Separate Cupboards, Utensils and Pans ?

[whitey]

Have i gotta keep every thing separate, do i need a separate cupboard for my food,utensils,etc,

do i need my own pans, toaster,?? i don't want to make my wife and daughters eat gluten free i think it would be to much of a change for them all, i don't mind going it alone has long has i got the professionals on hand when i got questions to ask,

thank you

steven

[Gemini]

Have i gotta keep every thing separate, do i need a separate cupboard for my food,utensils,etc,

do i need my own pans, toaster,?? i don't want to make my wife and daughters eat gluten free i think it would be to much of a change for them all, i don't mind going it alone has long has i got the professionals on hand when i got questions to ask,

thank you

steven

I do not keep my food in the cupboards separate from the few things my husband eats with gluten but they are all boxed or wrapped so as to avoid any leakage. Cereal, cookies....things like that. You just have to be careful, not paranoid.

You will need a toaster all for yourself and no one else can use it, period. For all the other pans you use, replace anything old and scratched that was used for heavy gluten baking or cooking. Soap and water are perfectly acceptable to clean anything else used in cooking. If you have a colander, buy a new one for you to use exclusively. Colanders can be difficult to clean because of the mesh so I would have my own and not rely on soap and water to do the trick. Wooden spoons have to be replaced....basically anything porous or scratched badly. I cook all meals gluten-free so most of what I use is not ever used for gluten type foods. My husband eats breakfast and lunches with gluten and his dinner without. It has worked very well for us.

You can definitely use your pots and pans for both types of cooking just as long as you scrub them well after use. The only cookware that is a problem for this is cast iron....too porous. Stainless, aluminum, etc. are fine to share.

This will all become much easier, I promise!

[Fey]

I'm just starting out as well, and I am just making sure that I scrub all pots and pans very well between uses.

For baking sheets, I cover them with a layer of foil whenever I use it, since my SO uses them to bake Pizza.

I separated the pantry to put safe items on the right, and gluten items on the left, so I don't accidentally pick up the wrong can of chili, or the wrong type of chicken broth.

My box of gluten free cereal is sitting away from the regular cereal, and the gluten breading and flour in a separate cabinet from gluten free stuff I bought.

Utensils-wise, I'm leaving the wooden and scratched spoons when he cooks his unsafe stuff, and we can share the metal and new utensils as long as they're properly scrubbed between uses.

The biggest challenge so far has been crumbs on the cutting board. I'm the messier cook, so it's hard to ask him to clean up after his crumbs because I always leave a mess behind me and it feels weird to ask him to clean up invisible crumbs.

[ravenwoodglass]

The biggest challenge so far has been crumbs on the cutting board. I'm the messier cook, so it's hard to ask him to clean up after his crumbs because I always leave a mess behind me and it feels weird to ask him to clean up invisible crumbs.

Please get your own dedicated cutting board. Then you have no worries.

[Mack the Knife]

I have dedicated wooden spoons, plastic utensils, chopping boards, colander, toaster and some pans and pots.

I have a dedicated and clearly labelled tub of butter. Ditto for jam, honey and spreads. You absolutely can't share these with someone who could be sticking a knife covered with gluten crumbs into your peanut butter.

For all other foods I use a colour code. I put green dot stickers of gluten free stuff and red ones on any products that contain gluten. I do this as soon as I walk in the door with my shopping.

If you can, try and claim your own piece of bench space as a gluten free zone. make sure that everyone knows that this is your space and they are not to use it. That way you don't need to worry about crumbs and flour, etc.

[T.H.]

Good luck to you! :-) It's a big change, yeah?

One quick thing, since as a man your doc may not have mentioned this to you! Lipstick, lip gloss, and makeup often contain gluten, as well as chapstick. There are many cases of men getting glutened from kissing their wives, so that will be something to be careful of. Same for anything your wife may use on her skin, like a lotion, that might contain gluten. Even if she's not going gluten free, anything your lips touch will have to be. ;-)

And now a few other things, that will hopefully help?

1. If you have celiac disease and not just a gluten intolerance, if you haven't had your daughters tested, please consider it? Of the people who are 1 degree separated from a celiac positive person (siblings, parents, children), 1 in 22 will also be positive.

