kdonov2

Thank you all for your input! I have some research to do. I did not even consider Boulder before.

Originally posted in travel, but I thought it would get more hits here.

Anyone know what cities (U.S.) are the safest for Celiacs? This includes safe options in restaurants, products offered in stores, labelling laws, public knowledge (of the disease), acceptance of the public/medical community, and promotion of general healthy living. I am sure I am missing something, but you get the idea. I am considering moving from my native Chicago. I am not happy here.

Thanks

I am gluten intolerant and used to wake up with swollen lips and eyelids. They would remain puffy for the 1st half hour upon waking. Now that I don't eat gluten anymore, I no longer have those symptoms.

I react to gluten-distilled alcohols. I don't know about whiskey or gin, but Smirnoff, Chopin, Ciroc, Pinnacle vodkas are gluten free. If you like rum as well, most are gluten free.

Does anyone know if this product is gluten free? I stupidly bought a pint as it was on sale and I saw that it was vegan. I guess I had thought that I checked it out and found it safe, but the back label said that the sorbet was made on the same equipment as milk and wheat. Although it sounds like it is cc'ed, many manufacturers clean their equipment between uses.

I don't know if my case counts, but I am gluten intolerant and experience fewer obvious symptoms the more often I eat gluten. If I have avoided gluten for a long time and accidentally consume it, I get gastrointestinal problems, bloating, fatigue, headaches, aches, depression, acne, inability to feel satiation from food, increased tolerance to alcohol, frequent hunger and probably other symptoms. When I accidentally get glutened by something several times, I only experience bloating, malabsorption (causes frequent hunger and higher alcohol tolerance) and acne. Before I realized I had the intolerance, I thought the bloating was actually fat, felt like I was simply a hungry girl who could handle her alcohol, and assumed my hormones caused the acne. So those symptoms wouldn't really be apparent as a reaction to a food sensitivity. Those are symptoms a ton of unsuspecting people have.

Anyone know if they are they gluten free? It would be nice to be able to avoid the expensive, gourmet stuff. I am particularly interested in their garlic powder, which I am currently out of. I am trying to make my own salad dressing...

I tried an organic green juice drink from Whole Foods that was labeled "gluten free" but also contained wheat and barley grass. I thought it was safe, so I drank a small sample of it. About an hour later I had stomach cramps, bloating and essentially vomited out of my back side. I posted about it here a bit ago and was told by others that wheat grass does not contain gluten, but the sprouted wheat berries do. Yet, there is no way to extract the plant without contaminating the whole thing with gluten. I don't know how they are able to label these products gluten free.

Thanks. I should be more careful there. I often have silent symptoms, so I could be destroying my body and not even know it.

I am casein intolerant and also just got hired as a barista. We use the same milk-steaming wands for soy and dairy milk. All we do in between uses is turn the hot steam nob, wipe it with a wet cloth, then steam it again. Prior to this, I used to go to Starbucks often got lattes and mochas. I have never felt great after these drinks but just attributed it to all coffee. I am scared that all baristas share this practice. If I have to give up my steamed soy milk, I do not want to frequent these shops at all then because I could easily just pour my own damn cold milk into my coffee. Have you guys had problems at coffee shops? Do you think this cleaning practice is sufficient?

Thanks

I followed the Trader Joe's gluten free list today. They said that all of their hummuses were gluten free except for the white bean ones, so I bought one that said it was made on shared equipment with wheat because the manager told me that they clean the equipment in between products. I am not sure, but I think I got glutened anyway. My friend who works there said gluten free people follow this list all the time and never come back and complain, in attempt to get me to buy these shared equipment products. I wish I knew if my symptoms (very mild) are psychosomatic. Have any of you bought their products off the gluten free list that say they were made on shared lines (that do not add that they use good manufacturing practices to segregate ingredients)? Did you have a reaction?

