gfp

The best experinise that i have had so far is Red Robin. the first time was not so good but we called and complained the manger was very apolagetic about it, and then called in a meeting of all the managers in her district to update them on celiac disease, after this the next time i came in i did not even have to ask for a manager, they instantly brang one to the table to take my order, he went thru everything with me and let me know that it was going to be a 45 minute wait on the food because they are draining/cleaning/refilling a fryer for my frys to make sure they are safe, then he brang out a list of gluten free side items/ dressings for the burger, and all the information on any seasonings they use so i could go over it with him before they put it onto my food A++ in my opinon i have not found any service like that besides there

i wish more people do this .. to be honest many places try and fail and we don't go back (me included sometimes) to complain, I just strike it off the list. Where I have gone back it can only usually go two ways .. htey don't get it (strike em off) or they are apologetic and from then on things are way better and i certainly don't mind waiting to be safe.

My favorite resto in Paris poisioned me the first time ... they were so apologetic and now the manager/owner throws the chef out of the kitchen while he personally cooks for me. we have become firm friends and his knowledge of the industry and knowing other chefs (he's a chef himself and very highly rated) means that his influence helps the other chefs see it.

It also helps if the wait staff has something to show the kitchen staff instead of just "table five can't have wheat", and they are a godsend at Thai restaurants.

Yes this is absolutely my experience, even better is to drop in a day or week in advance and see the manager in the off-time .. i have a printed two page sheet i take this is the English version

edited to comply with board rules

Catering factsheet

use the print or pdf icons above right to print out this factsheet.

What is gluten free.

Coeliac disease is a condition whereby those affected cannot tolerate even trace amounts of Gluten, the protein from wheat, barley or rye in their diet. Over the last five years or so great advances have been made in the diagnosis of coeliacs disease but the only remedy remains a gluten free diet (gluten-free) for life.

Because of the recent advances in diagnosis the disease has changed from being viewed as extremely rare, 1:5000 only five years ago to recent studies showing incidences of 1:100 in screening tests. Different countries are further along this progression than others and France, unfortunately lags behind most of Europe in its implementation but its momentum is gathering fast. The disease is often compared to the tip of an iceberg where only 1:10 people with the disease are currently diagnosed but this gap is closing fast as medical procedures advance.

Because the symptoms often take several hours to develop it can be very difficult to pin them on a single meal and the nature of the symptoms prevents it being discussed in polite conversation.

Gluten Free Catering market

In Italy, the UK and Scandinavian countries many specialists restaurants already exist, and as the food catering industry recognises the opportunities more and more catering establishments offer gluten free alternatives in their menu's.

As a caterer there are some important facts about the market which may interest you:

* Coelaics are increasingly the decision-makers in choosing places to eat for a group because one coeliac in a group will insist on the place they feel safe and will not eat otherwise.

* Coelaics will travel a long way to find suitable food and to patronise somewhere they feel safe.

* Coealics are extremely loyal customers who appreciate the effort, tell friends, and in my case give free publicity.

* Coeliacs will return again and again to somewhere they have dined safely, bring friends and repeat business.

Hopefully that got your attention. Gluten free catering is a truly expanding market and one in which the early adopters will inspire loyalty, even if others later catch on.

Many coeliacs simply prefer not to take any risks when outside their own home however, the market when they travel , either on business or leisure is a captive market and one where any efforts are greatly appreciated.

Catering for gluten free diets is not difficult per-se, but it has many potential pitfalls which are easily addressed.

The two main pitfalls are hidden gluten and cross contamination.

Hidden Gluten

Most well trained people in the catering industry realise the major use of wheat flour in the obvious things like bread and pasta. However the main problem when eating out is the danger of wheat derived additives in places one would not normally think to look.

Some of the more obvious sources are malt vinegar, because the malt is derived from malted barley or Soy sauce which is actually 50% wheat and 50% soya. Traditional “English sausages” for instance use rusk in the sausage to absorb fat while cooking. It is, however, the less obvious sources that have the more frequent pitfalls. Many commercial stabilisers use wheat derived products and commercial meat preparations often use wheat derived product for bulk or easy slicing. I have been unable, for instance, to find a single sliced ham in France which does not. The same can be said for commercial salad dressings or stocks. Frozen chips often contain flour as an anti-stick method and may contain wheat derived dextrines in the chips themselves.

Most coeliacs will much prefer a simple dish without garnishes or sauces if they will be safe. They prefer this to taking a risk with an unknown item or one the caterer is unsure of and are quite used to this. The effects can be just as severe from a trace of gluten as from eating a whole baguette and can last a week or more, quite long enough to spoil a holiday.

A UK company actually does test kits, they are somewhat expensive but this would be the ultimate in inspiring confidence if ingredients like ham or other non obvious sources of gluten could be said to be tested.

Open Original Shared Link

Cross contamination

Cross contamination can be the most frustrating thing for the gluten free diner. It only takes a single breadcrumb to make us ill and ruin our week. Cross contamination however can find its way in many forms.

