May is Celiac Awareness Month

Posted on April 30, 2012 by

There are many events to celebrate 2012 Celiac Awareness Month. Many celiac/gluten free sites are participating in getting the word out about celiac disease. Here is a list of some of the places you can learn more about this:

  • What Health – Great article summarizing the goals of Celiac Awareness month along with a short list of events. The above graphic is from their site. Thank you!
  • National Foundation for Celiac Awareness – Central page for all of the events (in person and online), themed guest blogs from all of the “rock stars” of the gluten free/celiac community and more. They are the reason we have this month.
  • iamjtheblog – J has put together a very ambitious project called “Life with CD/GI/GS in Pictures”. Every day a guest blogger will submit a picture/collage describing their life with celiac disease/gluten intolerance/gluten sensitivity or from the point of view of someone who lives with them. Check it out daily and look for our contibution on May 11th!
  • East Bay Celiac – Has made a huge commitment to a daily posting of his life with Celiac Disease. As if that isn’t enough, he will also have guest posts from people living with GF folks AND he convinced some friends to live a week “as a celiac”. This is going to be good.
  • Gluten Intolerance Group (GIG) – Their Chef to Plate 2012 initiative highlights restaurants that raise gluten free awareness worldwide.
  • Twin Cities Celiac Walk – “Making Tracks for Celiacs” is a Walk/Run for Celiac Disease Research & Awareness being held in Minnesota on Saturday, May 19, 2012.
  • I have Celi-Ac what? is posting daily during Celiac Awareness Month. These are excellent and well written posts. Note: As of 5/19, these have moved to her new site, Glamorous Without Gluten.


    • Updated 5/2/2012 – courtesy of wtfCeliac in our comments.

  • The Happy Gluten Free Vegan is doing a month of gf recipes.
  • The Gluten Free RD is writing a post-a-day for all of Celiac Awareness Month.
  • Ken Scheer is doing a post-a-day as well.


    • As always, if you are new to having to eat gluten free, check our sidebar for the “New to Gluten Free?” list of resources.


    These are just the ones I could type up tonight. If your event isn’t on here, please post a comment below, send an email to gfc_steve@glutenfreecity.com or let me know on twitter. More will be added as the month goes on.

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Life In Pictures

Posted on May 11, 2012 by

We want to thank J from iamjtheblog for including our entry in her fantastic series “Life in Pictures“. As relative newcomers to the online Gluten Free community, it is a great thing to be able to participate in an event for Celiac Awareness Month.

If you have been reading this site for a while, you already know how much I like pizza. I mean, really like pizza. Pizza.

There are a lot of things about living gluten free that make you aware of the changes that you have made in your life. You become much more aware of what you eat. Once you realize that something as necessary as food can hurt you, it’s a whole new ballgame. You pay an incredible amount of attention to it. This doesn’t make the lifestyle change any easier. There is a “mourning period” that you go through for your old life. There are so many things you need to relearn how to do when you stop eating gluten.

Personally, for the first seven months, I lived on as many “gluten free analogues” as possible. Those are the donuts and cakes and bread and cereal that has all the same bad sugar and chemicals as “normal” food, but without gluten. I didn’t lose weight, but my pain and neuro symptoms went away. Kim finally convinced me to eat healthier and now my intake of any processed food is extremely low. I have also lost weight and feel even better.

The one thing that was always my food weakness is pizza. And it still is. I will go to great lengths to find and consume GF Pizza. I have risked certain cross-contamination and the crappiest rice cracker crusts just to fulfill the desire to eat pizza. Looking back on this past year, I am somewhat taken aback by some of the places I have eaten at, just to get my pizza fix. There were some great pies, too. Made in separate kitchens with nary a hint of wheat flour. Golden, bubbly cheese atop a symptom free crust. It wasn’t a “Mamma Mia Pizzeria” special from when I was 15 or a greasy, wonderful slice from Rocco’s in Manhattan, but it did the job. Got me through another gluten free day.

