NJKen

Ok I am very new to all of this , not the gluten part but all of the hidden items in foods and trying to sort out what is poison to my body and what isn't. I read that someone got sick from Grape leaves and I'm not sure what is gluten containing in them. I am part lebanese, and I put cumin, all spice, salt, pepper, melted butter, beef, and uncle bens rice.. What contains gluten in that list?

All of those ingredients should be gluten-free. Some spices have flour as an ingredient, so you may want to check with your spice producer about that.

Larabars are not organic so it is possible for some "nut contamination," from the suppliers.

I'm confused by this comment. What does the use of organic vs. conventional crop management methods have to do with the potential for nut contamination in the nut-free varieties of Larabar?

I also heard about a Thai restaurant, Sri Thai, that was a gluten-free menu. Unfortunately I won't have time to try it.

I was in Fort Collins five years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed. I went to Sri Thai and started to explain my dietary restrictions, and my jaw nearly hit the table when the server asked, "Would you like to see our gluten-free menu?" I had a great dinner, and my business colleagues took me there for lunch the next day. I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone who is visiting Fort Collins.

I like Doc's Hard Pear Cider. The same brand also has apple and framboise (raspberry/apple).

Open Original Shared Link

There are numerous Indian restaurants in the area that have gluten-free food. I have often eaten at Crown of India in the Princeton Meadows Shopping Center and Passage to India in Lawrenceville on Alternate Route 1. There are a couple in downtown Princeton as well.

PF Chang's is a few miles south on Route 1 at the Market Fair Mall, as Amybeth mentioned.

Blue Point Grill on Nassau Street in Princeton (near Jay's Cycle Shop) is a seafood restaurant that has many menu items prepared without glutenous ingredients.

Tom Yum Goong is a Thai restaurant near the intersection of Nassau Street and Harrison Street with curries that are safe and also Pad Thai. I'm unsure about some of their other entrees prepared with rice; if you go there make sure that you are not ordering anything with soy sauce or oyster sauce.

There are several sushi places in town. I've often ordered from Sakura Express on Witherspoon Street near the library. Be sure to supply your own soy sauce, and don't order the eel (which is usually marinated) or the sweet potato sushi (prepared like tempura before rolling it in the rice).

Amybeth recommended Jules' Thin Crust in Newtown, which I haven't tried yet, but hope to soon. I would expect to take about thirty minutes to get there rather than twenty from Princeton. During the week at rush hour it could be even longer.

If you are looking for a grocery store to pick up a few things, the best place in Princeton for gluten-free food is Olive May on Nassau Street (near Jay's Cycle Shop and the Blue Point Grill). There's a Whole Food on Route 1 nearby.

There are numerous Indian restaurants in the area that have gluten-free food. Crown of India in the Princeton Meadows Shopping Center is near where you will be staying.

PF Chang's is a few miles south on Route 1 at the Market Fair Mall. (Trendy Chinese restaurant with a gluten-free menu available on request; gluten-free dishes prepared in a dedicated part of the kitchen.)

Blue Point Grill on Nassau Street in Princeton (near Jay's Cycle Shop) is a seafood restaurant that has many menu items prepared without glutenous ingredients.

Tom Yum Goong is a Thai restaurant near the intersection of Nassau Street and Harrison Street with curries that are safe and also Pad Thai. I'm unsure about some of their other entrees prepared with rice; if you go there make sure that you are not ordering anything with soy sauce.

You can get sushi at the Teriyaki Boy in the food court at Forrestal Village, but you'll need to supply your own wheat-free soy sauce.

Mr. Ritts has left Philadelphia and is now located in Millville, NJ.

I am traveling to Helsinki Finland in a few weeks and I am wondering if anyone knows how easy or hard it is to eat gluten free there. I hear that the restaurants are fairly familiar with gluten free but I was wondering if anyone has any first hand experience or any recommended restaurants.

Last summer I was in Helsinki for a couple of days and ate at these restaurants:

Rosso Restaurant -- gluten-free pizza and risotto

Raffaella -- gluten-free items indicated on the menu, and gluten-free bread available

I also ate in restaurants in Naantali and Fiskars. Wherever I went, the servers spoke English well and were familiar with the gluten-free diet. If the menu did not clearly indicate gluten-free foods, they knew what was safe and what wasn't.

The grocery stores also carry lots of gluten-free foods. Stock up before you return home.

Ken

Thank you Ken! I am looking forward to seeing our friends. This is really my first time traveling gluten-free to a non-resort (we did a cruise and disney) type place. Just a little nervous.