During the cooking process cross contamination can come from sharing a grill with items containing gluten like sausages or hams, accidentally using the same utensils to stir a sauce or an item or cutting something with the same knife. Even after washing adsorbant items like wooden spoons can risk contamination. Flour is easily transferred in the air and on the hands and special care needs to be taken and the caterer needs to be aware of these needs. A knife can transfer a breadcrumb from butter to a dish etc.

On the table garnishes and accompaniments are high risk.If you can offer a fresh mustard pot etc., the coelaic diner will appreciate it although they may be to shy to ask after you have taken the trouble to cook for them.

Quite a few mustards and accompaniments are gluten-free such as the Maille ones. Others like Amora tend not to be.

General Awareness

In order to inspire confidence there is much the caterer can do. There is nothing so scary as the waiter/ess bring you bread after you thought they understood or offering you a beer. Conversely, asking the coeliac if its OK for the people accompanying them to have bread on the table inspires confidence.

These factors often due to absent mindedness after the fact perhaps from a different server can give a real feeling of dread to the coelaic, even if the meal itself has been prepared with care. The easiest remedy is to brief the catering staff and servers before hand so that everyone knows what is required, not just the person who took the order.

A system of marking the order with a gluten-free is used successfully in many UK restaurants similar to the Vegetarian sign although it is a good idea to add a footnote telling the coeliac to make thier needs known when ordering so the kitchen staff can avoid any cross contamination.

Different people have different tolerances. There are also increasing numbers of people who just choose a gluten-free diet as a lifestyle. These people can be quite misleading for caterers, they may have no medical reason for the diet but adopt it for other reasons. Much as I support everyones right to know what they eat the problem with those who just choose a gluten-free diet is they tend to only look for major items like bread/pasta and hence give a false impression everything was OK.

Addionally, the symptoms of the disease are quite unsavory and I am guilty myself of being poisoned but not wanting to discuss it and just quietly avoiding eating in the place again.

Advertising

Establishments can simply put a foot note on menu's which the coelaic will find. Many UK resto's now mark gluten free in the same way as vegetarian. Both of these are relatively cheap to implement. Once I have enough restraunts interested I will if the interest is there produce some window stickers that will attract passers by who might not have seen the website. I am also writing articles I hope to have published in various circulars and I am also approaching the airlines for a short mention in in-flight magazines and all of this will increase business to your resteraunt.

Gluten Free Paris (Open Original Shared Link) carries more information and will advertise your establishment for free. How you inspire confidence is up to you. If you have simply read this flier and think you can cope then just say so, if you want advice just ask ... I have a lot of practice sorting through French labelling for suspect items. For my part if you invite me to dine please don't be offended if I want to check the kitchen, but if I do I will add this to your recommendation.

This information sheet is also available in French and on the website above.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 12 April 2006 )

and I make sure they are OK, leave it with them then call to see if they can accomadate.

The good resto's always say yes and others its hit n miss but on the whole it helps because you get the manager time to explain things to the chef that might be embarassing in front of you etc.

SO I guess to be totally safe, find a potato vodka. From what I can decipher from all this chem lingo is MAYBE gluten will not survive the distillation process.

However, as a rye drinker (canadian whiskey to most) I do not have a reaction. It is made out of its namesake, and it should make me VERY sick....so I have to assume it's okay. I am still waiting for a response from two distillers, so we shall see.

I guess like everything else everyone has different tolerances.

i actually have a vodka myself from time to time (like 1-2 a year) and sometimes im ill and sometimes not but on the whole i stick it on the bad list.

The thing is yes its a definate maybee

What I object to is blanket statements ... unless someone can actually prove it because its not a case of "oh i had one and was OK"

i mean somedays I can drink an amount of something gluten-free like wine and feel like xxxx the next day and sometimes I can drink double and not feel a thing... largely it depends on the wine ... but it also depends on me, what Ive eaten and my metabolism etc. etc.

Does gluten survive fermentation, probably a lot does and this is unlikely to go into the distillate but not completely impossible, but fopr the stuff that has broken down .. are the chains long enough to contain the sequences that celiacs react to probably... are they likely to be part of the distillate I honestly don't know ... and it probably varies batch to batch and it depends what you call some and some ....

i.e. 20 ppm is pretty hard to visualise .. throw 1 million grains of sand on a football field and then take 20 out and throw in 20 onion seeds or something a simlar size.... I mean we are talking about very small amounts but it is proven that in some celaics 20ppm is too much ...

Imagine gluten as a big daisy chain with 25 daisies. The gluten surrounds the starches and is composed of two proteins, gliadin and glutenin in roughly equal amounts ...so for the purpose of this lets say the petals are gliadin (bad) and the other part glutenin (not bad)

Each gliadin is composed of sequences of 4-6 amino acids and it is beleived it is the order they are connected that causes the problem ...... so the individual petals could be the amino acids. ...

During the process we take millions of these chains and throw them together and bake then and stick in yeast and the yeast eats the starches and the things start to fall apart....

If they break down to individual petals then we are OK because these are just normal amino acids but they all degrade at different rates and there are millions....of them so the chance is some will stop in just the right state of 4-6 petals still clumped together .. is it 1 in a million or 1000 in a million ????