Now, I like to think I am a smart guy, but I recognize that I have a weakness. I won’t eat gluten on purpose, but the previous paragraph highlights why I got so bent out of shape about the Domino’s Gluten Free (BUT NOT FOR CELIACS OR THE GLUTEN SENSITIVE) Pizza. I know the temptation. I know how to squint so hard that the dislaimer says “EAT THIS RIGHT NOW!” I won’t be trying the Domino’s pizza and, if you have any gluten issues, you should avoid it as well. The one other thing that we learn along with “food can hurt” is that “food can heal”. There is no universe where Domino’s Pizza is a healthy food.

But I understand if you are tempted.

Here is the picture that was submitted for “Life in Pictures” at iamjtheblog. Below, I have listed the sources.

From left to right, from the top:
Row 1: Chebe Pizza Mix (Homemade), Gentile’s Pasta & Pizza Cafe (Syracuse, NY), Against the Grain (Frozen)
Row 2: Keste (New York City), 575 Pizzeria (Amarillo, TX), Chebe Pizza Mix (Homemade-I have made a lot of these!)
Row 3: Mellow Mushroom (Tampa, FL), Conte’s Mushroom Florentine (Frozen), Pala (New York City)
Row 4: Against the Grain (Frozen)
Row 5: Chebe Pizza Mix (Homemade) with New Planet Gluten Free Beer, Chebe, Chebe, Great Northern Pizza (Syracuse, NY)

This is about half of the pizzas I consumed last year. A third thing you learn when you can’t eat gluten is that “one must take pictures of food for the blog.”

I’d love to hear what you think about this and if you are willing to share your “crutch food” that got you through transitioning to a gluten free diet.

Thanks for reading!

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A Tale of Two Pizzas

Posted on May 8, 2012 by

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. — Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Okay, maybe things aren’t quite as dramatic as that, but the dual announcements of Gluten Free Pizza over the weekend by Domino’s Pizza and Chuck E. Cheese could not have been more different. One heralded inclusion and safety while the other caution and dashed hopes. Surprisingly, to me at least, the restaurant chain that made the right move was Chuck E. Cheese. Take a look at the videos from each restaurant and see the direction they are heading.

Chuck E. Cheese addresses two very important issues for it’s customers right away, those of food safety and inclusion. Being a diet-restricted kid, especially due to Celiac Disease, is not always easy. Adding the stress of bringing your own food or forgoing the meal altogether is an extra burden for the kid and their parents. By stating that they can offer a gluten free pizza and dessert, they allow the child to stop worrying about food and enjoy a party with their friends. The parents can be assured that the food is prepared safely and free of cross-contamination. They give the parent a wrapped disposable cutter and let them open the bag with the pizza. That is a lot of piece of mind.

The other thing that they are doing is rolling out the program slowly. This is something that they obviously don’t want to screw up. The memory of the attempt that California Pizza Kitchen made into the GF Pizza market was likely on their minds. They also partnered with well known gluten free food companies to produce the pizza (Conte’s Pasta) and dessert (Fabe’s All-Natural Bakery). These are made in gluten free facilities and show the depth of Chuck E. Cheese’s committment to their customers. If you are interested in learning more about what goes into a GF Certified facility, check out this article from Kinnikinnick Foods.

Will their GF pizza taste as good as their normal pizza? Like Domino’s, they rolled out a new recipe recently. Chuck E. Cheese’s motto is “Where a kid can be a kid” and simply needs a passable pizza for the parties.

