gfp

I can't drink carbonated sodas or mineral water either. It feels like the bubbles multiply when they get into my stomach.

I hope someone can explain this.

Naturally carbonated water contains anti-acids but when you force carbonation using CO2 under pressure you make an acid.

Hence natually sparkling water is a natural antacid whereas cabonated water is the inverse.

Also the bubbles are different .... if its forced the bubbles are kept in under pressure and when they come out they boil out in very small bubbles whereas a naturally carbonated water has bigger bubbles ....

You can see this for yourself really easily with a forced carbonated water and naturally in the same type of glass. The bubbles are smaller and more vigerous in the forced carbonation.

Yup, my brother's sister has a son with many symptoms. I mentioned that her son should be tested because of the genetics - 2 cousins with it after all. Her reply: No, husband wouldnt be able to handle special diets in the house. ??

So then I said - well not everyone would have to change their eating. She then says : dont have the time, too much trouble........

Who is doing her laundry ?

Seriously if only from the aspect of not worrying about this!

However more seriously ....

I just got back from Italy ... and it seems almost everyone knows of celiac. The diagnosis rate is 1:200 as all young children are tested so everyone knows someone with celiac .... so when you start your explanation to the waiter then don't look at you like you just grew two horns, a third eye and a tail ... (you know that look )

I even got gluten-free beer in resto's with gluten-free pizza and pasta! Now given the price of Italian wine it was a hard decision ... gluten-free beer or wine with the pizza but heck it was nice to be asked!

I have a home distiller for about twenty years now. One needs to take a good vit & min when using distilled water. I drink it every day as well as my pets and other family members. We have alway taken supplements. My hubby used to get very sick when he drank city water with flouride....

My pets have all lived to be 18/19 years old so I don't think it injured them in any way. My vet said it probably made them live much longer.

mamaw

I think they say there may be about 2% of the world's water that is truly safe with no bugs,germs and pollution in it. That's scary to me so I'll continue with my distiller.........

This is a completely spurious arguament. There is not much air you can breath doesn't contains bacteria, yeasts or other things .... but so what the human body is designed to cope with bacteria, indeed the human body cannot live without bacteria.

Removing trace elements and then adding them back n suppliments seems somewhat illogical unless you are a suppliment and water distillation company! Sure take them out and then put them in tablets to be taken back but why?

Almost all impurities can be removed by boiling and then filtering, especially flourides and chlorides using simple carbon filters.

Drinking distilled water with a perfectly balanced diet is possible so long as you don't drink on an empty stomach etc. or are loosing minerals and trace elements through D but its just totally pointless.

When I lived in N. Africa I used to water my garden with distilled water from an AC until it killed everything whereupon I added some seawater to the distilled water. Bear in mind the "soil" was just sand .... which when distilled water was added lost its tiny amount of nutrients

anyone can try this at home with a succulent or cactus that grows on sand, if you give it normal tapwater it is fine but give it only distilled water and it dies as the nutrients are washed out.

"Distilled water has an inherent quality. Acting almost like a magnet, it picks up rejected, discarded, and unusable minerals and, assisted by the blood and the lymph, carries them to the lungs and kidneys for elimination from the body. The statement that distilled water leaches minerals from the body has no basis in fact. It doesn't leach out minerals that have become part of the cell structure. It can't and won't. It collects only minerals that have already been rejected or excreted by the cells...To suggest that distilled water takes up minerals from foods so that the body derives no benefit from them is absurd." - Harvey & Marilyn Diamond, Fit for Life II: Living Health

Again all selectively written ....

Firstly it can and does affect cell composition and inparticular the osmotic balance of the cells.

Its like taking a reverse isotonic ... to claim it doesn't would be to say you could drink seawater .... obviously you can't. Eating K rich foods like bananas affects your K:Na ratio, drinking seawater does the inverse. Try drinking a 1/2 pint of seawater and you will get headaches and elevated blood pressure which will subside if you take some K and Mg salts.

The body uses electrolytes pretty much all the time ... they don't balance out like food over a few days

My hubby used to get very sick when he drank city water with flouride....

Very probably but is it the flouride or the fact the city water is extensively chemically treated. As for Harvey & Marilyn Diamond I take everything they say with a pinch of salt (pun intended) ....

I would expect he would be fine on a good quality untreated mineral water or filtered water .... much cheaper and no need to add suppliments.

I think they say there may be about 2% of the world's water that is truly safe with no bugs,germs ......

There is ample evidence that countires with extensive diets of raw meat and fish live longer and have lower infact mortality than those that do. Spain, France, Italy etc. and Japan all have much better life expectancies and lower infant mortality rates than the US ... The same can be said of unpasturised cheeses etc.

I have seen quite a few pro-biotic threads advocating pro-biotics natually found in raw meat and animal rennet ... (from stomach lining) with the same principal ... remove it from the natural diet then add it back as tablets. It makes no real sense ....

