Celiac Awareness Day- It's A Disease

Today is Celiac Awareness Day.

Today, like everyday, I prep my gluten free food for my family.  Today, like everyday, my son JT has to be careful about what he eats, what he touches.  So even though we are very aware everyday of Celiac disease, I am glad that more people will learn about it.

I get frustrated when people treat Celiac disease like a mild allergy or like we are all going gluten free because it's trendy.  First thing you should know is that we are very far from ever being trendy.  The second thing  you should know is that even though gluten free food has come a long way (even in the last two years) no one would ever choose this for fun.  

A gluten-filled cake still tastes a million times better, believe me.  And the cost is astronomically more.  When I walk by signs in the grocery store for loaves of bread on sale for $2.00 I feel physically ill.  A gluten free loaf usually costs around $6 and is half the size of a "normal" loaf.

But the most important thing you should know is that Celiac disease is an autoimmune DISEASE.  It is a lifelong, no-cure, disease.  If left untreated it's a harmful disease that can lead to infertility, cancer and neurological complications.

What I know about Celiac disease is that my little boy has it.  He is little, or as he says a "short 6," but strong.  He rolls with not ever being able to have the snack at school, birthday parties or after the game, but deep down it sometimes bothers him.

What I know about Celiac disease is that my heart hurts for my son.  I hate that his immune system doesn't work properly.  I worry that he will eat something with gluten and get terrible stomach pains and feel sick for days.

What I know about Celiac disease is that our whole family eats a gluten free diet at home.  Two years after we began this journey, we still have a long way to go to find a wide variety of affordable meals.

We are lucky that we can treat this disease with the right diet.  I truly appreciate that fact and I am so grateful my son can live a "normal" life.  But at the same time, I am going to stop downplaying my son's Celiac Disease.  I'm going to stop apologizing for being worried or getting upset because he's not anaphylactic.  It is a disease.  A disease that my son will have for the rest of his life.  A disease that he will have to manage and watch over.  

It is my job to find the right balance between making him understand this and respect it, but also not feel left out or let it define his whole existence.  

To learn more about Celiac Awareness Day click here.

His Drinking Problem

My son has a drinking problem.

It's not what you think.  My son  just turned 6 years old and he isn't throwing back Jack and Cokes.  But he does have a problem.

Before he was diagnosed with Celiac disease over 2 years ago, he drank, but he didn't eat.  He would drink water, milk, juice, but he didn't feel well enough to eat.  After starting the gluten free diet, he felt better, he drank less and ate more.  He got healthier.

But every now and then he falls off the wagon.  His stomach hurting, his system is out of whack because of small traces of gluten and he starts to drink, but not eat.

This summer we traveled quite a bit.  Every family member we visited on the road was kind and thoughtful about what types of food JT could eat.  Even though they looked out for him, he existed on a diet of mostly Cheetos and Sprite/milk/water/juice.  Also,  during the first week off from school, he broke his arm after he jumped off a play set.  I am sad to admit, that I have given into his drink requests more often than not because I just feel so darn bad for him.  First the whole no gluten thing, now the whole you can't go in the lake thing.  Ugh.

By the time we returned from our travels, his face was gaunt and he looked like he'd lost weight.  Even though he is so much better than before, he still cannot afford to lose any weight.

Back at home, we've tried to get him on a routine because that's how he thrives the most.  Eating at more regular times.  Grilling chicken and fish.  Cutting up fresh veggies like cucumbers and carrots that he loves.

We have been a gluten free family for 2 1/2 years now.  We should have a handle on all this.  And for the most part we do.  But I would be lying if I said we were pros.

He isn't the only one that fell off the wagon.  I too need to jump back on board and pay attention to making sure he is filling up on good healthy, gluten free foods.  I need to continue to educate myself with foods he likes that he is able to eat.

It is especially important to find a better balance for both of us because in two short weeks, he is going to first grade.  All day in school.  I will send him with a gluten free lunch and keep my fingers crossed that he eats it and doesn't trade food like my other (non Celiac) kids do in the cafeteria.

Here are a few places I am turning to for help getting back on the food wagon for back to school:

100 Gluten Free School Lunch Ideas from Gluten Freeville.com

Tips for making the "gluten free grade" at Celiac.com

Gluten free School Lunch Recipes and Tips from about.com

Carry Out Please!

Last night my husband did indeed come home with boxes of carry out pizza.  "It's all gluten free!" my elated 5-year-old with Celiac squealed.  

My husband had found a pizza place near his office that made decent gluten free pizza (in my opinion it is VERY hard to find gf pizza in a restaurant that tastes good).  Well, you might as well have brought Santa Claus home for dinner, we were all so excited.

It's been a really busy couple months for our family.  We moved, I went to my first blog conference which entailed being away from my family the longest ever (five whole days!), a friend died, family visited, kids had birthdays and more.   Just a lot of life.


Maintaining the gluten free diet has become very easy for me, well maybe not easy, more like routine. It's just the way it is.  A lot of it involves fresh veggies and fruits, not a lot of snacking and being prepared. Sadly, since I've been so busy, I've devoted less time to trying new recipes and learning to be less dependent on Gluten Free Bisquick.


We had family in town a couple weekends the past month and I did manage to wow them with a chocolate chip scone recipe (the first time I ever used xanthan gum), click here for the recipe.  I also threw together my guacamole which everyone loves (except a couple of my kids).  




Even though it is much easier to live a gluten free lifestyle now than it was two years ago when my son was diagnosed with Celiac disease, it gets tiring.  It gets tiring to make everything from scratch and be prepared all the time.  Maybe not even tiring, but annoying.  It makes me miss the nights when we were busy with life and we'd pick up a carry out pizza.  Or pick the inexpensive (nicer word than fast food) restaurant for a junk food treat. Just to get a break from cooking/baking/heating up/mixing!