My father tested positive, and we didn't test anyone. Then I got diagnosed during a procedure for something unrelated to celiac disease, and we tested everyone finally. My brother and my daughter came back positive, even though my daughter had no symptoms we would have associated with the disease. My son, after going gluten free, has improved greatly, so he's a suspected false-negative.

2. you might want to consider putting your daughters on a gluten free diet, anyway. The reason we started my son on one? Because it is suspected (not proven, I don't believe) that if your daughters continue to eat gluten, and they have your gene for celiac disease, consumption of gluten will likely trigger the disease in them, too, eventually. The diet is a pain either way, but if the disease doesn't trigger, they don't have that higher risk of cancer, immuno-compromisation, vitamin deficiences, etc...

We decided to be a little extra cautious on that front, since so many of us tested positive, although I know that many don't. I'd say if you don't take them off gluten, having them tested every few years might be beneficial - undiagnosed celiac disease can cause a lot of problems during puberty with growth. And since you have girls, getting tested before they get pregnant would probably be a good idea, too, as undiagnosed celiac disease can cause miscarriages because the body isn't absorbing enough nutrients too keep the baby alive. Very tragic.

RE: keeping a separate area? I would say it really depends on how old your children are, and how much of a pain this would be. The younger the kids are, the harder it will be for them to not cross-contaminate foods. They forget that they would need to wash their hands after they touch gluten, if they are touching any of your stuff, even just picking up your plate for you. They might dip their knife into your jars of different spreads. They pick up a loaf of bread from the cupboard and a few crumbs drop from the edge into something of yours and contaminate it. It's suprisingly easy to mess up.

My husband decided to just stop having gluten at home, it was becoming so much work to keep the kids from cross-contaminating. The poor things were almost getting paranoid, they had to try and think so much about it. And as both myself and my daughter are very sensitive, we knew right away when we got something bad, you know?

For the toaster, the one you have will already be contaminated, and will contaminate your gluten-free bread. However, there are these special toaster bags that can be purchased, that allow the heat to toast but protect from gluten. I'm not sure of the price, though, so I wonder if a new toaster might be cheaper, if you plan to eat a lot of gluten free bread?

Pans - I think, if you have the money, it's easier to just get a couple for yourself, frankly. Cast iron and non-stick pans that have scratches can collect gluten, so those are no good to share, period. However, even with stainless steel and aluminum it's problematic. Yeah, you can scrub them out, but even a tiny little crevice, like where the handle is bolted onto the pan, can collect gluten and release it into your food and you usually can't get it completely cleaned out. I got glutened a few times before we finally just gave up and got new pots.

Anything wooden or plastic, too, you'll want to buy a new one for yourself, as they also are porous to gluten. Yet another one where I got to learn the hard way that they could gluten me, bleh.

It's a bit overwhelming at first, but it definitely gets easier with time. :-)

Have i gotta keep every thing separate, do i need a separate cupboard for my food,utensils,etc,

do i need my own pans, toaster,?? i don't want to make my wife and daughters eat gluten free i think it would be to much of a change for them all, i don't mind going it alone has long has i got the professionals on hand when i got questions to ask,

thank you

steven

[i-geek]

RE: keeping a separate area? I would say it really depends on how old your children are, and how much of a pain this would be. The younger the kids are, the harder it will be for them to not cross-contaminate foods. They forget that they would need to wash their hands after they touch gluten, if they are touching any of your stuff, even just picking up your plate for you. They might dip their knife into your jars of different spreads. They pick up a loaf of bread from the cupboard and a few crumbs drop from the edge into something of yours and contaminate it. It's suprisingly easy to mess up.

My husband is 35 and has been amazing about my gluten-free diet, and even he can't remember to wash his hands after touching gluten bread and before touching stuff that I'll need to use (cabinet/refrigerator doors, condiment bottles, etc). I'll remind him about it and five minutes later I'll see him take a bun out of the bag, and then open the fridge door with the same hand. I get sick every time we have gluten bread in the house because of CC. In fact, I'm sick right now because he toasted his burger buns on the grill on Saturday and then grilled our Sunday dinner without scrubbing the grill grate. It's not out of malice; he's wonderful about the big stuff, but forgets the little things sometimes. He feels awful about it and has self-imposed a ban on gluten in the house except for beer. (Interestingly, we're starting to suspect that he has a wheat allergy or intolerance- now that he eats almost none at home, when he eats it out he often has an adverse reaction.)