This usually makes headlines with events like Katrina ... where people have been brought up eating sterile foods and water and are then exposed to a bit of bacteria that knocks them sideways (or kills them) or when travelling to other countires.

edits:

Also the site promoting distilled water is just plain lying....

Open Original Shared Link

Home distillers take about 3 kilowatts to make 4 litres of distilled water. The average price of a kw in the UK is approximately 5.5p and therefore, for four litres of distilled water the cost is likely to be approximately 16.5p - or only just over 4p per litre!

Is 4p per litre too much to pay for pure distilled water made fresh in your home?

The alternatives are to buy bottled distilled water, or mineral water - both of which cost between 40p-£2.50 per litre and are not available on demand.

From the perspective of return on investment - it would take you approximately 99 days for your distiller to pay for itself:

3 litres of distilled water per day = 12.37p

3 litres of bottled mineral water per day = £2.04

Difference = £1.92

Price of a Fresh & Pure Distiller = £189.99

Days to pay for distiller based upon saving above= 99 days!

Mineral water delivered to the door from a supermarket only costs 5p a litre ....

Open Original Shared Link

If you buy it by the 25l or 50l refillable dispenser its a lot less and much better for the environment.

Again the whole article is a misleading lie. If I can find water at 5p a litre including delivery from the first online supermarket they could have done so.

I'd drink the stuff - if I was trapped on an island in the middle of the ocean without it's own water source and had something to use to make a still for ocean water. Though, in my daily life, I try to avoid being marooned on desert islands in the middle of the ocean, and leave the distilled water for my iron.

No need : You just add back some sea water if this ever happens.

If you want to purify the water you can use iodides which can be extracted from most kelp/seaweed by burning them into a charcoal and placing the ash in the water which is then boiled and the soluble part run off.

In order to test you have enough iodine to purify water test with starch from a starch rich source (most tuber type roots) and it should go purple ...

As everyone else is saying food easily digested is best for me.

My comfort food is a chicken broth though with only a little chicken.

Immodium works best for me taken as early as possible, preferably with perfect 20/20 hindsight before ... since non of us have perfect 20/20 hindsight ASAP ...

Taken as early as possible it tends to offset the brain fog ... because it blocks the receptors that gluten attaches to. (the same ones for all opiates) this is my number one concern because D and cramps can be painfull, embarassing etc. but the brain fog is 10x worse and dealing with D/cramps when you have brain fog is the last thing you want to deal with.

Just as an example, Im quite introverted anyway ... I don't like asking a random resto/bar to use their loo but when Im glutened and in pain and waiting to explode .... it becomes very intimidating.

So back to chicken broth....

I boil up some chicken legs with some celery tops and offcuts and leeks etc. and a few carrot peelings and tops for 1hr but carefully pull out the chicken legs after 20-30 mins .. pull off the skin and bones/cartilidge and put back ... meanwhile I add the tender celery, a bit of carrot and leek to another (large) pan and some cabbage and boil gently ...the chicken meat I reserve in a tupperware.

Let the stock cool and skim off any fat if you like then seive back a pint into the pan with the vegetables

You can get 4 pints of stock from 6-8 legs. I start off with a very watery soup....

The rest of the stock I put in the fridge.

As I feel better digestivly I add more meat and then some rice to the soup making it thicker.....

The cartilidge and bones give lots of calcium and vitamins and nothing is wasted (nutritionally) and everything is in the best for for adsorbtion.

On gatorade etc.

This is OK but I prefer just adding some salts (esp K and Mg) rehydration type packets. to replenish those lost by D.

Apparently liquid immodioum contains gluten so I only use the capsules or better still sub-lingual (gets into the system faster)

well, I must admit that this thread has gone in a bit of a direction that I hadn't wanted but that's what happens when you share your dirty laundry. I appreciate everyone's advice. Thanks Gfp for the male perspective and thank you Sarah for that last post, I really do like to hear others' experiences and know I'm not alone. No, I don't need a specialist and no I usually don't have a low sex drive (when I'm off gluten and not feeling as depressed as I have because of my gluten challenge). In the last few days I have been more conscious of my eating and not trusting anything but about 6-7 different foods- nothing processed. Like Sarah said, I think that I need those enterolab results so that he can listen and beleive me and I am going to make a concerted effort never to talk about my health problem.

The thing is you are still in the same catch-22 for now and the health problems do need to be discussed and he does need to get aboard, whatever the test results say!

However at the same time you need to not make it feel like its a problem that he can help with.

I guess what I need to clarify is that when I say we don't communicate, I don't mean about our relationship, and what ails it, I mean that we don't communicate period...no hi, how was your day etc. we can go on like this for a month other than the curse nod and any info to be shared re the kids. You could cut the tension in my house with a knife. And in the meantime, I'm a single parent, coping with everything while he goes about his business like he doesn't have a care in the world. It's so hard not to be resentful and want better! Now, I've tried in the past to talk about things, get him to relax but all that will help is by me saying let's go have some sex.