There’s only four things we (Americans) do better than anyone else:

  • music
  • movies
  • microcode (software)
  • high-speed pizza delivery

– Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash

Domino’s, on the other hand, is “The World Leader in Pizza Delivery“. They have a different market than Chuck E. Cheese. You can tell from the tone of their pitch for their gluten free pizza. It is hip, edgy and, most importantly, makes fun of the fact that they need a disclaimer about who should eat this product. It is treated as a buzzkill that they even have to bring us all down with a mention of some icky disease. If you didn’t catch that, please go back and watch it again. Like the other video, Domino’s shows their pizza being prepared. Unlike the other video, they seem to brag about their lack of cross contamination prevention procedures. They can’t change gloves or buy another pizza cutter?

One thing Domino’s did do was hire the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness to approve this product. The NFCA gave them an entire set of pages on their site devoted to explaining why a “Gluten Free” product was not okay for Celiacs. They also used the term “cross-contact” instead of “cross contamination”. They have also spent a lot of time and effort reaching out to gluten free and celiac bloggers to get the word out. They even engaged in some interesting backpedaling when someone said that the NFCA “certified” Dominos. The response from NFCA was that they “consulted”. They also awarded them a GREAT Kitchen designation, but that isn’t a certification…

Exchanges like the one below happened at several different times over the past day and I really don’t understand the NFCA response.

If it wasn’t feasible, why did they go along with it? Despite the disclaimers, celiacs and gluten sensitive people will eat this pizza and, given that they aren’t even using ANY separate equipment/utensils, some people will get hurt by this. Their own website says that 95% of celiacs are undiagnosed and that a 100% gluten-free diet is the only existing treatment for celiac today.

Why did they go along with this? I don’t know. I haven’t researched the funding behind this transaction or the organization as a whole. I don’t know if there was any dissenting voices among the NFCA. I am hoping to read more about this in the coming weeks. This post by Amy Leger at Savvy Celiac documents her discussion with the founder of the NFCA and sheds some light on things, but I think there is more to be learned.

Domino’s has used twitter to reach out to many of the well-known gluten free celebrities. Since there is much consternation in the GF/Celiac community about the dedication of these folks to a gluten free diet that is, well, gluten free, this also hit a lot of people the wrong way. Here are some of the tweets issued by @dominos yesterday to tennis players Murray and Djokovic, Miley Cyrus, Juliette Lewis and Gwynyth Paltrow:

But today, they returned to their usual job. Saying “Sorry” for messed up orders.

Oh yeah, Gluten Sensitive folks, you will be just fine. Domino’s cares.

One more quote:

Remember the basic rules #glutenfree folks. Glutenfree pizza crust+shared lines+shared utensils/sauce/toppings+shared oven. Safe for #gf? NO — Shirley Braden, @shirleygfe (Gluten Free Easily)

There have been several very well written blogs about this topic already and not all of them have the same view that I do. In case you want to read more, I would recommend the following posts:

SpinningSpoons – Why Gluten Free Pizza and Dominos Does Nothing For Me
Savvy Celiac – Domino’s Gluten Free Pizza, Who is it for?
GlutenDude – Domino’s Goes Gluten Free. Or Do They?
Breaking Up With Captain Crunch – Domino’s Is Trying to Kill Me (Again)*
East Bay Celiac – A Day In The Life of a Celiac Day 7
Food Allergy and Intolerance Ink – Sort of gluten free pizza (Thanks for the tip, GlutenFreeMrsD!

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Origin Stories

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

In comic book terminology, an origin story is an account or back-story revealing how a character or team gained their superpowers and/or the circumstances under which they became superheroes or supervillains.*

In the comic books, these moments of transformation are always very pronounced; weakling to Spiderman, scientist to Hulk, etc. In all of these stories, the moments shortly before and after these changes are incredibly interesting. The own reaction to their situation, along with those of friends and family, plays out page by page. Their old life is gone. They will never go back to being ordinary. Eventually, the hero gets themselves together and makes the most of it.

Okay, it isn’t always that clean and clear, and, frankly, the best stories are the ones with massive conflict, life and death decisions and some pain. Somehow, though, our caped crusader makes it to the end of the book or movie. Maybe a little worse for wear, maybe with more questions than answers, but ready to start fighting again tomorrow.