However from the original daisy chain of 25 daisies we now have some petals in clumps... do these go through the distillation ??? Again really complex because as well as daisy chains we have hundreds of other ingredients in varying amounts and varying proportions ... and these all affect each other but are very much smaller than the original daisy chain...

Does that make any sense?

In some ways industrial ones might be better, they don't need to use the whole grain .. they can just rinse the starch out of flour and purify this but then it wouldn't TASTE like vodka it would taste like industrial alcohol diluted with water.

What gfp is saying is that when you boil a liquid mixture (like mash, containing a variety of proteins that have formed from the breakup of gluten during fermentation), you cannot assume that the alcohol will evaporate without taking some of the gluten with it.

Pretty much .. the important word is assume because in my book its better not to take a risk until you are sure.

There is a difference with CC because its something you perhaps risk from time to time and you can assess the risks each and everytime (though fast food by its nature tends to remove the time to think it over fully, especially when your hungry) wheras if you are like me and divide the world into haarem and hallal or forbidden and permitted then you add it to your fallback's...

I have my own mental lists of safe and unsafe, wine is safe beer is not.

Given the nature of alcohol and its ability to affect judgement and take risks I believe it is even more important with alcoholic beverages. Most Cider is gluten-free but some are not so I take it off the safe list ... and i do the same with spirits ... if its debabtable I put it on the forbidden list because i know my ability to assess this is going to be imparied after a few drinks.

I'm a natural blonde; I hope there isn't a test later. wink.gif

My girlfriend's best UNI friend is Belgian (the main stay of French jokes if you call them jokes), blonde and Jewish... and she is the person she calls everytime to explain something to her, a natural brunette!

However lucky she also has a sense of humor or it would be almost impossible to to tell any joke in her presence!

edits: had to change 'Gluten-free' to girlfriend else she was my gluten-free

Yeah, but there's a difference between trivia and being ignorant. I couldn't tell you anything about football from 5 minutes ago or more than 10 elements on the periodic table, let alone their weights and isotopes. (Good for you on that, actually, DH is a ChemE and doesn't know all of that!) I do know quite a bit of cooking trivia, but that's my interest.

What disturbs me here is that the woman *works* in a restaurant, she is around food 8 hours a day and never bothered to glance at ingredient statements. It's not the hostess who answers those emails, this woman was likely an owner/manager/cook. We don't all have to watch football, or know the periodic table, but we all *have* to eat.

It just goes to show in this country, we're so used to eating things that come ready-made and wrapped in plastic that we don't have any flipping clue what's in it. I also get annoyed when people don't learn how to cook, since you have to eat every day, I see it being as important as knowing how to wash your hair and brush your teeth.

I don't think its just the US by a long long way....

However I do think there is a worldwide movement of promoting stupidity as chic.

In the UK there was a TV scientist called Michael Ball who did really good kids shows.

He has a daughter called Zoe .. who was (and maybe still is) a radio 1 DJ and I used to listen on my way to work.

I remember one day some guy phoned in and he was a post doc researcher in fish genetics and she spent a good 10 minutes making fun of him and IMHo making a complate fool of herself.

To his credit her father phoned in ... and after him telling her in no uncertain words that making fun of people for gaining knowledge is pretty stupid the show cut to commecials with her breaking down in tears.

I have a friend of a friend who is very bright, has a very good job ($600/hr) and is pretty much happy with his 2 kids and wife, but steadfastly refuses anything 'cultured' .. he always says stupid guys have more fun and less worries.

Meanwhile I buy my coffee from one of two places in Paris that direct imports "Illy black label ristretto" while he buys the little prepackaged ones. I rarely spend less than $10 on wine (even for cooking) and often spend over $100 on a bottle but I don't know i enjoy it more than him buying a pint of beer?

(OK Beer is out for me anyway)

I find it completely weird that someone isn't bothered by what they put in their bodies but then most people find me weird ... I can tell you loads of stupid facts (like the April fool thing from memory) but I could have just googled for 10 mins so what does it gain me....

Buying vegetables the market the other day the guy is busy adding them up on a calculator oly 3-4 items but I just told the guy how much it added up to without any real effort but hey.. I still have to wait until he does it ... so then the guy asks me how ... and i just say becuase I don't use calculators ..(it was only 3 numbers!)... most dart players can do this and calculate exactly what they need to finish without any effort and half inebriated and quite a few of them are hardly able to spell there own names ....heck most of my fathers generation are perfectly capable of the same thing .. just like people who look at you weird for fixing your own car ...

Society sets progressively lower standards ...

When I look at the exams I took when I was 16 (O levels in UK) and my brother 2 yrs later there was already a difference. When I look at the equivalent today its pityful.

My borther went to buy a portable TV a couple of years ago for his bedroom, suffice it to say he knew exactly the size he wanted based on hard math, the distance to the bed and possible the phase of the moon (j/k).

In the shop we are confronted by a sales rep who tries selling a 14" when my brother wants a 15" and says .. hey but its only 1" differnence out of 14" so you'll not notice....

My brother explained that the apsect ratio is 4:3 so the 15" hypotenuse means that the tube must be 9 by 12 since 15^2 = 225 and 9^2+12^2 =225 and 9x12 = 108 sq in.