I am not really surprised because that is where the non communication goes... and the deeper it goes the more it needs unravelling .... imagine the problem like a ball of wool and each time you go through this cycle it gets more and more knotted and tangled and the more tangled it gets the more aspects it drag's in.

The problem is that when this sort of cycle has been going on it needs a concerted effort by both parties and a prolonged coverted effort by one of them.

What happens all to often is one party makes the effort but takes the other party by surprise by the effort and they don't know how to respond, respond badly and then the other partner responds badly to the bad response. Second person realises it was a lifeline and tries to cling to it but too late because the first person is now upset.

The only real way around this is one party to have the energy and perseverance to make the effort, be rejected and REMAIN receptive. With your health problems I appreciate how hard it is for this person to be YOU.

Robbin: All men are sulky and immature... some just hide it better!

This could be as gfp said, though, the way some men are. They can't put their feelings into words until they are intimate.

What I mean is the two are seperate but connected. Men don't like sharing their feelings unless its someone they feel very comfortable with, much less so than women which is why we have stupid conversations amongst ourselves about sport, fishing or whatever whereas women tend to discuss more personal things amongst themselves.

The feeling of being comfortable is somewhat however tied to intimacy.

However I agree completely with tarnalberries last post.... you have to feel comfortable.

What needs to be done is the tangled ball of wool needs unravelling and this happens cycle by cycle....

Its hardest at first because its so tangled you can't find the end but as it becomes progressively untangled it gets easier and easier.

it really sounds like the two of you really need to work with a third party on the communication issues. it'll kill a relationship faster than sex problems.

Gluten can alter your perceptions a great deal.

This is really so true.... and its effects are so incidious you don't notice until you are clear off gluten for a while. This is the hidden trap, its like one party in the marriage has a drug problem except its a hidden problem, not heronine or something you can point to and blame but gluten....

Just so you know this advice has a cost.... but I already paid it. Im no rocket scientist .... I paid the price which was my marriage. I have a great deal of admiration for those like CarlaB who have recognised this without having to pay that price.

Now, usually by this time, I don't even want to be near him never mind doing the dirty. But it's all that will work. I don't know what makes him go into his cave like this, it's always something different

That is because its all tangled up in the communication problem. Its all different yet all part of the same tangled mess. This tangled mess has some knots in it and one of those knots is sex ... but there are others too. The problem is you are both stranded in the eye of the hurricane and getting out requires passing through that swirling confused mass.... you have both gotten yourself to the stalemate in the middle of the hurricane, neither wants to be there but you keep taking little steps and being knocked back... when the only way through it is TOGETHER.

Even if you did leave him and divorce .... you still need to go through this together.

I can't stand people who sulk, which is what it sounds like your husband is doing.

Yes he is but then this is all part of the cycle.

Lastly for rachelk, you are not alone! If we all clubbed together we could write a book on gluten the mariage wrecker, this isn't saying its your fault.... not at all but having identified a part of the problem the wool ball can start to unravel ... unless you start somewhere it will just continue getting worse and worse.

Sulking is not contructive behaviour but it isn't exactly rare either.

My first problems were hiatus hernia and gerd which were added to by the celiac disease.

I lost 15-20lbs and it rarely bothers me so long as I remember certain things like plenty of pillows and elevated head to the bed, take very strong acid prohibitors (not antacid) before diving (else the stomach acid just runs out when you face down) etc. etc.

Every time my weight goes back up a little I start getitng symptoms .... so i have to loose the weight again.

if this is the case for the OP, then it's time to find a doctor who specializes in treating this sort of problem, which is difficult. the confluence of this sort of problem with a low sex drive is a *witch* of a problem to solve, and going it alone just is going to take too long and be too frustrating and painful, mentally and physically.

I can't stand to have any intimacy because my stomach and all things connected are sooooo sore. My relationship is really suffering.

So the question is what does that mean? (I guess)

Speaking as a guy what can appear to be constant stream of "My tummy is a bit sore/full, i have a headache or aunt flo is visiting" or similar can be rather offputting because we place a different emphasis on things like that.largely because if the guy initiates and is rejected once or twice will knock most guys back but the 5-6 time in a row can be a little testing for our self confidence.

If your intimate parts are truly that sore then as tarnalberry say's you need to see a specialist. If we are just talking delicate tummy = turn off then I think that's what she also meant about the Nike slogan......

Funny thing, the Pope, of all people, said recently, that men need to take care that women are brought along into the act since men are so quickly excited and women need a little more prodding. Obviously I paraphrased ... but you get the idea. Since we're Catholic, I milk this one!! Got me a neck rub the other day, and that was before gfp's last posting!!

Tiffany, this is exactly the attitude I had and it vastly improved our relationship. My husband feels desired, and as a result pampers me, which helps bring things full-circle into him feeling desired. You have to start the "circle" somewhere!

