Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal’s sports page had a “What You Need to Know” Q & A about football that mentioned a gluten-free diet.
In my opinion, this mention of a gluten-free diet wasn’t really a good thing. They were talking about the Jets (an offensive subject at any level to a diehard Giant’s fan, but I digress). The reporter was answering the question “are the Jet’s for real,” as in are they worth all the media hype they have received thus far in the season.
I quote, “Potty-mouthed head coach Rex Ryan, a/k/a Magic Khakis, is more popular here than gluten-free diets, and the Super Bowl talk flows freely, and alarmingly.”
First off, I highly doubt the Jet’s will make it to the Super Bowl. But, more alarmingly the “popularity” of a gluten-free diet, as it is stated here, is not something I think is entirely positive. Even though medical professionals have stated that a “g-free” diet is not really a weight loss tool, people are still hopping on the trend bandwagon of going gluten-free to lose weight.
I have to say I just get so…ticked off, trying to keep it “G” rated…when a person extols the virtues of a gluten-free diet when it’s just a temporary diversion for them. “I feel so fabulous.” “I have so much energy.” Blah, Blah, Blah…
I know that within weeks a slice of pizza or a loaf of French bread or a plate of pasta will sneak back in and then the door will open to a regular intake of foods containing gluten again. It’s annoying and I regularly point out the big difference between the trendster and a celiac, I am on a gluten-free diet forever and for far different reasons. I’m trying to avoid a plethora of scary diseases, plus I would be sick as a dog if I were to eat a plate of regular pasta.
What I really feel like saying, is take your trendy enthusiasm for the gluten-free diet and…well, channeling the “G” rating again, you get the idea.
Kendall Egan
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Blood types and celiac disease
Many years ago, when I was wandering around from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what was wrong with me, I happened to visit one of the Dr. D’Adamos (there is more than one Dr. D’Adamo pushing the blood type theories) at the suggestion of my then yoga instructor, who I liked a lot. That’s probably why I followed up on her suggestion. She seemed to know a lot about health and a lot of doctors didn’t seem to know anything at all about my health in general and my many physical complaints in particular. Plus, his office was not very far from my home.
The Dr. D’Adamo I saw said I had Type O blood and therefore I should eat meat. I was getting desperate, so I did begin to eat a lot of meat. At that point, I was avoiding a lot of food items thinking they made me ill, so the meat I ate was probably plain and therefore gluten free.
But I didn’t get any better because what I really had was celiac disease. Dr. D’Adamo did not advance my health one bit. In fact, he set me back while I experimented with the idea that eating meat would make me better.
The blood type theory arises every few years or so but to be honest, I don’t think it ever pans out in any helpful way. I vaguely remember a quote we had in one issue when a reader wrote in asking about the Blood Type theories. The doctor said (and I am paraphrasing from memory), if that were true, meaning blood type can guide treatment, then wouldn’t we all be much healthier than we are today?
I have been diagnosed with celiac disease for 20 years. I will agree that there are still, in 2010, medical doctors who don’t know squat about celiac disease. But I do know that theories I might term “outré” can delay a celiac disease diagnosis.
Certainly Dr. D’Adamo did me no good and some harm while I toyed with his theories. So I take issue with the idea that knowing your blood type will help you manage your gluten-free life. Frankly I don’t think it will do you any good at all.
Ann
The Dr. D’Adamo I saw said I had Type O blood and therefore I should eat meat. I was getting desperate, so I did begin to eat a lot of meat. At that point, I was avoiding a lot of food items thinking they made me ill, so the meat I ate was probably plain and therefore gluten free.
But I didn’t get any better because what I really had was celiac disease. Dr. D’Adamo did not advance my health one bit. In fact, he set me back while I experimented with the idea that eating meat would make me better.
The blood type theory arises every few years or so but to be honest, I don’t think it ever pans out in any helpful way. I vaguely remember a quote we had in one issue when a reader wrote in asking about the Blood Type theories. The doctor said (and I am paraphrasing from memory), if that were true, meaning blood type can guide treatment, then wouldn’t we all be much healthier than we are today?
I have been diagnosed with celiac disease for 20 years. I will agree that there are still, in 2010, medical doctors who don’t know squat about celiac disease. But I do know that theories I might term “outré” can delay a celiac disease diagnosis.
Certainly Dr. D’Adamo did me no good and some harm while I toyed with his theories. So I take issue with the idea that knowing your blood type will help you manage your gluten-free life. Frankly I don’t think it will do you any good at all.
Ann
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Gluten-Free Success in the Kitchen
For my second try at real cooking, I decided to stay away from meat altogether and found a perfect sandwich recipe.