(grade school trig)

whereas a 14" hypotenuse is 8.4 x 11.2 = 94.08 sq in and hence the 15" is 15% bigger since 108/94.08=1.15

Now I don't expect they guy can do it in his head although for this situation its actually trivial (due to the 3:4 ratio) BUT the guy just didn't get the fact that the 15" was a hypotenuse or what an hypotenuse was and squaring 3 and 4 were beyond him, let alone working out the sqaure root of 225 is 15. The 4:3 ratio is a nice special case .. it has been recognised as such since the Hellenic era not that this guy would know who pythagoras was nor what the Hellenic era represents!

On the same ratio .. when i moved back to the UK from Libya I took my rugs. They were just cheap machine rugs and I actually paid less than $10 each for them but I saw no point in throwing them out ....while I was doing air frieght anyway.

So I get to customs in the UK to pick them up and wait for however long and start talking to a Swiss guy who's picking up a laptop sent from Switzerland by his company.

The laptop was one of those with a built in printer and they couldn't decide to tax it as a printer or computer since they had different rates ... kinda funny and they guy is saying look my company don't care... its used anyway but my copmpany is willing to pay just to save time and money.

But they couldn't decide even when he offered to just pay whatever was most expensive....

Next my turn.... I have handmade some brass lamps about 3-4 feet high, various other valuable items but this guy is fixated on the 6 or so rugs... its all on the inventory ....

He starts talking about thousands of £ import duty so I just say look forget the rugs they're not important just destroy them, sorry to have caused a fuss but they guy won't let it go... his sheet has proces in sq metres and I have listed them in length/width so he's saying OK, this is 4x3m but is that 4 sq metres or 3?

Im not sure I say... lets say 4 and be safe !!!! but your list is for handmade carpets and you can clearly see these are machine made. Where is your list for machine made carpets....

Of course he doesn't have one!

I've hired a van for the day and its costing me money so I just want to get out of there, rugs or not but he won't let me leave the rugs because of paperwork... not my problem I say bringing oput a copy of the import rules...

after about 2 hours of this the guy just let me take everything... but this guy is a customs officer and he can't work out how to calcualte sq meters from length and width!

Im sorry but there is something wrong with the selection process!

You're not blonde. :-) gfp was using sophmore year chem major/minor lingo (specifically, physical chemistry). There's no reason to expect most people to understant it, but if you're interested, there are a number of useful websites out there that can explain the terms that google can help you find. Picking up a Physical Chemistry textbook from the library would do the same.

I will bold some terms for google or wikipedia. (I recommend wikipedia but I am not checking each term is defined so fall back to google) ... the fact remains many people get sick from grain distilled alcohol.

The simple answer is water doesn't boil at 100C at stp ... it averages 100C. Some molecules come of earlier and some come of later depending upon the (thermodynamic) energy of that molecule.

If this were the case then we wouldn't have any clouds because very few places on earth does the temperature reach 100C (active volcanic vents?) but yet the water evaporates ...it even evaporates directly from ice. Simply the water molecule must escpape and in an ideal gas, once it does then it no longer has mutual attraction. The liquid must by definition have mutual attraction to be a liquid.

The average temperature depends on pressure so water boils at a lower temperature on the top of a mountain to at sea level and in a pressure cooker it boils at a higher temperature. The relationship depends how close water is to being an "ideal gas".

partial pressure is the co-dependance of the two components on each other ... in other words how the presence of one effects the other.

Many mixtures of two liquids have a boiling point which is higher than the two of them together ... if you plot the ratio of the two in the gaseous solution for a single pressure and temperature then at endpoint 1 you will get 100% of 1 and endpoint 2 100% of 2 and inbetween you get a mixture the ratio depending on the temperature (or pressure of temp is kept constant) You can calcualte this by taking A by itself and plotting the amount and the same with B then you add both and this gives the partial pressure at each point.

Basically if you boil the liquid you will get a vapour which is composed of a mixture of the two starting at the low end and going to the high end and the bioling temperature of the liquid will start at the lowest and progress to the highest. Usually there is a mid point where A+B have a higher BP than either pure A or pure B this is known as a eutectic point.

If you plot the graph you end up with the graph arching upwards but some mixtures act differently when mixed than seperate. In these the partial pressure has a codependance. and the graph goes downwards.

If you boil this mixture it will boil at this point (average) and you will always end up with a mixture which is a fixed ratio of A and B.

Alcohol(ethanol)/water is one of these. However much you distill them you will always end up with a mix of approximately 96% alcohol from memory. However much you distill you end up with the same mixture.

However this is a very simple case, it assumes that fermentation produces only alcohol and water which is a gross simplification.

As soon as you add a third substance you complicate this ... and if the two main products are highly soluble in each other (like alcohol/water) and also mutually soluble with the third substance then it gets horribly complicated and the 2D graph becomes a 3D graph...

Fermentation of grain produces literally hundreds of compounds...and mostof them are mutually attracted so to visualise this you need a graph with hundreds of axes and modelling how it proceeds is very much like modelling the weather. The exact fermentation is never quite the same, the yeast are living beings after all

but equally important is fermentation of grain is pretty much inefficient because the starches which are needed by the yeasts are locked inside the protective proteins so ... we have to break them down first.