Thanks, I was a bit worried about saying that as a guy....

I was half expecting someone to tell me we are in the 21stC not the 19thC

You don't do it when you REALLY don't want to, but you lower the bar on when it's 'not acceptable' to have sex, so that you're not just waiting until you're really really in the mood. Like many things, you sometimes just have to do it to want to do it. Yes, this is hard in practice, but important, and useful.

Thanks I think that sums it up.....

I have some other suggestions ....

Like I said a fulfilled promise can go a loooooooooooooong way.

If the guy can be enlisted into helping then its two birds with one stone.

If you make it clear that its just a problem with sex drive (even if it is a little more complex) then your man will want to help. This lifts any self doubt on his part .... and he feels like he's doing something.

rachellek: A suggestion is that the kids are a pressure that causes a constant distraction. I'm sure this is true enough for you to use tell hm to find someone to take care of the kids while you two go out on a romantic date. Make it a real date.... get dressed up ... pamper yourself to a hairdo ... and tell him he needs to get dressed up too ... and pay for the meal and wine. If he used to do this then tell him he needs to do it again, if not then you can tell him you missed out on romantic dates and he needs to make it up now.

Or you can make a meal at home ... just the two of you a few candles etc. If he has to drop the kids off then take the time to have a nice perfumed bath with some candles and incense while he's doing this.

If its been a while then you might feel a bit shy about your body.... you can buy a nice sexy nighty for this, if you can choose it together (say a design on the internet) then this would be a good addition. Whatever you do don't send him to choose it .... the most important thing is YOU feel comfortable.

Keep up the "dates" .... don't do this the first one or it could backfire but subsequent dates are when you discuss things with him.... or get him to talk. Don't make it seem like its a direct exchange.... just explain that women need communication with their man as well as the dinner

OK .. and drifting on the fringes of TMI ... if you are sore then the actual time spent actually in intercourse can be slimmed down by foreplay. I can't think of a simpler way to say this but he can spend some time and attention on other parts of your body.

Time frames vary and amount seems to have no effect on severity.

4 days ago I had a Thai red curry, I found the paste and thought I'd try ....since its really hard to get fresh galangal here. I had a coconut rice with saffron accomp....

Then last night I was eating out and started feeling weird .... I had been a bit off and a bit brain foggy but then I have hay fever as well .... my friends left the resto and I left with my Girl-Friend then WHAM!!!!!

I ran back in to the loo cursing the resto .... how do you CC RAW beef????

To cut a long story short .... what came out has saffron .... you can't exactly mistake it whole.

I can only conclude that the bowel movement and the glutening were from the same thing....

Retrospectively I had been constipated.

However I usually react 6-8 hours later .... but this case was pretty clear!

Thanks gfp for the male perspective, I really do need it as you see, my husband is not communicating with me. We have a huge and long history of this, anytime we are not intimate for a few days or he is upset by something I've done, he just shuts down and won't talk. We basically live under the same roof and raise the kids, are civil to each other but no communication happens- we can go on like this for a month if I don't intervene. I call it the love swith...Oh, he's mad and the love switch is turned off. When he wants intimacy bad enough, he flips the switch back on. Don't get me wrong, I do not hold this over his head but because of my illness, the kids you name it, it just isn't feasible to be intimate on a daily basis. Anyways, I am always the one to give when we are not speaking...he gets what he wants and then I NEVER get what I want...ie communication, talking about our problems, support, he just carries on as before and we never talk about ANYTHING. This has been going on for years and years and I'm so fed up! I know I'm giving everyone way too much information. But as cmdt described below, I'm also having problems with my very good friend right now(she hasn't pulled completely out of my life but just doesn't care to understand what I"m going through. I see a smirk on her face and a glaze in her eye anytime I describe how I've been feeling...I know she doesn't believe me at all when she changes the subject all together) and really have no one but the forum to vent this to. I really do appreciate all you support. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

How do I get him to talk to me gfp? We've done couples counselling with success about 4 years ago when our middle child was a baby and a real handful. Things got better for a while but then I've been getting progressively worse (health wise) since then and my ability to give has been diminishing all the time. I really do think that we're done but just can't bring myself to this decision as I don't want to regret things later. Failure to communicate is something that a couple books I've been reading says are pretty much insurmountable...I bought him DR. PHIL's relationship rescue 4 months ago and he hasn't read it yet. That's how much he really cares in my eyes.

Thank you all again!

Big disclaimer don't act on anything I just came home after a fair amount of wine

I will do my best and perhaps even say more because of this ....?????

Its so easy to be trapped in the cycle.. woman doesn't want sex with a guy she is not communicating with and guy can't communicate with the girl he isn't getting sex with.

Firstly i think your depressed and I think you realise it. Women who are depressed don't want sex ... (usually) but guys are to shallow to realise its not about them.

