Friday, October 19, 2012

Welcome

Have you ever wandered through the grocery store wondering "why does my gluten free food have to be SO much more expensive?"  I do all of the time.  As a full time student with a full time job, I find myself wondering how it's all going to come together in the checkout line.  And forget about eating out, when I find a place with a gluten free menu I find that the option for gluten free portion is for a single and the price is for a triple.  I have been gluten intolerant my entire life, but didn’t find out however, until I was a 20 something sophomore in college. 

All of the sudden there was a new line item in the budget for Gluten Free Food.  No more hot dogs at a cook out, no more nacho cheese at the baseball game, no more bread bowl for my soup.  Then there was the never ending reading list of ingredients.  Xanthan gum and modified food starch and, is this a preservative, or a new way to sneak wheat into my salad dressing?

After a lot of research and two years working at a natural foods grocery store, I made friends with experts and found a doctor who embraced my frequent “contamination” visits with a smile. What I’ve learned I hope to share in a useful way that not only sheds light on what being gluten free means, but can stretch grocery dollars farther.  Maybe even change a mind or two about how cheap and gluten free can coexist. 

Baic, S. Living Gluten-Free For Dummies. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Lee, A. R., Ng, D. L., Dave, E., Ciaccio, E. J., Green, P. H. R. (2009). The effect of substituting alternative grains in the
              diet on the nutritional profile of the gluten-free diet. Journal of Human Nutrition & Dietetics, 22 (4), 359-363.

Gluten-free diets: vital or vogue? (2012, August 25). Lancet, 380 (9843), 704-704.

Tanpowpong P, Broder-Fingert S, Katz AJ, Camargo CA Jr. (2012). Predictors of Gluten      
Avoidance and Implementation of a Gluten-Free Diet in Children and Adolescents without Confirmed Celiac Disease. The Journal of Pediatrics, 161 (3), 471–475.


Weir, M. (2011). GLUTEN-FREE CONFUSION: Let the Gluten-Free Buyer Beware! Share Guide, 118, 14-31.





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