Luckily nature provides the exact methods we need .. germination and roasting.

this breaks down the protective barrier (the proteins)...

To my knowledge noone has completely isolated the exact amino acid chains responsible for celiac disease or the exact lengths. What we know is by lookijng at common chains between wheat, barley and rye and knowing it must be in there somewhere.

Moreover noone has studied delivery methods for these chains on the human body.

For instance if it is dissolved in alcohol or not. What we do know is that they are very soluble in alcohol (part of the definition of a prolamine) and what is the effect of deliverying a smaller pre-broken down part of the amino acid chain. In other words if we ate raw grain vs the exact part which casuses the problem already dissolved in a substance (alcohol) which crosses the bodies own barriers. ...

In other words say 20 ppm is OK for a gluten molecule is 20 ppm of the pure (presently unknown) substance OK? and if that is dissolved in alcohol does this affect the body more or less?

Lets face it we are still in the phase where oats are "uncertain" and "inconclusive"

I have googled for accurate quantitative analyses of different alcohols in terms of impurities but not found them but what I do know from personal experience is that large molecules show up unexpectedly in the most unexpected places if you do not apply quantum mechanics. Specifically large pesticide molecules or derivatives have a habit of somehow finding there way into a distillate and clogging a GC column and this is sufficiently expensive that this is well documented. (usually starting at $80+ a column and $200/hr machine downtime)

so for me this subject is like oats ... I have seen no firm evidence that amino acid chains cannot be part of the distillate nor their affect on the human body, I am merely postulating how.

Since we are talking about health then my opinion is to err onthe side of caution until its proven. but I cannot support a blanket statement that distilled grains are safe while we have so many unknowns especially whilst so many people do experience problems specifically with them.

While we are on it asking the manufactuerer is a bit catch-22: If this were a toxin then there would be a minimum reporting limit (MRL) and a Minimum Detection Limit (MDL) but neither of thee are available for gluten with a method except ones which look at 20ppm or 200ppm.

Since we don't know the effect of either the concentrated offender (the amino acid sequence) when its isolated nor the delivery into the body if it is dissolved in alcohol then blanket statements are IMHO not applicible. Afterall its not long ago that 200ppm was completely safe for all celiacs.

--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Soo B @ Jun 22 2006, 08:51 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->

I think I may have posted this somewhere else before, but Burger King uses dedicated fryers and says their fries are gluten-free. But cross contamination seems to be a big issue at our local resturant, as the chicken nugget 'holding bin' is right next to the fry bin. Other locations may possibly be set up differently.

I had burger king fries the other day and found an Onion Ring in the box. Not safe.

As someone else said the other day...

to paraphrase

My mother loves me very much but still thinks the CC issue is OTT and can't cope what hope has a server working in a burger joint on 12 hour shifts on minimum wage?

Distilled beverages are gluten-free. The gluten molecule does not pass into the distillate because it is too large to evaporate during the first phase of the process.

Size isn't an issue the SLHE is the issue but since this is a multiphase azeotropic mix I don't see how you can make (and keep making) statements based on 19C science. Predicting the eutectic for gliadins and partial chains in the solution is simply not possible as the partial pressure changes.

It's official. People are big fat idiots.

The weird thing is many of them are not....

I did my undergrad with a guy who could tell you the result of any football game from 4 leagues for the last 15 years AND who scored and when. He could do the same with hundreds of films down to times in minutes when someone enters/exists stage....

Could he get physics ? Not in the slightest... but Im sure he could if he just focussed.

I couldn't tell you who is playing today in the world cup (and I don't want to know) if its on TV I will switch it off and when credits come on films I turn them off, Im simply not interested.

For me what I put in my body is important ... several other things are important and I know trivia (in the true sense) which is competely useless and people compete to have me in a pub quiz team but ask me to name 10 faces of actors/actresses and Im lost.

Im sure my friend thought it bizarre that I know the periodic table by heart including RMM's and isotopes ... and I had no idea what the name of a football team was from some town or other...

Geez, this country is getting way too ignorant. What does she think white flour is made of? Maybe she thinks "white" is a grain? She does need educated on this for the sake of anyone that eats there. Unfortunately, this is so common. Its like one of my "brighter" relatives saying that maybe my son should try tofu since he cannot have soy or milk.

Well and partly in reference to another of your posts...

My gluten-free was at Uni in the UK last year and shared a house with 14 people .. a few moved in and out but basically of the 14 only 3 could actually cook anything from scratch .. I don't mean making your own pasta or chutney (must check the pot soon) but I mean making a bolognaise sauce or chilli.

Of the 11 left probably 6-7 were unable to boil an egg without instructions ... and lived entirely on take out or anything that was pre-prepared and went in a microwave. Im completely serious...I mean i knew things were bad .. I just didn't think THAT bad.

It amazes me that people don't know how to make pasta, Im not saying they actually do, i just mean realise what its made from and it doesn't grow on trees ... especially after this Open Original Shared Link

Please read it without any hot beverages in your hands!