Those people who have celiac disease might not wear capes and tights (or they might, I won’t judge) and the only superpower they may have is detecting the most minute amount of gluten. But they have experienced that same moment of realizing their “old life” is gone. Whether it was a specific diagnosis of celiac disease or the realization that they were gluten intolerant/sensitive, their lives changed. Their movie trailer voiceover would begin “IN A WORLD WITHOUT GLUTEN…”

As part of Celiac Awareness Month, we want to link to several celiac/gluten sensitive “origin stories”. Just like the superheroes in the comics, the stories aren’t perfect and tied up in a bow at the end. Until there is a cure, they can’t go back. There are complications, lessons learned and drama. These are some of the online heroes and heroines that helped me deal with my own transition to being gluten free and we hope that their stories will ultimately educate and inspire you.

There are so many of these out there. I know more will be posted specifically for Celiac Awareness Month. I will add more as I find them or you let me know about them. Please post a comment below, send an email to gfc_steve@glutenfreecity.com or let me know on twitter.


*Quote from wikipedia

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New to Gluten Free Update

Posted on April 20, 2012 by

We just added a link to our New to Gluten Free post.

Eating Gluten Free on a Budget — Jessica of wtf!Celiac has put together a great list of tips for eating well (and gluten free) without breaking the bank. Her point about eating gluten free for all meals if you have celiac/gluten sensitivity cannot be stressed enough.

This is really a must read post covering:

Being gluten free for life
Foods that are naturally gluten free
and a whole bunch of cheap and easy gluten free meals and snacks

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Another Gluten Free Kickstarter Project

Posted on April 18, 2012 by

We recently decided to support a Kickstarter project by Simone Shifnadel of Zenbelly Catering. Zenbelly Kitchen will be a shared gluten-free kitchen in San Francisco.

From their Kickstarter site:

The funds raised will go towards:

  • Purchase equipment for production, including prep tables, ovens, refrigeration, and storage
  • Obtain a Gluten-Free certification
  • Purchase initial supplies and ingredients

Zenbelly Kitchen will provide:

  • A workspace for gluten-free bakers and chefs.
  • A workspace for anyone with a naturally gluten-free product (jams, chocolate, raw foods, juice, etc)
  • An organic gluten-free catering company, safe for celiacs, worry free for those with gluten intolerance, and amazingly delicious for everyone.
  • A Paleo food to go & meal delivery service, serving local pasture raised meats from Fallon Hills Ranch and organic seasonal vegetable dishes sourced from local farms.
  • A neighborhood coffee shop, serving grain free and gluten free baked goods, and locally made artisan creations.
  • A place of education, offering assistance to those who are transitioning to a gluten free lifestyle.

While we are in the Bay Area, we are a bit far from SF, so we won’t be able to take advantage of this place very often. We still felt it was important to support this plan. There is a lot of “bootstrapping” going on in the Gluten Free Community. There are so many new small GF businesses starting lately. Software startups have huge support networks all over the country. This appears to be the same kind of support for new GF companies.

We weren’t able to give a lot, but every little bit will help them. Even if you aren’t in SF, please consider their proposal and give what you can.

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This is a good looking pizza

Posted on April 10, 2012 by

The gluten free pizza mentioned (From http://www.breakingupwithcaptaincrunch.blogspot.com)

As frequent readers of this site know (yes, all six of you!), I love me some pizza. I have had mixed results from several gluten free pizza mixes and my last attempt did everything but explode. This review of a pizza made with Bob’s Red Mill GF Pizza Crust Mix from Alissa at “Breaking Up with Captain Crunch” has made me want to give it another shot.

I will go grab a bag this weekend and go once again unto the cheese filled breach.

Thanks for the inspiration and, quite probably, the best name for a gluten free blog!

