Posted by bleauberry on November 3, 2008, at 20:29:13
In reply to Re: medication lowering immunity?, posted by sunshine25 on November 2, 2008, at 19:58:10
Hi, I just wanted to followup on the gluten thing. It really isn't that hard. It took me a few months, but really it can be done instantly if someone shows you how.
Health food stores, herb stores, etc, sell gluten free products. Everything like pasta, oreo cookies, cereals, bread, donuts, pizza, enchiladas, on and on.
The local grocery store has a lot too. Dinty Moore beef stew says on the can gluten free. Amy's frozen enchilada meal. General Mills Rice Chex.
Obviously if it is made from wheat, forget it. If it has barley or oats, forget it. Actually oats itself is ok, but most oats are contaminated from wheat due to being grown in the same field. There is a gluten free oats sold by Bobs Red Mill brand.
Whole Foods Market has a whole gluten free section.
I make pancakes with Bobs Red Mill all purpose gluten free flour, which is a mix of rice flour, corn flour, bean flour, tapioca flour, and a couple others.
Most gluten free pastas are made from rice. They are ok, but kind of slimy. A better one is made with quinoa and corn, which looks, tastes, and feels like real spaguetti. Whole Foods has it.
Gluten Free Pantry brand has a bread mix you can bake, called Old Fashioned Bread, and it is awesome. Tastes like grandmas homemade.
If the ingredient list shows "barley malt", forget it. That rules out a lot of cereals that would otherwise seem safe enough.
Hersheys regular chocolate is gluten free but their dark chocolate is not. Weird. Something in their "natural and artificial flavors". Just the opposite with milky way...milky way has gluten but the milky way dark doesn't. Dove is good. Whole Foods sells a brand of chocolate chips that are completely allergen free...no dairy, no gluten, no eggs, and they taste extremely good.
The biggest draw back is the cost. Gluten free stuff generally costs more, except maybe for common things like hersheys, dinty moore beef stew, gm rice chex, etc. And the labor to make your bread. The premade ones suck, though the Whole Foods house brand frozen gluten free sandwich bread is actually pretty good.
Read all labels. If it says wheat, barley, oats, or barley malt, eat something else. If it says "natural and artificial flavors", well, that's kind of iffy, you just don't know. Skip it if you can.
Two weeks of that really isn't a big challenge at all. I do it every day of my life and it isn't a big deal. Once in a while I even splurge and have a Big Mac or a slice of wheatflour pizza, though I pay the price with a hungover feeling the next day.
I skipped all dairy and anything that had dairy in it for a few weeks. I couldn't tell any difference at all. So at least now I know I can enjoy whatever milk, cheese, chocolate, or whatever.
Gluten, different story. It is followed up with a hungover poinsoned kind of feeling in about 24 hours.
Eggs are also one of the top allergens, but that is easy enough to skip and test.
poster:bleauberry
thread:860323
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081027/msgs/860633.html