Yes, the whole paying for technical problems is really weird. It doesn't make any sense to me. Also, anything bureaucratic related also has one of those special numbers that are billed at a higher rate. My boyfriend thinks it is scandalous that we should be forced to pay for customer service and that kind of stuff and then I always point out how it should be free (like, say, in the US). But his family pointed out that there isn't that much competition for phone service so the price of telecommunications is more expensive here (just like gas/electricity). They said it was unlikely that tech lines would become free because there is a kind of stranglehold in the industry, and France is a much smaller country than the US or Canada, so chances are there won't be too many other competitors. It's changing now what with the VoIP phone lines and stuff but I don't know that it will change much because of the different rates when calling different carriers.

With the exception of calling mobiles all calls for me are free to France, Europe, US and Canada (including mobiles) with my internet connection. €30 a month ... and the website is hosted on it as well oh and free cable TV 100+ channels as well.

So things are changing, 5 yrs ago Noos charged €35 just for 6 channels and 1/2 Mbit internet, now I have 22Mbit all in the 30€/month. However getting your line unblocked from France telecom is a major hassle that they will rip you off as long as possible.... I sent a letter to cancel my Wanadoo connection at the same time as my french telecom line and it took 2 months to get rid of the France Telecom line ... then Wanadoo just continued charging me ... I wrote several letters folliung up the original registered one and still Im being billed ... and they're taking the money from my account.

6 months later I cough up for another registered letter and demand to know why ...

1) The original letter had a single grammatic error, I missed one accent therefore they said the letter was incomprehensible, I reworite in in block caps and it was ?????

2) The other letters, Oh we throw away ANYTHING not registered .. read your 60 page contract!

3) They ring me up to ask why I'm cancelling .. like the above isn't enough by itsself???? I inform them that unless they want to pay me for my time on the phone I will not speak to them and hang up and they ring back!!!!!!!!

But the thing in France is just the service attitude, you can buy a product, take it home and find its boken without even disturbing the internal wrapping and they will refuse point blank to take it back without a receipt, even when its their brand and a model thats only been available for a month (meaning they know you bought it there in the last month) ...

They just don't seem to care what you think at all.

If you did the same thing in the UK they wouldn't even quibble ...

Have you started taking suppliments with the training?

Hair loss is also a common symptoms of poisioning by trace elements or too much vitamins?

Have you had your iron/thyroid levels checked?

Either way since you are mentioning celiac like symptoms iron inparticular causes D and attacks and degredes the lining of the stomach and digestive tract.

If you are on a healthy diet then multi-vits can be particualrly bad because they contain both very difficult to be poisioned by vitamins like the B complex and C and very toxic ones like D and E and the same for trace elements etc. The weird thing is the symptoms from too little are often similar to too much... and people can think they are still missing out and therefore add even more.

However completely seperately I believe gluten like many toxins is stored away in our bodies in cellulite etc. if we fast or start burning the surrounding fat then we release this stored up toxin (and others)

My mom loves me & wants only the best for me, & still finds the c-c issues a bit over the top-- but the average restaurant worker just wants to make it through the shift without keeling over! Especially fast food places where nobody gets a tip for their troubles. No wonder they roll their eyes.

Very poignant ... I think that sums it up perfectly.

If Yop is gluten free in Canada and the UK then chances are it is gluten free here as well.

Well they make one with wholegrain heat in it so I guess that is out!

It's teeny tiny and my boyfriend doesn't like going there because he thinks it's "cult-like". Just because here in France those who frequent organic stores tend to be more New-Age-y, which really freaks out my boyfriend. I really don't agree with him, but whatever.

Well I see what he means they sell all sorts of new age crap like crystals as well. Its hgard to take someone seriously that claims putting a crystal in your house is going to give you health benfits not to mention the all too frequent claim "but its organic wheat so it won't make you ill!

As for customer service; the funniest thing is that my boyfriend went twice to New York with me (his first time anywhere outside of France without French people) and he was so stunned at the level of customer service! He was all "Wow! It is SO nice to have people greet you with a smile! And people are SO efficient here! And you ALWAYS get a glass of water that is constantly refilled! How nice!" So now that we are back in France he has really noticed how here people greet you with a scowl and they never want to help you and it drives him crazy, to the point where he feels totally insulted...I do remember though that he and his family and my friends here have always said repeatedly that the best way to deal with the French (especially in all manners bureaucratic, but it applies everywhere else) is to be humble and non-aggressive. No shouting, and no arguing with the other person. Instead, the other person (NOT the customer) is ALWAYS right, and if they yell at you and refuse whatever it is you've asked, you are supposed to say "Oui Madame/Monsieur, vous avez complètement raison, merci" and leave. Then you are supposed to go back either later in the day or a few days later and ask someone else.

This won't be popular, and I have no evidence to back it up - it is just something I was thinking about.

What if when you first got diagnosed, you were low on all your vitamins/minerals due to malabsorption. Now, though, you are getting lots of yummy vitamins/minerals from your food - only you are still taking a high potency vitamin pill. Not to mention that the stuff they get those vit/min from isn't WHOLE FOOD (most likely, unless you're paying an arm and a leg, and even then, how can they get those whole foods into that tiny pill) - so how can it possibly be balanced. Food is a balanced system - supplements are fragmented and not a balanced system.