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Let’s Dish (Gluten Free)

Posted on April 8, 2012 by

Let’s Dish is a cooking show on the Live Well Network, a “lifestyle” channel. It is only available in about 60% of the U.S., but most of the shows appear to be on the website. Some good stuff there.

This episode, Gluten Free Recipes, has four segments. The embedded episode above is the full show.

Here are links to the individual segments and recipes.

Segment 1
Gluten-Free Mushroom Crepe Tortes

Segment 2
Gluten-Free Asian Noodle Salad with Sauteed Shrimp

UPDATE: In the video, he simply says “Soy Sauce” and, as you might already know, Soy Sauce is made with gluten. The recipe on the page, however, indicated that a gluten-free soy sauce should be used. Sorry I didn’t notice that sooner.

Segment 3
Gluten-Free Chicken Tortilla Soup

Segment 4
Gluten-Free Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Can’t wait to try out the Mushroom Crepe Torte. That just looks tasty!

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I’m a Travelin’ Man (Gluten Free Remix)

Posted on March 31, 2012 by

Ricky Nelson fans, please forgive me for that title.

I have been going through a bit of a bad luck patch regarding eating in restaurants that aren’t 100% gluten free. This is very problematic when I travel. Recently, Kim and I decided to experiment with me not eating out during a two day cross country trip. Basically, I would need lunch, dinner and snacks for day one and all meals/snacks for day two. Now, technically, I have done this before, but I basically ate food in bar form (larabars, kind bars, pure bars, etc.) for two days. You survive, but two days of fruit and nuts when you aren’t hiking really isn’t that great.

5.8 cups of grass fed beef and rice

5.8 cups of grass fed beef and jasmine rice

We decided to go with a beef and rice dish along with a course of sweet potatoes and chicken breast. These would be divided up as my five meals and for snacks, I took peeled hard boiled eggs and carrots. Kim got these great 5.8 Cup Sterilite containers and 2 Cup Ziploc Twist N Loc containersfor the meals. The Sterilite containers are the ones in the pictures with the orange trim, the Ziploc have blue lids. They stayed cold, microwaved well and didn’t leak at all, regardless of how my bag got thrown around.

Travel food: beef, rice, chicken, sweet potatoes, eggs, carrots

In case you haven’t noticed by now, I am not a vegetarian. Do I like eating animals? No, not really, but this works for me. If you can deal with eating meat, this is a great way to get good meals without running the risk of getting glutened. If you are going to eat meat, do get the healthiest available. For us, that is 100% organic grass fed beef and 100% organic chicken, both from Trader Joe’s. Most major supermarkets now carry grass-fed beef and some will special order it for you. Since we are carrying something that we plan on eating a day (or three) after we leave the house, preparations need to be made to ensure that your food makes it all the way through your trip. The bag you choose is important.

REI Medium Lunch Cooler

We went with a Lunch Cooler from REI. REI sells outdoor and camping gear, so we figured it would be durable and effective while travelling all day. The containers fit perfectly, and got two of Sterilites, two of the Ziplocs and some ice. Speaking of ice. We refrigerated the items the night before I left. Placed the two large containers in, then a “sheet” of ice cubes. We used the Rubbermaid Blue Ice Blanket that we also picked up at REI. You have to balance how much you spend on these versus something like a reusable “Blue Ice” block. If you are flying and want to carry on the food, the TSA will not let any of the blue ice products through. Well, they say that if it is frozen solid, you will be okay, but I have about three hours between leaving home and getting to the airport, and my ice products are never solid by the time I get there. If have gotten ice packs through before, I would love to hear about it.

Our cat acted as the foreman on this project. Here he is checking the fit of the first container.