To think about all those years I took for granted Dominos or Pizza Hut.  Last night's pizza didn't taste anywhere near as good as those, but it was okay.  The break from cooking/baking/heating up/mixing, worrying and being prepared was priceless. Also priceless? How much my family appreciates going out to dinner (carrying out to dinner).

Cooking It Up GF Style

My oldest son, Peyton, came home from school the other day with a cookbook he'd gotten out of the library.  






He was so excited to make something, at first.  "I probably can't make anything in here because it all has gluten," he realized flipping through the pages.






But never fear!  Gluten-free flour is here!  I am so grateful that it is so easy to make "normal" dishes gluten free.  From cookbook dishes to my grandmother's brownie recipe, most recipes can be transformed into gluten free goodness.


With a quick flour switcheroo, a once gluten-filled tasty treat is now a gluten-free tasty treat that the whole family can enjoy.

This is our favorite GF flour brand.  Love it.

And my whole family did enjoy the treat--cupcakes.

And I enjoyed watching the kids figure out the recipe and work together.

And a few other things...


Politically, I don't have anything in common with Elizabeth Hasselbeck.  We in fact couldn't be more different.  But I admit, I liked her book, The GFree Diet.  I didn't buy it, just checked it out from the library.  I just might put all my political stuff aside and buy her new cookbook Deliciously G-Free that was featured on The View last week.  I mean if Joy can hang out with her, I can buy her cookbook.  Plus the food looks pretty good and I like her idea of keeping old family recipes alive and well.




Click here for more information about her books. 

Also check out this:

I am loving Kin Community channel on YouTube.  They have great videos on fashion and cooking.  This one caught my eye because it is Gluten Free.  And because it looks so good.

I Finally Did It-I Xanthan Gummed

I have been fearful of cooking, baking or having anything to do with making something gluten free from scratch.  That is why I am so reliant on baking mixes and pre-made meals. 


Using ingredients like Sorghum flour and xanthan gum sounded far too exotic to be going into biscuits.  And honestly, the ingredients are too damn expensive to screw up a recipe with them.  I mean you can buy a bag of good old-fashioned flour for under a $2 and if you mess up the cookies, no biggie.  But when the specialty flour costs $6 and the other specialty ingredients cost $9 a pop, you don't want to go messin with it.  We joke that GF Bisquick is like gold or a precious gem, handled with great care.  You get it?  There are no cutesy flour throwing scenes in our kitchen.


One of my new year's resolutions was to start baking without the mix.  And I did it!  Sure it was last year's resolution, so technically I am a year late, but I did it.  

I xanthan gummed a recipe and wait for it....it was good.

New Year's Day breakfast consisted of gluten free chocolate chip scones and gluten free bagels and lox. 

And it wasn't hard.  It did take a little extra time, but it wasn't hard and everything tasted good.


I got the recipes from a day before Christmas purchase in the bargain books aisle at Barnes & Noble.  

But guess what you can get it for even cheaper on Amazon. Click here to take a look and buy it.

Click here for a quick link to the Chocolate Chip Scone Recipe.
So here's to a new year and a whole lot more Xanthan Gum.
2012 is gonna be good.

We Survived the Holidays-Gluten Free

We made it through it all the holiday parties, all the traveling, without any gluten problems.  I consider that a mini miracle considering the kindergarten Thanksgiving party was a disaster (the one where my kid with Celiac ate a gluten-filled cookie so he wouldn't feel left out).


But I didn't do it alone.  That whole it takes a village thing was in full effect.  From my son's amazing kindergarten teacher who said "Let's just have fruits and vegetables at our party, it will be great, they don't care about the food anyway."  And you know what?  The kids weren't upset about the menu and look how beautiful it was.  What a gift.  I feel very lucky that my son has this kind, inclusive teacher.

A classroom mom made gluten free, sugar free cupcakes (there is a little girl in the class that has diabetes) and the kids REALLY loved those.  

Christmas Eve was spent at my mother-in-law's who called ahead to make sure certain spices were gluten free.  Visiting my dad in Pittsburgh the week after Christmas went well too, he had gone gluten free shopping and had plenty of GF pasta and bread that JT could eat.  It was so nice not to worry.


It was also nice to have support and understanding.  It was nice to have the village.  
No one saying "well, it's not that bad if he has a little gluten" or "one cookie won't kill him, whatever, his throat won't close up or anything."  


The holidays were successful because my village didn't judge or make any of us feel uncomfortable.  


We even made post-Christmas Christmas cookies.  And they were good.  Really good.  "THESE are gluten free?" we all kept asking in dis-belief.  Yup, they were that good.

A GOOD READ:
This is an oldish post from October, but I love it.  I have been a big Joel Stein fan for a long time.  But it turns out Joel Stein has a wife and she is funny and lovable too...Cassandra Barry.  She and Joel have a blog on Babble Voices and they have a kid with a peanut allergy.  This was a great post she wrote and it makes me grateful for my kid's teacher and school.
 "My kid's nut allergy is bringing you down"

We Are Loving

There are lots of good things going on right now.  

Celiaccentral.org--I love this web site from the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness and following them on Twitter (@CeliacAwareness) has taught me so much about Celiac disease and being gluten free.    Love!  Click here for more nfca.

Rocco Dispirito's Gluten Free  cupcakes on Anderson!

Brownies we were given as a holiday gift and love!  They are very rich.  When my husband told my daughter that she replied "Let's steal from them."  And yup, they're that rich. And that good.

Looked them up online and they have quite a few great gift gluten free gift baskets for the holidays.  Click here for more info.

Twitter.  Follow me at my new Twitter account: @aglutenfreefam