Finding An Allergy-Friendly Restaurant - Interview with Paul Antico, Founder of AllergyEats.com

AllergyEats.com - Finding an Allergy-Friendly Restaurant

AllergyEats is a comprehensive, user-friendly guide to allergy-friendly restaurants across the United States. It is a peer-reviewed directory of restaurants – rated by people with food allergies, for people with food allergies.

AllergyEats has a database of over 600,000 restaurant listings across the U.S. complete with menus (including gluten-free), allergen lists, certifications, nutritional info, phone numbers, website links, as well as other relevant information from restaurants.

AllergyEats.com - Locate or rate a restaurant based on its level of allergy-friendliness.

Interview with Paul Antico, Founder of AllergyEats.com

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Cookbook Revisions Update

The cookbook was recently edited to remove brown rice flour which has been shown to have high arsenic levels. For some strange, tremendously bizarre, make me crazy reason, the table on page 15 did not update.

And unfortunately, a few copies managed to slip through (which has totally freaked me out!! and that's putting it lightly!!!) before the error was found and corrected.

If you purchased the cookbook through Amazon during May 7, 2013 - May 20, 2013 and have one of these copies, please email me if you would like to receive a corrected edition. You can mail me the page from that edition and you'll receive the new edition.

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Celeste's Best Gluten-Free and Yeast-Free Bread Recipes

What's the One Thing People on a Gluten-Free Diet Want?

There's one thing almost everyone following a gluten-free diet craves -

BREAD!

Slices of Celeste's Best Multi-Grain, Gluten-Free, Yeast-Free Bread 

And truth be told, they really aren't craving gluten-free bread. Maybe I should rephrase that - they're craving real bread that doesn't taste like it's gluten-free.

Creating a Great Tasting Loaf of Gluten-Free Bread

Over the last eleven years of following a gluten-free diet, we tried nearly every gluten-free bread out there. Almost all the gluten-free bread we ate needed to be toasted first. Some bread looked and felt very little like wheat bread. I still remember the first time we bought a loaf

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Finding a Gluten-Free, Allergen-Free Snack for on the Go

Processed Foods and the Super Sensitive Celiac

Nowadays, it is almost impossible to find any sort of processed foods that are completely gluten-free and allergen-free as well as reaction-free for those of us who are easily glutenized. Often products are run on the same lines as a product along with a common allergen. Sometimes machines may be dusted with wheat flour to prevent foods such as chocolate from sticking.

Since we're finding that our family is becoming increasingly sensitive to gluten, most of the time there is no guarantee that we will be able to eat something safely. That's why we usually prepare our own food and take it with us when we can. Finding a healthy gluten-free snack to take on those days when you're on the go, or for those times when you find yourself without a safe place to eat can be challenging for those super sensitive to gluten.

Gluten-Free Snack Options

Snacks are a tough one in the Clevenger household. This wasn't always the case. We used to be able to eat many processed gluten-free snacks. Then over time, we found ourselves becoming more and more sensitive to gluten. Many others are finding this to be true for them also. Maybe it's because wheat is in so many things now.

So as far as snacks, we usually just stick with fresh fruit and vegetables (salads), and protein leftovers from dinner throughout the day and that is about as safe as you can get.

That's It Snack Bars

But fortunately, we came across these bars one day online

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Is a Product that is Labeled "Gluten-Free" Free of Gluten?

Every Manufacturer is Coming Out With A "Gluten-Free" Something or Other

Gluten-free is big right now. Big in that it is a money maker. Manufacturers know this. Manufacturers are in the business of making money and they know that when everyone is talking about "gluten-free", then it's time to start filling the shelves with gluten-free products.

Last year, the gluten-free market hit 4.2 billion dollars worth of revenue. That's a lot of moolah. And let me tell you - our family spent many a day sick by believing that manufacturers would always be telling the truth when they labeled their products "gluten free."

What Do the Words Gluten Free Really Mean? 