Now I was through security, but iceless. As I said, I was already three hours from home. I ate a hard boiled egg and some carrots. This opened up enough room to move the remaining egg to the carrot Ziploc and fill with ice. Most coffee places are fine with giving you a cup of ice. I always buy a coffee anyway, so asking for an extra cup isn’t a big deal. The one time I couldn’t get any extra ice, I ordered an iced coffee and put the ice (when I was done) into the Ziploc container. Once on the plane, there is never a problem getting ice. The cooler I used had side pockets for plastic utensils. I grabbed mine in airport, but you can also get them on the plane. The beef and rice dish is tasty cold, so about halfway through the flight, I had some of that. I polished off the carrots and replenished the ice. Next stop was the hotel.

Packed with ice and ready to close

Not all hotels have microwaves and refridgerators in rooms. It pays to call ahead. Since I started doing this, I have been able to ensure at least a microwave. Hotels will have ice machines, so, while not ideal, it will work.

This is certainly not the easiest way to travel, but if you plan ahead, you can guarantee a “gluten free” (and “bar-free”) trip. No suspect salads, no trying to explain your dietary needs while 20 hungry travelers impatiently stand behind you. Doing this has allowed me to have a lot less stress while on the road. Sure, the rental car often smells funny and the TSA guy is always too “handsy”, but not having to worry about eating is bliss.

Note: There are links in this post to Amazon.com and REI.com. The Amazon links are affiliate links (which means I get a small percentage when you buy the linked item), the REI ones are not. I am trying this out to see if there is anything to this. I will do my best to disclose when I do this in the future.

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C Casa – Oxbow Public Market – Napa, CA Review

Posted on February 20, 2012 by

C Casa calls itself “An Innovative Kitchen” and Kim and I agree. It is rare to find a restaurant that is not only totally gluten free, but has grass fed meat (like buffalo!). Heck, it is hard enough to find grass fed meat locally as it is! They also offer vegan options on most of their dishes.

Located in the Oxbow Public Market in Napa, CA, C Casa is one of several artisanal food, wine and gift merchants in this charming market. After making a quick tour of the place, we discovered that we arrived during a welcome breakfast/lunch time overlap. Yes, if you arrive between 11 and 11:30, you can decide between breakfast or lunch. I had C CASA BREAKFAST (2 eggs cooked your way, served with roasted fingerling and new potatoes, and 2 fresh white corn tortillas with the grilled buffalo patty) and it was really, really good. I have never had buffalo and it was very tasty (and peppery). Kim had two tacos, the C CASA CHICKEN with cotija cheese, avocado, pico de gallo, chopped romaine, garlic aioli, cilantro & chipotle aioli and the AVOCADO with corn relish, poblanos, green onions, mixed greens & avocado crema. She liked them. We also liked the gluten free brownie.

We liked their food so much, that we ordered a WHOLE CHILE CRUSTED CHICKEN to take home for dinner. We also got a couple of more buffalo patties. The chicken was awesome. I would have taken a picture, but it kind of disappeared pretty quickly. The buffalo was great with breakfast the next morning.

There is so much dread that accompanies eating out when you have to absolutely avoid gluten. It was such a joy to be able to go somewhere and have someone else cook without worry. We drove about an hour to get there and it was worth every minute. On our next trip, we will try to go on a day that has their farmer’s market. We will also be trying Pica Pica Maize Kitchen, which is a 100% wheat and gluten free kitchen.

And we would be remiss if we didn’t give a huge thank you to Laura (@gf_traveller) from Gluten Free Traveller. She responded to my plea on twitter for a “clean” (GF only) restaurant in the San Francisco Bay Area with a few suggestions, including C Casa. Thanks again, Laura. We really appreciated the tip.

Other reviews of C Casa and the Oxbow Public Market:

C Casa, An Innovative Kitchen — Karen in Real Life has a great review that mentions the buffalo and, frankly, has way better pictures than I took. Check out her site for reviews of the other restaurants at the Oxbow Public Market.

Gluten Free Napa, California — Gluten Free Travellers review of the Oxbow Public Market.

Vegan Napa — Thriving Vegan reviews a visit to Oxbow Public Market.

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