I forgot one restaurant in my first post. I received this message a few months ago from a celiac friend of mine:

We just ate at the Blue Bottle Cafe in Hopewell, and they had asterisks on the menu to denote celiac-friendly

items: all three salads, four entrees, and one dessert! The dessert was pavlova with raspberry sorbet, some sauce and fresh berries. They are fairly expensive, no liquor license, reservation required due to the excellent review in the NYTimes. They are worth a trip.

I haven't eaten there myself yet, but I trust my friend's judgment. The Blue Bottle is in Hopewell Borough along Rt 518 on the east side of town. You can look at their dinner menu here: Open Original Shared Link

Ken

Hopefully, someone will come to my rescue! I will be traveling to Hopewell, NJ in the coming weeks and will need to eat. I know that Hopewell is near Princeton. That about covers what I know!

What places to eat are safe? Where can I shop for gluten-free food?

I will have access to a gluten kitchen so some meals I can make.

Thanks for any and all help!

Hez

Princeton is about a 15 minute drive from Hopewell when there is little traffic, but in rush hour it can easily be at least double that time. From Hopewell take Rt 518 east to Rt 206 south into Princeton.

For grocery shopping, in Princeton on Nassau Street (Rt 27) there is a health food store called Olive May that has a lot of gluten-free foods. The Whole Earth Center, a little bit farther north on Nassau Street, has a lesser selection, but may have a few items that Olive May lacks.

There is a PF Chang's restaurant on Rt 1 (southbound side) in West Windsor by the Market Fair Mall, near Princeton; they have a special gluten-free menu. In Princeton on Route 27 at the intersection with Harrison Street there is a Thai restaurant called Tom Yum Goong that does not use oyster sauce or soy sauce in their dishes unless the menu so indicates; they use fish sauce. There are numerous sushi places, but be sure to use your own gluten-free soy sauce and avoid the eel (which is usually marinated in soy sauce). There are also many Indian restaurants which have primarily gluten-free entrees; I recommend A Passage To India on Alternate Route 1 in Lawrenceville (southwest of Rt 95).

I hope that you enjoy your stay in Mercer County, New Jersey!

Ken

The eel sushi is usually covered in a brown sauce that is not safe. The other "true" fish sushis should be fine.

I am going to Long Beach Island this summer & I want to know if anyone knows any gluten friendly restaurants. I know the Greenhouse Cafe but I was hoping for more than that!

I have heard that the Owl Tree in Harvey Cedars has a gluten-free menu, but I haven't been there to check it out. Give them a call.

I am curious to find out other people's experiences with airline special meals. Have you used them? Have they actually been served to you? Or as has happened to me on several occasions not made it to the plane despite checking in advance to be sure it would be!

Continental Airlines has done well for me. Whenever I've ordered a gluten-free meal they have had it on the flight. Domestic flights that do not cross the continent, however, do not have regular meal service, and they do not have gluten-free "snacks" available when they serve sandwiches to others.

The gluten-free meals on Continental are usually very bland--almost always chicken breast with a little bit of tomato-based sauce. My wife usually orders vegetarian, and more often than not gets an Indian (south Asian) entree. That's fine, because she likes Indian food, and so do I, but what I don't understand is why Continental doesn't sometimes provide the Indian entrees for gluten-free passengers. Most Indian meals are made without glutenous ingredients.

I used to enjoy wheat beers. Is there any gluten-free beer that is similar to a wheat beer in flavor?

Do they sell at other stores...or just at the bakery?

Their goods are sold in other stores. I've been able to buy The Grainless Baker breads, cookies, and cakes at Olive May in Princeton, NJ.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Never been there before. Thanks guys!

In 2003 I visited Fort Collins and went to dinner at Sri Thai, a few blocks west of the university campus. When I began to explain to the server what I had to avoid, she asked, "Would you like to see our gluten-free menu" They had clearly marked, on a copy of their regular menu, which items were gluten-free. That's how I learned the danger of oyster sauce. I highly recommend this restaurant; I hope it's still under the same management.

I was afraid I'd have to give up Indian food when I was diagnosed a little over a year ago...

My experience has been that nearly every entree on the menu at Indian restaurants is gluten-free. They use chickpea flour (also called gram flour) rather than wheat flour for thickening sauces or coating meats. A few appetizers have wheat, and of course the naan bread, but you should feel safe entering just about any Indian restaurant to get a gluten-free meal.

Hi,

I will be traveling to Key West, FL and to southern Norway this year and was wondering if anyone could offer any dining suggestions/ advice for either place.

Peggy

That's one heckuva trip you're taking.

