Discover practical gluten-free tips from a dedicated mom balancing health and family life. Thrive together with tasty, safe meals!
Essential Strategies for Navigating a Gluten-Free Lifestyle with Confidence
For those navigating a gluten-free lifestyle, understanding the complexities of gluten and its presence in various foods is crucial. Many individuals find themselves asking, “What can I eat?” as they embark on this journey. A decade-long experience shared by someone who adopted a gluten-free (and mostly dairy-free) diet reveals the realities of this lifestyle, emphasizing that the switch was not made for trends but out of necessity due to health concerns. The journey includes insights into identifying gluten and recognizing its sneaky presence in unexpected products.
One significant aspect of managing a gluten-free diet involves learning how to read food labels effectively. This knowledge can prevent confusion and help individuals make safer choices while grocery shopping. Additionally, the conversation addresses practical strategies for eating out, including fast food options, which can often feel overwhelming. Tips for feeding families on a budget while accommodating dietary restrictions are also shared, providing a realistic approach without the pressure of perfectionism often associated with culinary expectations.
Navigating the Gluten-Free Jungle: A Mom’s Journey from Chaos to Culinary Bliss!
There’s more research that’s being done that’s being found that there actually is legitimacy to gluten-free, dairyf free. It can help with absorption of vitamins and minerals and things that they need and it can reduce inflammation. It’s one of those diets that gets a lot of flack from people because it goes against what we have.
Been traditionally taught, but more and more is coming out about it. Okay. Anyway, I’m going to be spitting a whole lot of information to you in a very short amount of time. And I’ve been doing this on and off for about 10 years. I can say that when I finally said, “No more wheat. No more. I’m not eating it.” My health improved.
Tremendously. I was getting sick a whole lot, but the times I’ve cut out gluten have been great for me. Dairy for me is another story. Um, I can do yogurt and stuff like that, but that’s another video for another day. So, what is gluten? Gluten is the protein that is found in wheat, barley, and rye. The most common form of gluten is going to.
Be with wheat. There’s an overabundance of wheat in the American diet. And that is why besides outright things like whole wheat bread, what might you find gluten in? I have a whole list. Flour, bread, crackers, dough, even play-doh. Did you know Play-Doh has wheat thickeners and things like gravy, barbecue sauce, soups, instant and.
Microwavable foods, meatballs? Yes. And salad dressings. Yeah, you got to watch out for those salad dressings. And that’s just a short list. Gluten is found in so many more things than that. It’s it’s it’s way too abundant in our current culture. So, a quick way to tell if a food has gluten in it is to look at the ingredient list. Commercially.
Manufactured foods in the United States are required to list their ingredients in order um what it has the most of to what it has the smallest amounts of. Like this right here says contains eggs, wheat, and milk. That’s a quick way to find out if there is gluten or milk in something. But not everybody does that. From my understanding, that is not a.
Requirement that they have to follow. It’s not law. If it is listed in the ingredients as an obvious ingredient, then they are not required to put that down there. Just as an example that they don’t always say contains here, Michael was cooking this instant rice on the stove top. The only thing it says is that it may contain, see if I can get it.
To focus on that. It says it may contain milk and sulfates or something like that. But right here where I have this red line, it says contains wheat flour. But if you don’t know how to read nutrition labels and the ingredient list, then it was something that’ll be very easily missed cuz it was in parenthesis. And we can just skip right.
Over it. Now, fortunately with wheat, wheat doesn’t have a whole lot of other names. So this in this case, it’s not something you have to worry about. For fast food, the question isn’t, well, what has gluten in it? The question is more what does not have gluten in it? Cuz most fast food, I would dare to say like 95% of fast food, it’s making up a.
Statistic, has gluten in it. That also brings up the issue of what is known as crosscontamination. Explained simply, the food that you’re ordering, though it doesn’t necessarily have gluten in it, it means it may have run across a table or some other piece of kitchen wear that had gluten on it. The best example I can give is when I get pre-sliced apples.
From the grocery store. Uh, a lot of times I can tell that they chop that on something else that had onions and it is nasty and I I can’t stand it. It’s the same thing with gluten. And the thing was with gluten is you can’t really taste it when it’s in small traces like that unlike onion which is super strong and overpowering.
I’m not as worried about crosscontamination at this time. Um, I found that crosscontamination is something that personally I have to look out for during times like now it’s spring and allergens, tree allergens are really high. I am a little concerned though about stuff that’s fried in the same oil as other stuff that’s breaded.