As I’ve mentioned before, my sandwiches are usually pretty simple - peanut butter on toasted gluten-free bread. I never put a lot of thought into lunch so I figured this sandwich could help change that.
The recipe for Arugla-Pear Focaccia Panini comes from Carol Fenster’s “1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes.” I think you can find a recipe for almost anything in this book – it has 700 pages!
I did adapt the recipe a little, something that I learned can be important from the last time I cooked. First, I used bread that I already had instead of making the Focaccia. I wanted something that I could make quickly so preparing a special bread wouldn’t have fit my goal.
Second, the recipe calls for a Panini press. I definitely don’t own one of those so I made the sandwich more like a grilled cheese with a little bit of cooking oil on a frying pan. Then I pressed the spatula down hard onto the bread to flatten it out.
Carol Fenster also suggests flattening the sandwich out by putting a heavy skillet on top if you do not own a Panini press.
But before all that I put the sandwich together. The recipe called for a little bit of spinach, Swiss cheese, very thin pear slices, red onion and a special spread (the recipe for the spread is in the cookbook) all layered between two slices of bread. After the sandwich was assembled, I put it in the pan on the stove for a few minutes, flipped it and cooked it for another minute or two. Overall it was a very simple recipe that did not require much more time than it does to toast bread and then put some peanut butter on it.
I did have to go out to get a few of the items because they were not all things that I had at home.
The sandwich tasted great and was not like anything that I have previously tried. I would never have thought of using pears with onions and cheese on a sandwich.
I would definitely make this sandwich again! Another lesson I learned is that I can create interesting and different meals that aren’t much harder than very basic things I’m used to. The key is just to get a little creative and think outside the box.
I know I have said I want to make healthy meals, but once I opened the cookbook I used for this recipe, I couldn’t resist some of the desserts. So that’s what’s up next!
Amanda
As I’ve mentioned before, my sandwiches are usually pretty simple - peanut butter on toasted gluten-free bread. I never put a lot of thought into lunch so I figured this sandwich could help change that.
The recipe for Arugla-Pear Focaccia Panini comes from Carol Fenster’s “1,000 Gluten-Free Recipes.” I think you can find a recipe for almost anything in this book – it has 700 pages!
I did adapt the recipe a little, something that I learned can be important from the last time I cooked. First, I used bread that I already had instead of making the Focaccia. I wanted something that I could make quickly so preparing a special bread wouldn’t have fit my goal.
Second, the recipe calls for a Panini press. I definitely don’t own one of those so I made the sandwich more like a grilled cheese with a little bit of cooking oil on a frying pan. Then I pressed the spatula down hard onto the bread to flatten it out.
Carol Fenster also suggests flattening the sandwich out by putting a heavy skillet on top if you do not own a Panini press.
But before all that I put the sandwich together. The recipe called for a little bit of spinach, Swiss cheese, very thin pear slices, red onion and a special spread (the recipe for the spread is in the cookbook) all layered between two slices of bread. After the sandwich was assembled, I put it in the pan on the stove for a few minutes, flipped it and cooked it for another minute or two. Overall it was a very simple recipe that did not require much more time than it does to toast bread and then put some peanut butter on it.
I did have to go out to get a few of the items because they were not all things that I had at home.
The sandwich tasted great and was not like anything that I have previously tried. I would never have thought of using pears with onions and cheese on a sandwich.
I would definitely make this sandwich again! Another lesson I learned is that I can create interesting and different meals that aren’t much harder than very basic things I’m used to. The key is just to get a little creative and think outside the box.
I know I have said I want to make healthy meals, but once I opened the cookbook I used for this recipe, I couldn’t resist some of the desserts. So that’s what’s up next!
Amanda
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Vitamin D Deficient
This summer I have read article after article on the prevalence of Vitamin D deficiencies in American woman. We all know that calcium is important for strong bones and teeth, but vitamin D is important for calcium absorption. You don’t want your daily calcium coming from your bones so having the daily dose of calcium is so important to preventing osteoporosis. As a celiac, I have been very careful the past ten years to make sure I was getting plenty of calcium daily and doing weight bearing exercise for bone health.
I have never even worried about vitamin D because I am an outdoorsy person—tennis, swimming, walking—and I assumed I received plenty of vitamin D through sunlight. I am not a milk drinker, but I take a calcium supplement that has vitamin D in it.
I went in for some standard blood work for an upcoming physical and all was well, except my doctor said that I was vitamin D deficient! I guess the sunscreen I wear 365 days a year was really working. The funny thing is that I still have my “SPF 50” tan and the dermatologist still looks at me cross eyed when I walk in to her office with skin in a golden honey hue.
