"will I Have To Be Gluten Free My Whole Life?"

[come dance with me]

My poor little girl asked me if she has to be gluten free for the rest of her life. When I told her that yes she will have to be she was really upset about it because her "old" bread tastes better than her "new" bread and she hardly eats her sandwiches now.

[sa1937]

My poor little girl asked me if she has to be gluten free for the rest of her life. When I told her that yes she will have to be she was really upset about it because her "old" bread tastes better than her "new" bread and she hardly eats her sandwiches now.

Poor thing! How old is your little girl? A lot of us adults think our old bread tasted better than our new gluten-free bread, too. We eventually adjust or keep searching for products that we do like. And sometimes we forget what the old bread tastes like, too.

Maybe for the time being you can find substitute foods so you could just skip the sandwiches and provide other types of foods for lunch. It she is a toddler and not in school, of course, it would be easier.

Gluten-free muffins tastes really good as well as pancakes, maybe French toast from the gluten-free bread, etc. Or soups, chili, pizza, etc. If she is old enough, maybe she can help you make some yummy cookies, quick breads, etc.

[Roda]

Before my youngest son who is 6 1/2 went gluten free, he loved to eat my Udis bread. After he went gluten free all of the sudden he didn't like some of the things he did before. I believe he was dealing with the emotional aspect of it in his own way and by "refusing" to eat things he liked before gluten free (he thought it was fun to share mom's special food) by controlling what he could. I didn't push it and let him eat things that he normally ate beforehand that were safe. Eventually he started wanting the Udi's bread again and now he is in love with their bagles and buns. It takes time for them to understand and deal with it. Like Sylvia said let her eat other things and try not to push the bread issues right now. A favorite of my boys is to take a rice cake and put mozzerella cheese and pepperoni on top and microwave until it is melted. They love it and so simple. My kids also like pancakes and waffles made out of the Betty Crocker gluten free Bisquik. A new kick we are on lateley is crepes. I had never eaten them before and my oldest wanted to make them. We made then out of the BC Bisquik mix also. They are realy good for breakfast and we love them as wraps. They are really filling too.

[domesticactivist]

Lately my son has been thinking about the life-long implications, too. He asked me the other day if he'd be able to have beer someday.

As for the bread - I think it works way better to just eat other things rather than substitute foods, especially at first. The gluten-free thing could be 100 times yummier but it wouldn't matter since it won't taste the same it tastes wrong. Eating new foods you didn't have before can make it so that she isn't comparing.

[Roda]

Lately my son has been thinking about the life-long implications, too. He asked me the other day if he'd be able to have beer someday.

My youngest son has been asking about this too.

[psawyer]

Lately my son has been thinking about the life-long implications, too. He asked me the other day if he'd be able to have beer someday.

My youngest son has been asking about this too.

When I was diagnosed eleven years ago, there was no gluten-free beer to be had anywhere. Today there are several options, including Redbridge by mainstream brewer Anheuser-Busch.

[come dance with me]

We have a local brewery that has beer she can have if she wants it eventually. With the bread we've found one she likes but she still prefers the one we used to have before. We make rolls from scratch that taste really nice but lately I'm really time-poor. I've made a few things but not a whole lot. We made banana bread last weekend that was really nice but bananas are really expensive at the moment so we can't make them too often yet until the prices rop. The breakfast cereal has been an easy switch but she's picky about texture (autistic) which was tricky to start with but we buy Rice Os now and Oranic Rice Porrige.

As an aside I read on another (non-coeliac) forum that oats are in fact gluten free but people are confused about that :/

[domesticactivist]

Oats can be certified gluten free but the ones that are not certified are contaminated. Some people are also cross-reactive to oats.

[celiac-mommy]

My 6yo says almost daily, "If I could have 1 wish in the whold world, it would be that I could eat gluten again."

Breaks my heart (even though I know this is a much healthier lifestyle for him!)

[alex11602]

I guess my oldest, who is 5, is a bit strange then because she freaks out at the thought of her or her little sister ever having gluten again. She questions everything if she does not see gluten free on a bag when it has an ingredient list and with family members she asks a couple of times to make sure they won't get sick. And my youngest probably won't remember, she was 15 months old when we took gluten out of her life.

[nmlove]

It does break your heart, doesn't it? My 6 year old is a gluten-phobe and is obsessed about nothing gluten touching anything of his (not just food stuff). But my 4 year old is starting to ask why he can't have it. Just a short while ago he watched his dad eating something and said, "When I'm a daddy, I can eat gluten too." And when DH said no that he couldn't, he started bawling. But on the positive side, dealing with this will hopefully help them become more responsible and to think of others. That's my hope anyway.

[mommyto2kids]

My kids are young. They ask these same questions of me. Sometimes the questions get to me. But I know they are making sense of my new eating that does affect them.

[come dance with me]

Oh yeah she is obsessive about it but misses her normal life too. It will take a while for this to be the be normal for her.

[T.H.]

My 6yo says almost daily, "If I could have 1 wish in the whold world, it would be that I could eat gluten again."

Oh god, both of mine have said this, too! It just sucks out your heart and stomps it flat, doesn't it?

When we got my daughter's diagnosis, she had a little idea of what it would be like, because I was diagnosed just 2 weeks before. She broke down in tears. We'd been on the way to the store when we got the call, so I was trying to help by picking up a whole bunch of 'goodies' that would still taste good, and she is just devastated, crying all the way through the store.

Then this young woman working at the store happens to hear one of my daughter's laments and comes over to talk with her. Turns out, this teen had been diagnosed the year before, and she was telling my daughter all about the diet, and offered to show her where the 'good' gluten-free food was in their store, and told her some other foods that she might like that she could find elsewhere

I am forever grateful to her - it was such a kind, thoughtful gesture, and it made SUCH a difference in how my daughter approached the whole thing. I can't even express how much I appreciated that. I think I was nearly in tears by the end of it, seeing my daughter no longer teary eyed and talking excitedly about the new foods she was going to try as soon as we got out to the health food store, instead.

Wish everyone had a gluten angel when they went to the store for the first time, too!

[salexander421]

Ugh, this breaks my heart. We were making cookies today (we are now grain free so all our cookies are homemade) and my 3 1/2 year old said "Mommy, when I'm big like you can I have cookies from the store?"

I think she is really starting to realize that we eat a little different than others. It breaks my heart and I don't always know what to say But, fortunately she rarely has any complaints about what we do eat.

Their recent favorite is pizza...1 cup almond flour, 1 tsp olive oil, 1 large egg, 1/2 tsp sea salt. Mix and spread into 6" round pizza. Bake at 300 for about 30 min. Spread with pizza sauce and toppings and bake again for about 20min or until cheese bubbles. They really love the "decorating" part. It helps a lot when you involve them in the baking process and make it fun.

[Roda]

My son was wanting "something" to eat the other day and I told him to go look in the fridge and pantry. He can have anything in the pantry except the stuff on the top shelf. He kept refusing all of my suggestions. He finaly said that he knew what he wanted but wasn't able to because it was on that top shelf. I felt bad for him. I told him that it was alright to feel sad and that I understood how he feels. I also told him that unfortunately there wasn't anything we can do about that. It has been 10 months since he went gluten free and most days he does fine. Occasionally he still gets sad about it, but that is to be expected and normal. I think it is harder for him at his age than it was for me as an adult dealing with it.