Buying the books is suggesting its his problem (from his perspective) .... but all relationship problems have some share of either side, even if its 99/100 one person.

I really do think that we're done but just can't bring myself to this decision as I don't want to regret things later.

OK and I think everyone agrees... but doing nothing will not help either and neither will telling him you are contemplating this (and I'm someone that needs complete honesty in a relationship) ....

What you need to do IMHO is make him feel secure and that he can stop acting like a 17 yr old trying to feel secure. Its a natural response in men we regress to being cluxy 16-17 yr olds when we can't see what's wrong with a relationship.

The ball is in your court so to speak .... he is still the same guy you fell in love with ... he's just reacting badly to a situation ....

What you can do is ask for his help .... men love giving help... well men need to feel like they can help and are not incompetent, it immascualtes them. You can do special things to show your appreciation for this help, even if it doesn't help. This can be tickets for a ball game or whatever rocks his boat ... the important thing is they are your appreciation of his help and you say so!

Do things together .....don't be pushy but if he pops to the store say "Hey I'll come with you" (presuming the kids are old enough to leave) when he asks why just say ..."Oh I miss doing that stuff .together... now we have the kids" BUT if he says no then just respect that ... it might take a while and say something like "OK but lets set some time aside .... and do something together" If you go to the store pamper a few of his favorites.... all of this is just really making him feel secure and the more secure he feels the less demanding he will need to be..... seriously men really can be like little puppies.... so long as we feel secure but the more insecure we feel the more weird we get.

At the same time don't smother him.... we are not as resiliant as we pretend and smothering is somthing men cope with badly.

speaking for myself .... I know all this but ... I'm still a guy and wheras buying a woman flowers can have a uplifting effect way beyond the actual flowers with men its sex or more accurately the woman you love telling you she wants YOU.

Don't get me wrong, I do not hold this over his head but because of my illness, the kids you name it, it just isn't feasible to be intimate on a daily basis.

A delivered promise goes a long long way.... and he can be enrolled in improving your health ... finding someone to take care fo the kids etc. but if you do this you need to deliver otherwise the effect will be negative. This doesn't mean you can't demand that while the kids are away you have a romantic candlelit dinner followed by a massage .(make him work for it and most guys will usually feel more secure, remember dating )... but be warned if you don't deliver the feeling of rejection will be 10 fold. (in other words don't play with this)

Hope this makes sense .....

Thanks so much. This is all a bit overwhelming right now. As far as I know, no one in our family suffers from anything like this. I don't have any allergies and eat everything. I'm a pretty healthy girl and don't even so much as get heartburn. One of the most frustrating parts right now for me is that we eat a lot of whole grains and whole wheat pasta and we have been trying to get Jack to do the same - also at the advice of our dietician. And now to learn that everything he has been eating has been causing the problems is devistating. This isn't something that we would have ever considered. I understand that some people can have the disease and not show the extreme symptoms -- I guess we will see what happens when the family changes diets.

It does make me feel better to see that there is so much out there for him.

Does anyone know if the biopsy will do anthing other than confirm the results? I mean, will it tell us if he has any other sensitivites?

And again -- anyone know abut pediasure?

thank you

Erika

False positives on blood are only really false positives if you define celaic disease as being biopsy positive.

For a full celiac suite the accuracy is 98% on positives but the other 2% are what?

The majority of the 2% will eventually develop celiac disease... in terms of biopsy proven but what does that mean?

It is proven that gluten causes other no villi and sometimes irreverisble damage to celaics so why wait until the damage is done to act.

The biopsy can show a negative for bowel cancer ... not something you should be even worrying about but it won't show you anything new that the blood tests haven't.

cmdt:

I am being a bit blunt here, you don't know me but its my nature.

I do aim to shock you a bit but only to help you not be confused.

Yesterday we found out that my youngest daughter (13) has had a positive IgA for celiac's. I was diagnosed this past January after going through YEARS of unexplainable symptoms. My middle daughter (15) was diagnosed in February, and again, it has explained much of what has been going on with her for quite a while.

I am FLOORED by this news. She has NO symptoms that we are aware of. Basically, we were only screening her because she had blood drawn for another reason at her physical last month. My oldest daughter (19) has had a negative blood test, and she is the one I would have expected to be positive.

My husband doesn't think we should tell our youngest right now. I think that's crazy, but then again, why is this kid going to want to change her lifestyle if there's nothing wrong? Our middle child at least had many reasons to see why going gluten free would help her. She had had major weight loss, joint pain, trouble sleeping, concentrating, etc.

For all the reasons you just mentioned .... a postive IgA is pretty definitive wheras a negative is not.

IMHO ignoring this is no different to allowing her to smoke... but that is because I have years of being gluten-free and you are still new so Im saying that because I don't want you to have to look back in 5 years and feel guilty or she develops complications.

