First Gf Shopping Experience!

[gymnastjlf]

Hi everyone,

I'm newly diagnosed as a celiac, and am looking for granola bars/portable food options that I can find in my regular food store, as I leave to go back to college in only a few days! I go to a very small school, and I've made some initial contact with dining services, and they don't have many gluten-free options in the dining hall at this point (I believe they will work with me, but that will take a bit of time, especially since I am still learning what I can/can't eat!), so I need some easy to carry/store meals quickly!

I've heard that some of the Atkins bars are gluten-free, but are there any other brands that I might find in a regular supermarket like Shoprite or Wal-Mart? I found a brand, Nature's Choice Multigrain Cereal bars. They say they're wheat free, but in the ingredients I don't see anything that's on the no-go list. This is a website where you can find a list of their ingredients. Open Original Shared Link

Any other suggestions for granola bars/breakfast bars, etc?

I visited a gluten-free bakery in my area the other day, and the owner suggested Tinkyada or Heartland's Finest as the best pastas, but in my grocery store I found DeBoles Rigatoni that was a lot cheaper... has anyone had any experience with this brand?

I know about the Amy's food line, Thai Kitchen, Health Valley soups. I've looked at the previously posted lists of "safe foods" on these message boards, such as Kraft- the companies that don't hide any potentially harmful ingredients. I was just looking for other people's favorites, especially any regular brand breakfast cereals. I got a bag of puffed rice the other day, but I've got a big appetite for cereal in the morning, and it looks like I'll be eating the whole bag to fill me up!

This message board is one of the greatest things I've come across about celiac disease, a great resource! Thanks in advance guys, I'm sure you'll be hearing from me again soon:-P

[lovegrov]

If you go all the way down on the ingredient page you'll see those bars have barley and oats, both no-no's. The fruit filling is OK but the rest isn't. "Multigrain" almost without exception will have gluten.

richard

[Jnkmnky]

DeBoles are popular. Stick with them if you like them. Most here won't agree with eating granola bars. Oats are still considered a no-no due to cross contamination issues. If you can find/afford them, Glutano makes a nice cereal bar that's gluten free. Tiny...need to eat two, and out of this world pricey. My kids really like Kinnikinnick's donuts. Very dense and filling. They are kept in the freezer, but you can also leave them out if you plan to eat them in a reasonable amount of time. When we traveled we took them along and they stayed fine.

Post Fruity and Cocoa Pebbles are gluten free. Throw a banana on top to make more filling? My kids really dig the bagels, donuts and chocolate chip muffins by Kinnikinnick though, so that's all we've been doing for breakfasts for awhile. Here's the link to Kinnikinnick

Open Original Shared Link

Envirokidz makes a bunch of gluten free cereals that are similar to many gluten FUll favorites.

Open Original Shared Link

Van's waffles are good. Nearly every single day, I eat Lifestream's Buckwheat (Buckwheat IS gluten free) wildberry waffles. One with a cup of coffee. I'm stuffed.

www.naturespath.com They're the same folks that do the envirokidz cereals.

[tarnalberry]

Lara Bars, Organic Food Bars, Think Organic, and Bliss Bars are gluten-free (and CF). I can find the first three at Trader Joes, for $1.29-$1.99 a piece (for 200-320 calories). Not everyone likes the taste, though! :-)

[Guest kmmolina]

gymnastjlf, I found that Envirokidz have the BEST frosted corn flakes. I think that they are better than "Tony the Tiger" . They also make a rice cripsy bar with chocolate, peanut butter or berry. I don't know if you have any kind of access to a cooking area or can have a toaster or toaster oven, but Pamela's Pancake mix is great. What I usually do is cook a lot of pancakes and then freeze them in baggies and pop them in the toaster oven later.

[gymnastjlf]

Someone said Corn Pops are gluten-free. Is this true?

[Jnkmnky]

corn pops USED to be gluten free. They are FULL OF GLUTEN now.

[elonwy]

Corn Pops are no longer gluten-free, they have wheat right on the label.

Grrrrrr.

Elonwy

[celiac3270]

I tried Deboles before I got to Tinkyada and thought it was "pretty good" at the time. Actually, I was a little hesitant to try Tinkyada just because of that. I did and Tinkyada is awesome...so much better and even, I feel, better than the real wheat pasta. Try it...for me, Deboles was about twenty cents MORE expensive than Tinkyada.

[Guest zipy]

I found a few recipes online and in cookbooks at the library for "granola" bars. They use the pufffed rice cereal, chocolate chips, peanut butter, corn syrup, brown sugar, vanilla, coconut flakes, dried fruit and nuts...they turned out awesome and only took about 15 min. to make a batch in the microwave. I froze them and just take one out of the fridge when I need to eat a snack or pack a lunch.

I really like the lara bars, kinda expensive. We have a store called hi-health and they did a promo of free bars a while ago. Very yummy!