Just a thought - what if you stopped taking the vitamin pill for a week to see what happens?

There is plenty of evidence .. perhaps the best place to look is the standard toxology sheets used in labs.

There is only 1 natural pre-transuaranic element that has no known function in the human body and that is mercury. Everything else is a delicate balance between a fatal dose and a healthy dose.

Some minerals/trace elements are worlds apart... with a huge tolerance gap and others are tiny.

The largest killer is iron supplients but only because its so popular ... there are far more toxic supplients out there everyday.

If I gave you arsenic pills you would look at me strange yet the LD50 for arsenic is way lower than selenium and every multivit has selenium.

The symptoms are usually not much different to deficiency.. usual symptoms include hair falling out, broken nails etc. etc.

On top of this the US has a very 'boring' geology in many places. The prairies etc. are monontonous so for hundreds of miles you have mineral imbalances so this tends to add to the problem. if you live in such an area then it is worth checking the levels in local produce, there is a federal website somewhere that provides the info.

The same is true for many vitamins, reasonably small doses of A, D and E are toxic.

edits

Sorry missed this

It is virtually impossible to get too much beta carotene (a precurser to vitamin A)

its certainly difficult but the australopithecus afarensis specimin (one of the extinct links between apes and man) is said to have died from retinol poisioning.

Am I the only one who has problems with them? my stomach hurt more when I was on them

That might not be a bad thing, think of it like adding antiseptic to a cut.

If you add antiseptic and it stings its because its killing the germs....

If your stomach is full of bad bacteria then it makes sense it would be a bit upset and hurt while they wage thier little war?

I was going to suggest (or I AM suggesting) that if you are not happy with the care that you are getting from this Dr., and it sounds like you are not, fire him and get a new one... I know that's not easy, but even though you may be obsessing about every little thing, you have the right to be taken seriously and not ignored by your Dr. remember, HE works for YOU!

You've really got to try to take a step back, breathe and relax a little, a lot of what you are going through is the healing process, some of it is that now you are just more hyper aware of every little thing your body is doing, and if you weren't paying attention to it before, a lot of it can seem weird and frightening!

but still, you should have a Dr. that doesn't dismiss you all the time... He should at the very least take the time to calm your fears...

Sorry for injecting humor, I actually agree, its just I keep having flashbacks to the Seinfeld episode where Elaine tries getting the Dr. to see her and end up having her medical records passed from Dr. to Dr.

Hi,

If you don't want to completely give up dairy I would suggest eating raw dairy. You can get cheeses at Whole foods and milk from some local farms. I also eat a wonderful water buffalo yogurt that is gentler on the stomach. Many people are lactose intolerant because of the pasterization and homogenization of dairy. It kills all the enzymes we need to digest it. I can tolerate raw but not pasterized. The cheeses are yummy and taste better than regular cheeses. Read about the dangers of pasterization and homogenization on the web. If casein is an issue than raw probably won't help. You could try goat and sheep dairy which is better for you anyway.

I gotta agree.

I only (mainly) eat raw cheeses and mainly buffalo, goat or sheep.

In addition to this you also get a lot of pro-biotics natually ... one specific oner is found in the stomachs of cows and sheep and of course is part of the rennet in a real cheese but pasturising kills them off.

There is a probitic thread somewhere which specifally mentoins this particular beasty...

McDondals Offical statment reguarding gluten:

Open Original Shared Link

Personaly I recomend AGANST McDonalds Fries as I personalyhave never found fries that did NOT cause a reaction in my son. But of course the McDonalds fan club will jump and and sinng the clown's praises.

Read thier gluten statment,consider the extreme risk of CC, esply the sotreis from the employee's about the so called dedicated friers that the empolyes often drop nuggets, pies, and other wheat things in, and make your own call.

I agree the proof is in the testing and ultimately I know many people react be it CC or the oil.

But I think what is important is to consider the companies record and ethics.

Kraft seem very good in their labelling and in the UK, part of Walmart .. ASDA .have always been very good too also.. in the UK we have a brand of potato chips called Walkers and they label ones which are gluten-free ... when they had a batch they suspected CC they issued a warning ... Perrier issued a wporldwiode product recall based on a harmless amopunt of something in their water because they are a company driven by quality assurance. As it happens my ex-wife actually did the testing and I know the results for this and perrier-vittel had no legal reason for doing this whatsoever, it was well below the MRL ... it was a purely voluntary act by Perrier-Vittel because they sell very expensive water that they rely on their reputation to sell at that price.

Mcdonalds have a long history of lying and deceiving even in official statements. They have a "so sue us" mentality which has been proven time and time again in courts.

What they have released is just a CYA ... they acknowledge it contains wheat derivatives but they chose a less accurate method of testing ... and I honestly can't see it being because of the cost ...

They also cross units over talking about ppm gliadin one minute and gluten the next.

They supplied the oil to be tested .. etc. etc. etc.

but if you do take their fries and pay for an analysis and find significant gluten they are covered ....

McDonalds has a corporate mentality like any large company and what you have to decide for yourself is whether it is a trustworthy mentality or not.