I'm writing this post for the "newbies" and "not-so-newbies" out there who are just getting started and may naively believe manufacturer's deceptive advertising. I remember a few years ago when more and more companies first started hopping on the gluten-free band wagon, we would be in the grocery store shopping and we'd stop dead in our tracks when we'd see those magic words:

We were so excited and happy! Finally they were making products for us, too - people who couldn't eat wheat, rye, barley or oats. Foods we could eat. All was wonderful!

Happy But Only Because We Were Gullible 

We were so gullible. So trusting. We were.

But the Clevenger family learned the hard way after several rounds of being glutenized

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Fruits and Vegetables Are Always Gluten-Free? Right? Maybe Not.

Fruits and Vegetables Are Always Gluten-Free? Right? Maybe Not.

Ten years ago when we first started following a gluten-free diet, if you had asked me were all fruits and vegetables free from gluten, I would have answered emphatically, “Of course!”

But are they really?

Gluten Cross-Contamination Issues

Yes, fruits and vegetables in a perfect world are inherently, naturally gluten-free. And I'm suggesting getting your freak on and worrying like a crazy person over every fruit and vegetable you eat now. But, if you’re following a gluten-free diet and still have symptoms, it could be possible that some of your fruits and vegetables have been cross-contaminated with gluten. How does that happen? Well, it depends on the farm and where and how they're grown.

Life on a Farm

I’m a farmer’s wife and so I have a first-hand view of some of the practices that take place on a farm. Now that we’re become even more highly sensitive to gluten, I’m much more aware of things and more careful about what I eat.

Small Organic Farms

I’ll start by saying I am the biggest proponent of growing organically. Take that one step further - I basically believe in building up your soil so you never have to spray a chemical on any field ever. But . . . and here’s the big but, small organic farms use some farming practices that a larger conventional farm might not.

1) Using Straw (usually produced from wheat or barley) in fields, between crop rows – organically is a great practice to cut down on weeds and build up the soil. From a celiac view point – can you hear me screaming over here? How much comes into contact, ever, with your food? Hard to say. Maybe none. Maybe who knows how much? Depends on the harvesting practices. 

This photo is a perfect illustration of how wheat straw can cross-contaminate strawberries. 

2) Straw used to cover crops to protect 

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Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Diet & Weight Loss

Following a Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Diet

My daughter is now 19. For the past several years, life as a teenager took precedent over following a completely gluten-free, dairy-free diet. She did stay gluten-free for the most part - she hated being sick or taking even the slightest chance she might throw up. She has a total fear of that. Thank goodness! But the milk part was another story. Even though we had her tested and she tested positive to an intolerance to milk, she continued to believe she could drink it.

"I'm fine, Mom. I'm fine. I can drink milk. It doesn't bother me. Really."

Can't even tell you how many times I heard that. I tried over and over again to try to make her see that maybe milk was really an issue. But many of you with teenagers may know once they get something into their heads - that's it. Done. It would have been easier to move a mountain, than get her to change her mind.

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Weight Loss

From the time Kelly was 16 or so, she began to put weight on - a little bit here and there. I suggested that going both gf and dairy-free could sometimes help with weight loss. That landed like a ton of bricks onto my daughter's deaf ears. Nope. She wanted no part of that.

"I'm fine, Mom. I'm fine. I can drink milk. It doesn't bother me. Really."

Almost A Year Following a Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free Diet

Well, since June of last year, Kelly has not had any gluten, dairy or corn. It's been the best thing for her both mentally and physically. Mentally, because she is a completely different person without these foods in her diet. Night and day. Really. When she ate those foods she could be meaner than mean and then some. I discuss it more in my blog post, Glad to Have "My Daughter" Back - How Gluten Affects the Mind.

Amazing Weight Loss!

And physically, there's no doubt removing these foods has really helped my daughter, too. Yesterday we finally found our scale. It's been packed up since the move. Kelly got on it and could not believe what she was seeing - she had lost an

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