She was doing great when off gluten for nearly 3 months, but has been on a gluten challenge since April. We just got her follow-up blood results as well--positive (no surprise), and now the GI specialist wants to schedule her for an endoscopy ASAP. She is very resistant, and wants to wait until the end of the summer.

Again why? You are deliberatly poisioning your little girl to the ultimate end of damaging an important organ. To my knowledge noone has ever reversed a blood test proven diagnosis ...(they can have a -ve biopsy but the IgA is still positive). imagine the biopsy is negative .. what do you do then? continue giving gluten and see if it was a poor sample, retest and rechallenge?

What if its positive? will you rechallenge next year? If she is still IgA +ve and still gets ill eating gluten will you continue until the biopsy showns significant damage.

I know this must all sound VERY confusing!! I am completely overwhelmed.

The advice you are getting is inconsistent. What I recommend is browse this forum for issues other than villi damage, there are literally hundreds some serious others inconvenient and some life threatening.

Firstly, you need to put this in writing, whay you or your dauighter said is only as good as you can prove.

Firstly send a fax and follow it up with a registered letter.

Be VERY BLUNT !

Make a proper formal letter heading then

ATTN: XXXXXX

My daughter XXXX is in your care in ward XXXX and has on several occaisions been fed items which I do not approve of.

My daughter is a celaic and intolerant to all gluten from wheat, barley, rye and I chose not to risk oats.

Regardless of your dieticians advice I do not allow my daughter to eat rice crispies or graham crackers.

I require a declaration as to why she has been given these foods when she expressed concern that she could not eat them. My opinion as the parent and legal guardian of my child is that any food deemed not 100% gluten free is not risked. I make no exceptions to this.

I require these answers in writing.

I have sent my daughter a set of sterile bags and she will be keeping a part of each meal in these. If the dietician tries to tell her what she can and cannot eat again the next letter will be from my lawyer.

I require that each item she is fed be listed and signed off on her medical sheet. I require a copy to be left with my daughter daily. She is to be fed nothing that is not listed or the next letter will be from a lawyer.

Should my daughter have any further symptoms of celaic disease then the samples will be analysed and if found positve the next letter will be from my lawyer.

It's not getting bad reviews from everyone, but it's mostly the new celiacs who like it and the more experienced, long-term celiacs who don't. I think this can be explained through what I said in the last paragraph: she has a great writing style and connects with the reader (therefore, newbies love it). Yet, if you know this diet well enough and read the book, you realize that despite it being a "good read" so to speak, it's factually incorrect and therefore, a hazard.

I agree (from your description since I haven't read it myself).

What new celiac doesn't want to be told its OK to cheat... etc.

The book is just playing to telling people what they want to hear...

My warning is primarily against blindly buying this book, for example, through the internet, due to a misleading title.

Yep I expected a completly rewritten bible where manna transforms to corn tortilla's and the last supper has rice bread?

sorry couldn't resist....

Non acceptance by loved ones is a recurrent theme ...

People simply have a problem that something you have been eating your whole life which is almost universally accepted as a staple food can be the cause.

Everyone has different circumstances but if you are anything like me with brain fog then non-communication comes pretty high up the list. Perhaps husbands have a hard time because they like trying to fix things and this cannot be fixed!

I think a course of action can be to print out some of the brain-fog posts and some of the medical literature and ask your husband to just read it. Tell him you need his support either way .... that you are depressed and need his support ... and that is regardless of the gluten or not.

I can't stand to have any intimacy because my stomach and all things connected are sooooo sore. My relationship is really suffering.

From his perspective:

You have been acting strangly ... the way men react to their spouses lack of attention and feelings of rejection is to try and be intimate. This doesn't make any sense ... but its true. It doesn't make any sense that when your a teenager you think riding a bike without hands will attract a female... or about 100 other things inept boys think will attract a girl its just the way we are!

Being a bit older I now recognise that a girls lack of sex drive can be nothing to do with me.... but I still have the feeling I need to be more intimate.. the more things deteriorate the more the lack of intimiacy will play on him and each rejection just builds up. Each rejection just makes the need to be intimate more pressing and the feeling he will loose you if he can't be intimate.

If you have got to the point of rejecting all intimacy because of where it might lead then this exasperates the problem... your husband needs to know you love him and the more you push away the more and stronger he will feel that need.

Yes its shallow but its also true.

I can't stand to have any intimacy because my stomach and all things connected are sooooo sore.

You need to ask yourself if this is the real reason, no need to answer to anyone except yourself but you need to be certain you are being completely honest with yourself over this.

Many people have problems with close family and friends who have afterall seen you eating gluten over a long time.

We have discussed many reasons for this but people just have a hard time accepting it.

In addition since many of the symptoms are unpleasant we tend to mask them until we finally find out why.

Once we find out why we tend to be more vocal and your is a recurring theme... and most come to be supportive.

His name is Ed Snider.

And he won the 2005 William Penn award, whatever that is.