So to prevent one problem, I have created another. I guess that is the way it goes with health and prevention. Now I need to take even more vitamin D in supplement form and I’m trying to choke down a little more milk (yuck) every day. I don’t want to forgo my sunscreen though, having freckles removed is low on my list of fun things to do.
Kendall Egan
I have never even worried about vitamin D because I am an outdoorsy person—tennis, swimming, walking—and I assumed I received plenty of vitamin D through sunlight. I am not a milk drinker, but I take a calcium supplement that has vitamin D in it.
I went in for some standard blood work for an upcoming physical and all was well, except my doctor said that I was vitamin D deficient! I guess the sunscreen I wear 365 days a year was really working. The funny thing is that I still have my “SPF 50” tan and the dermatologist still looks at me cross eyed when I walk in to her office with skin in a golden honey hue.
So to prevent one problem, I have created another. I guess that is the way it goes with health and prevention. Now I need to take even more vitamin D in supplement form and I’m trying to choke down a little more milk (yuck) every day. I don’t want to forgo my sunscreen though, having freckles removed is low on my list of fun things to do.
Kendall Egan
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Dinner's ready, gluten-free that is!
As part of my plan to learn how to cook while home from college this summer, I attempted to prepare my first, real complete dinner meal last week.
I made Chicken Satay with Peanut sauce, which seemed like a good choice because I wanted something simple but more interesting than plain grilled chicken.
It was a bit of a risk because I get squeamish touching uncooked meat. Actually, once I see raw meat I have trouble eating it even after it’s cooked. I know that if I want to learn to cook – I’m not a vegetarian and don’t have trouble eating meat others make – I have to get over it.
I started preparing the meal around 4 pm, mixing together sauce and cutting the chicken while holding it down with a fork so that I didn't have to touch it. Then I put the raw chicken into a Ziploc bag with the sauce and refrigerated it. Two hours later I took out the chicken, stuck a few pieces together on skewers and put it on the grill. The recipe said to leave the chicken on for about four minutes, but I ended up keeping it there for close to twenty. With the chicken pushed together on skewers it didn’t cook as fast as the recipe said it would. When it was finally done, I spread on a peanut sauce I had made while the chicken was cooking.
For a side dish I made Hamburger Helper's gluten-free fried rice. I left out the chicken in the recipe on the box since I was serving it with the Chicken Satay. Overall I thought that the fried rice was pretty good.
The Chicken Satay was a little less tasty to me. If I ever make it again I would not put the chicken on skewers or add the peanut sauce at the end. The skewers took too much effort and time. While grilling the chicken, the skewers burnt and broke off so that I had the stick new skewers in most of the pieces at the end anyway. The sauce was a little too spicy and thick for me. Changing the sauce recipe by adding more water and less crushed red pepper could help fix that.
I made the dinner for my whole family and my mom said that she liked the meal a lot, but that might have had more to do with the fact that she didn't have to cook for once.
While the recipe was a change from plain chicken and rice, I can't say that I would definitely make it again. At school I know I would not have enough time.
But I did learn a few things, like the fact that sometimes you have to change a recipe a little to make it work for you. I also found out not everything will go smoothly.
Don't worry, though. I am not giving up in my attempt to learn how to cook. Next time I think I will stay away from meat – just not ready for it yet. I found a recipe for Spinach, Pear Panini that sounds pretty good. I’ll let you know my next experience in the kitchen goes.
Amanda
I made Chicken Satay with Peanut sauce, which seemed like a good choice because I wanted something simple but more interesting than plain grilled chicken.
It was a bit of a risk because I get squeamish touching uncooked meat. Actually, once I see raw meat I have trouble eating it even after it’s cooked. I know that if I want to learn to cook – I’m not a vegetarian and don’t have trouble eating meat others make – I have to get over it.
I started preparing the meal around 4 pm, mixing together sauce and cutting the chicken while holding it down with a fork so that I didn't have to touch it. Then I put the raw chicken into a Ziploc bag with the sauce and refrigerated it. Two hours later I took out the chicken, stuck a few pieces together on skewers and put it on the grill. The recipe said to leave the chicken on for about four minutes, but I ended up keeping it there for close to twenty. With the chicken pushed together on skewers it didn’t cook as fast as the recipe said it would. When it was finally done, I spread on a peanut sauce I had made while the chicken was cooking.
For a side dish I made Hamburger Helper's gluten-free fried rice. I left out the chicken in the recipe on the box since I was serving it with the Chicken Satay. Overall I thought that the fried rice was pretty good.