Anyway, I was in Norway two summers ago. At each of the four hotels I stayed in, the servers at the breakfast buffet knew exactly what "gluten-free" meant, and at three of the four they had gluten-free bread or crispbread in stock. (I spoke only English during my trip, and had no communication problems.) I had gluten-free pizza at Peppe's and Dolly Dimples. These may have been made with wheat starch, I'm not sure; so if you are particularly sensitive to wheat you may want to avoid these or try to contact them in advance. (Starch is a carbohydrate, and gluten is a protein, so wheat starch can be obtained that is below the Codex threshold for gluten, I believe it is 200 ppm.) The gluten-free cookies and other products available at the health food stores clearly indicate whether wheat starch is an ingredient. Seafood is also commonly served in restaurants, so you should have no trouble getting a dinner without gluten. I even found one restaurant that had gluten-free pasta.

Celiac is more widely known in Norway than here. Enjoy your trip!

Stage Left can probably accommodate you, unless you're a student and can't afford the prices. It's at the corner of George Street and Livingston Avenue, and the menu includes "apple and fennel risotto", "roasted organic chicken" with polenta and pesto, and a few other meat and seafood entrees which might be gluten-free. I haven't eaten there yet, so I do not have any personal experience to share with you. Be sure to ask the server to check on the gluten status of whatever you order; even risotto is sometimes spoiled by the addition of sauces with gluten.

There are a large number of Indian restaurants within 15 miles of New Brunswick; most Indian entrees are gluten-free. There is also a PF Chang's along Route 1 past Alexander Road near Princeton, about 10 miles south of New Brunswick.

Good luck, and please let us know about anyplace else that you find!

The link in the original post in this thread is no longer active, and nobody has actually given the name and location of this place. (Cape Cod is a big place.) Can someone provide a few details?

Thanks in advance!

Budweiser, like most beers, is made from barley. There are wheat beers, but you don't see them frequently. The nongluten beers I've seen are made from sorghum. I haven't run across any rice beers.

In Finland there is a corn beer; it's named "Indian Beer" or something like that, with the face of a Plains Indian in a traditional head dress on the can.

I posted this on another thread, but haven't gotten a response, so I've spun it off on its own:

I haven't tried Redbridge, or any of the other gluten-free beers, because I don't like the taste of hops.

I used to enjoy wheat beer, which has wheat instead of hops, but of course that had a double dose of gluten. Do any of the currently available gluten-free beers come close to the flavor of wheat beer?

does anybody think that gluten may never be used again?

There will always be niche markets catering to people with special diets, including gluten-free, in relatively affluent societies--i.e. North America, Western and Northern Europe, and eventually in eastern Asia. I think that we will remain, however, just a blip on the radar screen.

Wheat is grown on ~60 million acres (~24 million hectares) in the U.S. alone. China grows even more. Rice is already grown just about everywhere that is suitable. Corn and soy production are also quite high, and as we know from reading the posts of others, many celiacs are also intolerant of foods made from these two crops. Hundreds of millions of acres worldwide now in wheat (with appropriate harvesting equipment bought with money borrowed from the bank) are not going to be converted to growing quinoa and tapioca.

What we can reasonably hope for is what I experienced while visiting Finland this summer--grocery items clearly marked when they were "gluten-free" (but made with wheat starch) or "naturally gluten-free" (no wheat, barley, or rye at all), and restaurants with their regular menus clearly marked, or alternatively servers who immediately understood the meaning of gluten-free and were prepared to indicate which menu items were safe.

People generally benefit from having as much diversity in their diet as they can handle, and for non-celiacs, that includes wheat, barley, and rye. For those of us with more selective digestive systems, we would be best served by better labels and well-informed chefs and servers.

I haven't tried Redbridge, or any of the other gluten-free beers, because I don't like the taste of hops. (That's probably heresy on this thread, but I'll take my chances...)

I used to enjoy wheat beer, which has wheat instead of hops, but of course that had a double dose of gluten. Do any of the currently available gluten-free beers come close to the flavor of wheat beer?

I've been missing Thai food like nobody's business, and I was wondering what experiences people have had ordering it. Are there any dishes that are typically gluten-free? How easy is it to get something specially made? (Are there any safe Thai places in Boise?)

Different Thai restaurants prepare many of the same dishes differently. Soy sauce is not a common ingredient in true Thai food, but it is used a lot in certain Thai restaurants in North America to suit local tastes. The more traditional sauce is fish sauce, which is almost always gluten-free. (It should be made only from fish, salt, sugar, and water.) Oyster sauce is used in some dishes, and contains gluten. So--in whichever Thai restaurant you want to try, ask them which kind of sauce they use. You'll have to decide whether to trust that their fish sauce is safe, if that's what they use.