William Penn was by all accounts a pretty stand-up guy. (if not a button down guy)

Voltaire wrote about him in his "Letter's concerning the English" and his tolerance and treaty's with the native populations were legendary.

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Ha! He can probably afford his own, dedicated chef

He can but that doesn't mean he will. He is also experienced in changing and forging legislation ....

does this *have* to be done in a rice cooker, or will a covered pan work? I'd like to try it....

One thing I forgot to mention is I used a copper bottomed stainless pan which distributes the heat.

stirring is the only way to *properly* do risotto, but if you like it without the stirring, then who needs the extra work?! :-)

It depends, if its just for me then that's different to preparing for guests.

The real chicken stock is perhaps a key here.... you get all the gelatine out which sets at room temp and when you add the parmesan it thickens again. I usually let it stand 5 mins as well once the parmesan is in.

Its not a perfect risotto but it comes close enough ... by which I mean its better than a microwave or ready meal just like any gumbo made in 30 minutes is not the real thing.

dionnek: In my opinion there is very little in the way of mushroom dishes that don't get better with porcini mushrooms

They should be soaked first ... you can cheat with some cream and butter in a microwave till it is just boiling then add the dried porcini and let stand 5 mins then add the mushrooms to the risotto ... and at the end add the butter/cream and stir well before leaving to stand.

edits: Forgot the most important part .... oops

I encourage everyone to give a real risotta a chance once, but it *is* very time consuming to prepare it via the 'true' method.

This is really important, if you don't know what its meant to be like then you don't know how close you are getting .... the same goes for most of the recipes.

This is one reason I chose the gumbo ....common wisdom says 6 hours and you will bever make a 30 minute one so good but if you do cook a real one and can isolate whats missing to can compensate.

Everything I have made so far on this thread is a compromise and I would echo tarnalberry to please try the real thing too, not only once but every so often.

These recipes (and I made a few disclaimers) are for someone to do when they normally cannot be bothered to cook. The start point was what can be cooked in the time it takes to do the rice/pasta on my pretext if you are cooking rice/pasta anyway then why buy a pour over sauce when you can make 101 things in the time it takes the rice/pasta to cook?

The over-riding principle is isolating cooking times/order.

eKatherine: Try a good quality stainless pan with lid and copper bottom. Your method is equally valid but one of the things with the real method is that the rice soaks up the flavors as it expells the starch so its a different quick-dish. However as an idea you could prefry the whole thing in a skillet before adding it to the rice cooker...

In fact combining the two recipes could come even closer to the real thing.

I've only been gluten free for less than a month, so I'm sure it will be a while before I notice a difference in getting sick. I thought I was getting glutened for the past few days, but it turns out I've just been sick. I hope the gluten/casein-free diet will kickstart my immune system again.

Its a common misconception to regard celiac disease as a weak immune system, if anything its a over reactive one.

Looking back I have hardly ever been sick from disease, mostly it has been allergies or autoimmune things or being rundown which os prably adsorbtion issues.

Since being gluten-free for 3 years I have had a cold once but mainly I don't get colds, flu etc. and never have. Most of what I thought were colds were allergies which explains why I never caught what was going around but thought I had colds when the rest of the community didn't and visa versa.

Same goes for scratches and things, I never get infected ?

Having said that continued poisioning by gluten can probably damage peoples immune systems eventually so people shouldn't rule that out.

I too am just starting out and I have no idea where to begin. My stomach is very unsettled at the moment. Has anyone got any idea where I can begin and how I can begin to settle my stomach. Thanks Charmaine from Scotland.x

There are quite a few threads on this.

The simplest is just to go back to basics, eat nothing from a tin or packet lots of greens and vegetables

You can eat fruit for breakfast but obviously you will be a bit loose if you eat too much but more in a cleansing way than gluten way...

Cut out anything heavy like cream or things that fill you like potatoes and rice for a short time just to give your digestive system a break... go easy on meats and go with well cooked stewed type meats if you do ...

Lots of people benefit from cutting out dairy and anything with soy.

You're right, it is totally illogical to consume any amount of gluten on purpose. What if in one day you drink barley water, eat something with wheat starch (which in Europe they claim is no problem), and eat several other things that have 'safe' levels of gluten in it (I personally don't believe there IS a safe level), eventually you should think you would react. And maybe you do at even the very low levels without obvious symptoms. It seems all wrong.

And serving barley water at a celiac disease support meeting sounds like an insane and irresponsible thing to do. Is there nothing else they could be serving, that is naturally gluten-free?

Unfortunately that's the problem. They want to serve the stuff their advertisers sell. Their advertisers want 200ppm because they can make more profit than 100% gluten-free... in this case its a regional support group but they are put under pressure to play the advertisers game.

I expect they are trying to get the newish strict allergen European labelling law revoked in the UK which they campaigned and misadvised against but went through anyway.

CUK refuse to admit celiac disease has symptoms other than villi being damaged and refuse to accept blood testing ...

