Swapping My Whole Family To Gluten Free In Feb!

[strawberrygm]

my daughter has been gluten free for a year and a half. she has seen remarkable progress, yet there are still issues i would like to see more improvement on. we try to avoid cross contamination issues, but it is soo very hard in a home setting, with young children who simply do not understand.

my 4.5 year old is very hyper and emotional, much more emotional than my other children. his face has recently began breaking out with either excema or possibly DH.

my 2 year old has no tonsils, no adenoids, tubes in his ears, takes allergy meds daily, has been pulled from daycare to stay home in hopes to improve his snotty nose issues, and still isnt getting much better. he has developed, not diarreha, but more formed yet still frequent bathroom moves and diaper rash.

i struggle with depression and anxiety, stomach pain, fatigue, random arm and/or leg pain, sinus issues.

my hubby struggles with horrible gas and toxic bathroom moves (ha!), sleeplessness, joint pain, anxiety, he has the flat bottom.

the reason we are waiting until february is part financial and because we are hosting 19+ teen girls in our home this weekend for a church youth conference. plus i think it will be easier to track any changes in our health if we are on a monthly schedule.

i have told my hubby we will do this as a 6 month trial to see how it goes. he is not excited, but i guess he knows me well enough to know that no matter how much he balks, if i have made my mind up to something, its gonna happen. so he just makes that "here she goes again" face whenever i mention it. i told him he could eat whatever he wants outside of the home, but for 6 months we are not bringing any gluten into this home at all.

i am so very excited!! i cant wait to see if it helps my children!!

yes, i am sure i am gonna miss pizza hut and subway and such. yet, if my daughter has been gluten free then there is no reason i cant suck it up and deal with it. and if it helps my children it is all worth it. and if it helps me and hubby then thats just icing on the cake!

anyone have any advice on swapping the family over? i guess we will go gluten crazy these last few weeks trying to get rid of what we have here, and then give away whatever is left. =)

[missy'smom]

Welcome to your great new adventure. Good for you for having such a positive outlook from the start!

If you have been still doing any baking with regular flour, you'll want to check the things that you've been using for that-equipment as well as other related ingredients. I was in the habit of double dipping my measuring spoons in multiple ingredients, like baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg etc. so mine were CC'd and came back to bite me.

The other kids will be fine. There are SO many gluten-free snacks it's riduculous and quite a number of easy, tasty breakfast options! Many Many inexpensive packaged mainstream stuff. Treat it like a new adventure, they get all kinds of fun new goodies! Yay!(within mom's usual reasonable limits ) and don't try and replace everything. You may know all this already. Multiple servings doesn't have to cost alot either, air popped popcorn, fruit, gelatin, puddings, applesauces, popsicles etc. We are currently experimenting with the old gelatin recipes instead of baking. We made rainbow Jello for Xmas.

Grandma style meat and potatoes meals for the family, crockpot cooking, rice, less breads and pasta-Trader Joes gives a good buy on brown rice pasta, focus on larger portions of meat and veg. will help get you through.

[taweavmo3]

Good luck to you! That is what we ended up doing about three years ago, and I have kept everyone gluten free. My dd was the first to be diagnosed, then I had my two boys tested a few months later. Both were negative, but my oldest already had psoriasis, and my youngest would scream for an hour every morning, and had sandy, yellow stools. I figured they at least had gluten intolerance, if not full blown Celiac, and put them both on the diet. I had symptoms my whole life, like anemia, migraines, sensitive stomach when under stress, etc....but I was never really,really sick. I ended up going on the diet too, and my headaches improved. Then my anemia improved, and my moodiness (which I figured was PMS!) went away.

Now we just stick to the diet and don't change a thing! It's been the best thing for us...it is hard at times, but the kids have been very healthy since the diet change. Hope it all goes well!

[lvanderb]

You can do this! We did this last July - waited 'til school was done for eldest daughter. We had a fun time giving away food at the various birthday parties and family get togethers last year. Then we'd find something else hiding away.

I think I'm not that gluten intolerant, but youngest daughter, now 12, had a severe nosebleed as a reaction to 2 weeks of gluten consumption (camp and grandma's), that's when she agreed to go gluten-free (oddly enough, being 12 and all, she has totally forgotten saying that and says she didn't, lol...).

We were happy to see that Pizza Hut (at least in Canada) has gluten free pizza. There are other restaurants too that will offer gluten free pasta etc. - not a lot, but enough so that we don't need to worry as much.

We can get gluten free cereal and crackers in most of the local grocery stores. We're pretty picky eaters, so I make our bread, pizza (when I have time), muffins, cookies and pancakes. Then we experiment a bit, as I bought a whole bunch of recipe books.

Hope this has helped.