Whatever the assurances given by a person or organisation you have to put those assurances into the context of the person or organisation making them. If perrier-vittel release a statement then I would be confident in their statement wheras if McDonalds do I have only to look at publically available court records and official statements by McDonalds to see they have a long history of simply lying or CYA.

They both use rice,

Risotto is a creamy rice dish, Italian in origin. Paella is not usually creamy (at least I don't think it traditionally is?) and it is Spanish in origin. Paella also is sort of a "everything but the kitchen sink" kind of dish, seafood, poultry, sausage, vegetables and peas all thrown in.

Sorry I was just joking but I have trivia ??? ... both are Roman dishes and the main differences are the type of rice (arboria gives it the creaminess and you flash fry the rice first) ... and risotto usually has alcohol added (white wine or vermouth) which dissapeared from the Spanish in the Islamic occuption.

Both are fabulous

There are as many recipees for each as there are families in Spain and Italy ... everyones mother makes the best one ... really I have it on good authority

@skbird

A trick I like is adding the garlic to butter and forcing this down the breast. This way the chicken self-bastes as its cooking... mmmmm.

I think the thing to consider is a two parter

1) do enterolab have an interest in providing positives ?

possibly

2) This is your health would you rather play safe

your decision ...

From what i read they are not some scam, perhaps they count questionable as positive, is that a bad thing?

Personally I don't think so ..

I would be more worried about conventional testing like a poorly taken or interpreted biopsy giving a false negative then a false or questionable positive.

Great, thank you for this information. I think I will keep clear of these fries! Does anyone know of any fast food fries that are okay? I have had In & Out's french fries (they have dedicated fryers) and haven't had a problem, but they are always so busy!

Hmm perhaps there is a reason for that

But overall mango summed it up, its a personal decision .. I for one wouldn't trust McDo's so unless there are independent analyses taken randomly I wouldn't risk it...

seriously if I want to take a risk i can think of far better things and a banana is a good enough snack (or mango ..) and healthier all round ... hmm the problem of convenience foods is ... umm they're convenient so we end up grabbing them when we wouldn't usually just because of the conveneience factor and when we are in a rush I find I tend to make bad decisions.

I'm very jealous Chelse, I would love to start a Le Creuset collection. I have an All-Clad collection going and that just about breaks the bank I can live through you vicariously

Some of your ingredients I would think would make Paella too, that's what came to mind anyway when I started reading your list with the rice and the smoked sausage and tomatoes.

Here's a recipe: Open Original Shared Link

Hey! That's what I was going to say....

actually was going to suggest a risotto but ... what's the exact difference again?

I guess just the arborio rice?

Do any of you travelers know where in Italy my daughter may be able to buy gluten-free bread?

She is staying in Florence for 10 weeks but can't find any gluten-free bread in the markets.

We heard celiac disease was common among Italians, so I find it strange there is no outlet for the bread we can buy in the states.

In Italy you buy gluten-free in a pharmacy. The one right opposite the Duomo has a fair collection but there are other stores too. One is a international "supermarket" off to the eat down a small alley, I found it while looking for string of all things?

There is also a place outsiode Florence at the big mall complex, I never tried but was told of it.

I looked a bit more on that site last night (I have a terrible habit of speed-surfing a site, bookmarking, and then really checking out the site 3 months later) and followed one of the links to another site by another association of celiacs. On this other site they talked about the first one and mentioned a little about membership. I am under the impression that the paid part is where you get updates on gluten free foods, celiac research, etc. I still don't have the sécu yet so I probably won't join right away.

Yep, I do the same, especially if its in another language and you prefer a quiet time to make sure you follow everything.

BTW, while browsing both sites' lists of what you can and can't eat I was a little surprised to see that they noted that lardons are safe. Because like I mentioned in an earlier post, I only just found out that lardons contain "dextrose de blé" a few days ago!

I don't want to publically knock AFDIAG but .... if you phone them up they will tell you point blank no safe resto's exist in Paris ... no recommendations etc. etc. I don't know how long they have been around but its more than 5-6 yrs and they haven't achieved this yet so I wonder what they do with the membership money.

As it happens one of my members contacted them and mentioned my site and I got visitied by the Marie the next day to one specific page (in french) and again 10 minutes later by the French telecoms regualtory body ...

I get the idea they are not very happy with my little site.... and tried to have it closed down under the Loi de Toubon ... which is why I have disclaimers that the site is NOT for French nationals ... otherwise it has to be trranslated 100% and they have been known to close down anglo businesses just for a gramatical error like missing an accent or spelling mistakes.

Oh I also forgot to mention before that there is a company here called "Les Biscuits d'Antoine" that makes gluten free cookies (they are VERY good...they are these fancy gourmet cookies and they have flavors like chocolate-orange (with real orange bits!), lemon, and rose. I think you can order stuff from them online, but I know that you can also find their cookies at Les Nouveaux Robinson. I highly recommend these cookies; they are so good that my boyfriend will sometimes steal a bunch when I'm not looking!

Open Original Shared Link

Unfortunately their website uses flash and I don't!

I'm told they have recipees but I refuse to visit sites that use flash so I can't confrm this.