(Even though they contributed to research which has shown neurological symptoms to be fact they have buried the research and those in the know are banned from discussing it.

on the rissotto, I had never made it either b/c of the constant stirring that I though was required, but I found a rissotto rice at Ingles of all places that doesn't require stirring constantly, and I have a recipe for asparagus and mushroom rissotto cooked in the rice cooker - no stirring! It is wonderful and creamy too!

Well if the mix doesn't then the basics don't?

I tend to add that bit of extra stock and at the end just remove the lid and stir while I put in the grated parmesan and this thickens it up ...

Anyway, new rice recipe

Last night I had duck (confit) with a vegetable rice left over from lunch ...

However for reasons of my waistline I took off the skin and leave it in the oven to crisp until its almost no remaining fat. The rest of the fat I reserved.

For brunch today I took a onion and some shoulder smoked pork and fry them up with mixed herbs in some of the reserved duck fat while sticking the rice on. Once cooked I'm adding garlic (Im actually doing it now) and the extra meat from the duck I saved from last night and a can of cooked lentils ... the skin will be crumbled and put in at the end.

I just thought I could have added a zuccini as well.... oh well.

gfp: I've learned a lot from your posts! When are you going to write a cookbook? You could call it "Quick Cooking for Celiacs." A guaranteed success!

I thought risotto was out of the question for a quick meal. I've always added stock cup by cup, stirring constantly. So all that time-consuming stirring isn't necessary?

If you leave it on low and covered its usually OK till close to the end when the stock is almost adsorbed..

A stir every so often won't hurt though... but it might stick a little... but its still very edible.

I was going to ask what a garam masala is, but someone else's post, and your answer, cleared that up for me. I like curries, but I've never tried Indian cooking. I certainly shall now.

Curries are a whole seperate world of cooking

There are plently you can make in 15-20 minutes and others take 3 hours of actual prep time (I made a special white curry a week or so ago that took most of the day but that was for guests)

Like everything else its not possible to make the perfect anything without care and attention but the secret is in just how close you can get in a few minutes ....

Nearly all of it depends on knowing the cooking times of different things for instance carrots take a set amount of time according to the size you chop them butt you can always microwave them and cook them from the inside at the same time and then if you are making a dish like curry that needs liquid add the whole lot... its not quite the same because they don't have the same chance to soak up the flavors ... but it can be damned close!

The other thing we didn't hit on yet is the crock pot. I have actually considered buying a second one and my kitchen is tiny. In nearly all cases things like the gumbo or curries can be rushed to 20 mins but you can make extra portions and put these in the crock pot overnight.

Stick them into a freezer to micro "tupperware" and you have a ready meal... gluten free but also very nutritious. I'm a big believer in keeping the juices from almost everything ....as I mentiond earlier chicken stock for instance is full of calcium in its best form for the human body to adsorb ...

The other thing for quick curries is using soft vegetables (technically fruit) like zuccini and eggplant ... and yes okra.

Your quick-cook gumbo sounds great to me; I've thrown together a few myself. I'm proud of you for using okra! Most folks turn up their noses at it.

Heck after suggesting it can be made in 30 minutes which still carries sever penalties for even suggesting its possible in parts of Louisiana I thought leaving out the Okra would be criminal....

I tried using the quote button to answer your post, but, as you can see, all I succeeded in doing was adding two more of the same post. I'm so confused!

You will get the hang of it.... you just use the quote and type underneath. You can preview the post to check....

Leah: Love your cleaning up rule! Maybe I'll suggest it to my husband. If I can catch him in a "hungry, cranky and resentful" enough mood, he'll probably readily agree. By the way, I too am squeamish about red meat. When I make meat loaf, I have the butcher grind pork, veal and turkey for me.

I like that rule too.... since I coo probably 90%+ of everything (and my girlfriend is a good cook) yet I still get moaned at for leaving a mess and have to tidy/wash . .. life is so unfair!

Susan: I'd love to have those other recipes, so how do I pm you? For that matter, what does pm mean?

You can send a message just to a single person by using the little pm button next to peoples posts... if someone sends one it should pop up and tell you and you can read/reply etc. but please Susan, share recipes

I live in the Atlanta area, so will have to check on Trader Joe's. We have a wonderful market here, called DeKalb Farmers' Market. I've heard that it's a tourist attraction, though I've never seen any tour groups when I was there.

These really are the best.... I buy nearly all my produce from markets... and tend to let this decide what Im going to eat rather than looking for certain things.

I love wandering rounbd the market buying what looks good but I hate goin gout looking for one specific item because chance is you just find wilted ones that day.

Do you want me to continue the rice/pasta dishes or shall I start adding other less than 20 mins dishes that don't take rice or pasta?

Was this a Coeliac UK support meeting?

CUK seem determined to keep the 200ppm level regardless of other scientific evidence.

I would think this is an expression of "a little is OK" which should be their motto!