Thanks

I emailed Einstein Brothers and Intelligentsia (got some free bags of coffee from them), explained what gluten was, that I was allergic to it (people pay attention to allergies), and that I could have nothing that contained or even touched gluten. Both places verified that their coffee was gluten free. Is this a sufficient amount of information to safely go off of? Would you believe them? Do you always believe someone who says their products are gluten free? I just want to know because I have heard of people reacting to suppposedly safe foods. I have silent symptoms so I could hurt myself and never be the wiser.

Thanks. I will do some contacting.

What gluten ingredients should I be looking for that are most commonly added to these toiletries? My naturopath told me that most toiletries are NOT gluten free! I do not have DH, but am trying to be as cautious as I can in order to see if it improves my health. Any good gluten free brands out there? Cheap stuff is what I normally go for, but if this must change, than that is what I will do.

Thanks in advance

Does anyone know of any brands of coffee that are gluten free (I especially love vanilla, hazlenut and irish creme)? I love my coffee and cannot give it up.

Thanks

Thanks for everyone's comments. As for the pitfalls, one of the main ones was hard liquor. I am in college and it is not out of place. However, I believed most distilled liquors were safe, but I realize that I need to be extra careful because I usually have silent symptoms and wouldn't be able to tell if I hurt myself most of the time. Some people say triple distilled alcohols are gluten free even if they are distilled from gluten grains, I am not a believer in this. I discovered many of the drinks I was having were gluten, like Belvedere vodka which is from Rye (switched to potato) and whiskey. I also love sushi and never thought there was wheat starch in wasabi, but now bring my own. Plus, I found out that some Japanese mayo's (spicy mayo sauce) have malt in them. I asked to see the package at a local sushi house, sure enough, it was unsafe and I had been all too happily chowing down on it. Spicy tekka and taco are my favorites. Hmmm...what else, I stopped asking important questions at ethnic restaurants and just hoped for the best, just told myself it would make no sense for any of my food to contain gluten or be CCed. Yesterday, I decided I will not eat at a place where it might be hard to communicate with the staff/chef.

I have heard of the wheat paste sealing agent and the transfer of wines to used, gluten containing barrels once used for whiskeys. It was from this site, actually, and it terrifies me! Someone even posted a link about a wine-maker discussing the process of how the wheat paste seal is made. I also do not react to gluten if I have had it recently. On the other hand, if I have not had it in a very long time, I have terrible gastro symptoms. The point being that I probably cannot tell if I have had gluten wine either. Although, I am also casein intolerant and many wines use it as a fining agent. I got a pretty bad reaction from Louis Jadot Chardonnay. If you have a problem with milk, Binny's offers a few vegan wines.

I had heard so many great things about B-Dubs from this site and got all excited and went with friends one day. When asking the usually questions, just in case, I was told that even the naked wings were contaminated because they cook them in the same oil as the other breaded wings. They said the oil would be fresh and gluten-free if I came first thing when they opened and happened to be the very first customer. The only food they said I could have were those stupid buffalo chips. They are basically plain, cooked potato smashed into a ball yet deceptively made to look like a tasty french fry alternative. I was very unhappy with my experience at that particular location, but at least I didn't eat anything bad.

Sigh.

I went gluten and dairy free in 2009 and learned a lot about how and what to avoid. For a long while, I mainly ate fruit and I felt much better and my stomach finally shrunk to reveal a flat, normal looking one rather than the horribly bloated, pregnant looking gut I thought of as pure, fat that I was never able to rid myself of no matter how much exercise before gluten-free life. I was content with my healing stomach and decided that it might be okay to try other foods. I became more lax in the questions I asked at restaurants and with the chances I took. I assumed I knew all there was to know and thought I was a pro at avoiding gluten containing foods. My stomach began to swell again to it's former massive size and once again, I became very self conscious and thought that there was some other medical problem causing this. Only recently did I discuss this with my naturopath who said it was more than likely that I had small encounters with gluten and didn't realize it. She was right, I looked into some of the items I had chosen to assume were safe, and sure enough, they were not. I am pretty upset with myself that I gambled with my health and am to blame for this horrible, ugly belly that I have tried the greater part of my life to destroy, and it was completely NOT worth it. What sucks also is that I thought I was doing well. I felt that I was pretty obsessive over what I would consume, but I now see that it was not enough. I cannot believe that not only was I miserable thinking I was/had to be so restrictive those years and was actually hurting, but now I feel like I have to go back and relearn everything. It is sad that I won't be enjoying my ethnic cuisine restaurants anymore. My family and friends already thought I was a burden when I got to choose where and where not to eat as well as taking what I thought were "safer risks" at restaurants. This is going to be so hard. I have to go through this process again, and now actually do it properly. I really hope I did not set myself back 7 years of healing during accidental glutenings.

