylie]

I am a 20 year with Celiac, diagnosed 4 years ago. I go to James Madison University and am almost glad to be gluten free there. I have a