The Chicken Satay was a little less tasty to me. If I ever make it again I would not put the chicken on skewers or add the peanut sauce at the end. The skewers took too much effort and time. While grilling the chicken, the skewers burnt and broke off so that I had the stick new skewers in most of the pieces at the end anyway. The sauce was a little too spicy and thick for me. Changing the sauce recipe by adding more water and less crushed red pepper could help fix that.
I made the dinner for my whole family and my mom said that she liked the meal a lot, but that might have had more to do with the fact that she didn't have to cook for once.
While the recipe was a change from plain chicken and rice, I can't say that I would definitely make it again. At school I know I would not have enough time.
But I did learn a few things, like the fact that sometimes you have to change a recipe a little to make it work for you. I also found out not everything will go smoothly.
Don't worry, though. I am not giving up in my attempt to learn how to cook. Next time I think I will stay away from meat – just not ready for it yet. I found a recipe for Spinach, Pear Panini that sounds pretty good. I’ll let you know my next experience in the kitchen goes.
Amanda
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The Trend is “bite sized”
Small plates, tapas, bite sized portions are a huge trend right now. It could almost be called a “right sized” portion after years of “supersize me.” Pamela’s Products annual recipe contest for 2010 reflects this new idea by casting a net far and wide for gluten-free mini-creation using Pamela’s Products.
Scratch chefs have until August 16th at 11:59pm PST to submit new recipes using something from Pamela’s Products. Look to the website for the entry form, www.pamelasproducts.com.
Here is my idea…mini chipwhiches! I would use the Simplebites chocolate chip cookies and sandwich vanilla ice cream in the middle and roll the edges in mini-chocolate chips. Simple, bite-sized and delicious.
What I’m hoping is that someone submits a recipe for a slider bun. I think sliders are the most sublime bite size burger going. How fabulous does a mini-bacon cheeseburger with sautéed onions and a toasted bun sound? I’m sure more inventive people could come up with better toppings, but the novelty would be to enjoy a slider with a bun for a change.
Maybe even some maple-walnut silver dollar pancakes or a twist on mini-cupcakes….the possibilities are endless! We’ll know soon enough what bite sized entry captures the Pamela’s panel of judges’ taste buds. The recipes will be featured on the website and in the newsletter.
I can’t wait to find out who wins.
Kendall Egan
Scratch chefs have until August 16th at 11:59pm PST to submit new recipes using something from Pamela’s Products. Look to the website for the entry form, www.pamelasproducts.com.
Here is my idea…mini chipwhiches! I would use the Simplebites chocolate chip cookies and sandwich vanilla ice cream in the middle and roll the edges in mini-chocolate chips. Simple, bite-sized and delicious.
What I’m hoping is that someone submits a recipe for a slider bun. I think sliders are the most sublime bite size burger going. How fabulous does a mini-bacon cheeseburger with sautéed onions and a toasted bun sound? I’m sure more inventive people could come up with better toppings, but the novelty would be to enjoy a slider with a bun for a change.
Maybe even some maple-walnut silver dollar pancakes or a twist on mini-cupcakes….the possibilities are endless! We’ll know soon enough what bite sized entry captures the Pamela’s panel of judges’ taste buds. The recipes will be featured on the website and in the newsletter.
I can’t wait to find out who wins.
Kendall Egan
Monday, August 2, 2010
Gluten-Free Tastykake?!
I have exciting news for anyone who lives near a Rita's Italian Ice.
Rita's just introduced a Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpet cream ice flavor. And yes it’s……GLUTEN FREE!
The Rita's website does not have the allergen information for this flavor yet, but my summer job for the past few years has been serving up Italian ice on hot and sunny days so I was able to sneak a peek at the ingredients for the ice.
I was surprised that the Tastykake ice is gluten free because the Birthday Cake cream ice does have wheat flour in it. (Most Rita's products are gluten free besides the ices that contain things like cookies and the Blendini's that have cookies or pretzels. You can check most allergen information on their website.)
I’ve had never had a Tastykake before so I was very excited to go to work and taste one without the gluten and with a lot less of the fat and calories. I can’t tell you how close the taste is to an actual Tastykake, but the other ices associated with products, like the Swedish fish and Peeps ices, taste just like the real thing.
To me the Tastykake ice was creamy and sweet and that is how I imagine a butterscotch krimpet would taste.
Not all of the customers that I waited on loved it though. Some people thought it didn’t have a lot of flavor while others said it was too sweet.
You can taste the ice before you buy it. Just ask the worker waiting on you for a sample.
Let me know if you try the Tastykake Krimpet Cream Ice and how you like it!
Amanda
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