I have not been employed for a while as I have been trying to keep my GPA up so I can get into a good Grad School, but I used to work at Panera 3 years ago. During that time, I figured out I had a gluten intolerance and wondered if I should quit. Well, I got fired a month after I started due to over-hire. Although I was pretty pissed off at the time and feared I would have black mark on my record for a long time, it may have been a bit of a godsend. I was constantly experiencing extreme fatigue and a foggy head there and it was difficult to keep up with the fast pace, the busy atmosphere and constant demands of customers, special requests that I had to put into the register, handling the math at the register, carrying incredibly heavy coffee makers, being on my feet for 8 hrs., and the stress of it all. This was all from the flour floating in the air because I knew I could not eat anything there, so just being around air-borne wheat was enough to hurt me.

Also, I wanted to be a chef too! That is out of the question for me now mostly because I have at least 4 different food intolerances, corn being one of them and extremely difficult to avoid in every day situations, but I am also on a different educational path now. I have, however, been to many gluten-free restaurants where the head chef decided to cater to celiacs because they found out they too had the condition.

Anyone have AB+ blood type and had success with this diet? I am raw-vegan right now but may change my diet if I find I do not feel better after my 6 week trial. I have been gluten free 3 years and still feel like awful, so I have tried out numerous "extreme" diets in the quest for health and happiness.

Sounds like the "Cave-man" diet. That diet is meant to eliminate all foods which were not eaten by our ancestors, milk included. They ate what they hunted and gathered. Many people are allergic/intolerant to the altered "foods" that we eat today and feel much better after removing those things from their diet.

I am sorry. I too am gluten and dairy free and trying to stricly eliminate corn. It is so difficult it is absolutely ludicrous. I am still learning too, but the Delphi forum has been somewhat helpful. It is similar to this forum, but much less organized. I would also suggest googling "corn free" or something of the sort. I have slowly been calling manufacturers too to see what is safe. Here are a few other helpful links, the first of which I would say is the most useful as it is a list of all corn derived ingredients you should avoid.

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

Thanks for the replies. I got tested through Enterolab and found that I was dairy and gluten intolerant, but I feel that I am intolerant to corn and probably a bunch of other things. I worry that the U of C clinic would not be able to help me with my other unknown intolerances. Many mainstream practitioners do not believe in intolerances at all, so I feel that a Naturopath may be my best bet.

Not only am I intolerant of gluten, but also dairy and corn, and probably other foods that I have not figured out yet. There is not much I can eat these days. Before I knew about the dairy and corn intolerances, I was missing these gluten foods:

-Pizza

-Panera baked potato and cream of chicken and wild rice soups

-Cheescake Factory desserts

-Oreo milk shakes

-granola

-Samosas

-ravioli/dumplings/tortelini/gnocchi

-crab rangoons

-all chinese food (especially deep fried ORANGE CHICKEN)

-Unagi (with Unagi sauce)

-Cracklin' Oat Bran cereal

-Ferraro Rochet chocolates

-most types of meat balls

-many curry dishes

-Wontons

-pies

-french fries

-Java chip frappucinos

-bread and soup

-many types of chili

-Tiramisu

-Nutella sandwiches

-stuffed french toast/belgian waffles

-Malt balls

-Ramen Noodles (don't judge!)