I just think that that’s an outright thing. Like that’s a different kind of crosscontamination to me. So I would I would avoid that. So, for fast food, if you’re stuck and you’re like, “We got to do something. We’re desperate here.” Some generally safe or okay places that are going to have fairly gluten-free stuff, I’d say, would be Chick-fil-A,.
Their grilled nuggets, and their fries. They do fry their fries separate than what they fry things that have wheat or that are breaded. Um, there are lots of gluten-free options at Panera. The last time I went to Panera, there were some gluten-free options, but I mean, the whole foundation of that company is Panera, which translates to.
Bread, so eat there at your own risk. And um, see, most grilled foods typically don’t have gluten in them. Now, big restaurant chains will have allergen menus if you really want to get deep into it. So, like I said, that’s a whole another video in itself, but unfortunately, smaller local restaurants, you will have to ask. And.
In asking, waiters and waitresses can be really super ignorant about it. And at that, across all ages, sometimes get really mad and irritated about the whole gluten thing. So, make sure they go and talk to somebody who’s in the kitchen about it and really make sure that they know what they’re talking about because a lot of times that’s been a big source.
Of problems for me. All right. Now, I just want to give you some examples of stuff. There are some other brands like Amy’s. Amy’s a brand that a lot of people choose to go for for gluten-free quick food. And um there but you still have to watch it with them because just because it says Amy’s doesn’t mean it’s gluten-free. They have lots of gluten.
Products and with their packaging, you have to be really careful because they don’t put a whole lot of effort into making sure you know that it’s gluten-free. Now, that said, a lot of people do like to make sure you know that their stuff is gluten-free. Now, here’s one that’s gluten-ree, but it’s not dairyf free. But this is a bag of.
Cheetos, and they managed to they actually put their own big old symbol up there that says gluten-free, that one with the GF. A lot of people will do that, but just know that companies can come up with their own labels for that. It’s not a standardized thing at this time. Um, let’s see. Here’s another one that we like. Now, this one says it’s.
Certified gluten-free, and they even give a website, but again, sometimes these are made by the companies themselves. This is a pack, but this is a pack of veggie straws, and they have a little symbol on there that says gluten-free. They make sure that, you know, it’s gluten-free because they know parents really care about this. There’s.
Another one that’s on the front. This is pretty straightforward. Like look, this is this is a box of crackers. And then down here it says, wait. Okay, so now you’re probably wondering, well, what can the kids eat? Believe it or not, most things, most of the healthy things, wholesome foods, whole foods.
Diet is gluten-free. So if you are in the grocery store, the parameter of the grocery store, so you’re talking like the produce aisle, meats, um, nuts are usually in there as well. Um, Kroger’s tend to have fish that’s on display and along in the perimeter that has been pre-bed for you. So, that might be an issue, but other stuff that’s like from.
The meat counter or is just straight up fish, like that’s just all it is, then that’s okay. Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are within the aisles that are okay. It’s just when you start looking into prepackaged stuff, that’s when things get a lot more expensive and you’re more likely to run into a bunch.
Of mysterious or scientific sounding ingredients and we don’t really know what it means. It’s a lot of time on Google to find out. So, it’s just easier to stick with those whole foods. It also means a lot of planning ahead. So, if I like, for example, for me, if I know I’m going to be picking up Payton from preschool, then rather than my usual.
Going by Burger King, it may mean that I show up with some gluten-free nuggets already made or he does get really curious about some other things like um rice. So, there’s a lot of room for creativity in this. It’s not like it’s some sort of death sentence or anything like that. There are going to be like as you get more into it, you find that it’s.
Really not that difficult. What makes a gluten-free diet difficult is when you try to replace the typical American comfort foods that you’re used to and quick, convenient American foods and you try to replace them with the gluten-free versions. That’s when things get expensive and nasty. A lot of people actually enjoy a gluten-free dairyfree.
Diet because they feel like they’re eating more wholesome meals. And I really think that honestly after you get over the initial hump of well what am I supposed to fix the kids that you’ll find hey this is actually really simple and actually really enjoyable actually like these gluten-free foods. So all right that’s.
It for right now and um I’ll probably have some more follow-up videos on this because as it turns out I didn’t realize I had so much to say about living gluten-free. I have a lot to say about it. All right until next time.
