Five Gluten Free Foods to Eat When You Get the Munchies



Snacking is something we all do and it isn't unhealthy unless you choose unhealthy foods. It can be a great way to keep your energy going all day long. My recommendation is to snack on healthy foods through the day every 2 to 3 hours. I notice when I don't do this, I usually become very tired at some point in the afternoon and hungry. I also don't seem to bounce back as well from work-outs.

  

One. Edamame

 

This is the real powerhouse. It's a great, healthy and yummy snack for on the go or at home. My daughter loves these and so do I.

Edamame, or soy beans, have 8 grams of protein, only 90 calories, 10 % of daily iron requirement, and 3 grams of fiber. This is a must have for the pantry of every gluten free home. The Cruncha Ma Me brand below is freeze dried which gives them a fresher taste than soy nuts.

 

 

 



Two. Snapea Crisps

 

Snapea Crisps are a great tasty snack plain or with hummus or salsa. They have 4 grams of protein per serving, 7% your daily iron requirement, 3 grams of fiber, and only 80 milligrams of sodium (3% daily limit). They have 6 grams of fat, which is much less than many snack foods - chocolate, potato chips, cookies, etc.

 

3. Beanitos

 

Beanitos are a creative way to get some healthy beans and protein into your diet. There are a few different styles, and they literally are beans turned into a chip. The Black Bean and Better Cheddar ones has 4 grams of protein per serving and 5 grams of fiber.

Four.  Peanut Butter and Fruit

Now if you're like me, this is a favored go-to snack. Peanut butter with a piece of fruit like a banana, apple, or pear. If you eat dairy, mozzarella cheese can be a great addition. One thing to watch for is the trans fats, or hydrogenated/partially hydrogenated oils, that may be lurking in your peanut butter. Trans fats can be in foods labeled on the front as having "0 Grams of Trans Fats," because the USDA decided if they had .5 grams of it, they could round down.

You may be thinking, "Who cares? It's just a small amount." Well, first of all if you eat out a lot or eat a lot of processed foods, you may be consuming a lot overall. Plus, even small amounts, over a long period of time could lead to diabetes, weight gain, heart disease, stroke, and many other diseases. There is no safe level of artificial trans fat consumption, according to New York City, who put a ban on trans fats out in restaurants. Trans fats are not found in nature and are instead made in a factory to make prevent the fats from spoiling and to cause them to hold together more. Think Crisco. Yuck!

 

Five. Kind Bars

 

The Kind Bars gluten and dairy free Almond, Walnut, Macadamia With Peanuts and Protein bar is the best gluten free power bar I've found.

 

It does have 7 grams of honey, but if you're not trying to cut out all sugar it's a great source of protein that goes down easily and will help you recover after a workout if you eat a little before and after your workout. It's a little pricey, but Vitacost.com has them at discount. 

How To Tell if Your Baby Has a Food Allergy

 

My Beautiful Baby Claire at 8 Months Old

Babies can't talk so they can't tell you why they're irritable or whether they have a stomach ache, so how can you tell if he or she has a food allergy?

First of all, it's critical that you introduce new foods to your baby one at a time, especially if there is a history of environmental or food allergies in your family. Beware especially of the following.










TOP EIGHT Food Allergies:

Milk

Egg

Peanuts

Tree nuts (such as walnuts or almonds)

Fish

Shellfish

Soy

Wheat

So how do you know if your child has reacted to something? Reactions vary from mild to severe, but all reactions should be taken seriously because you can't immediately tell what's happening internally. When you introduce a new food, wait three days to see if there are any reactions, then add a new food. Once a food is determined safe, you can keep it in the child's diet.

SEVEN Signs of a Food Allergy:

Hives or welts

Flushed skin or rash

Face, tongue, or lip swelling

Vomiting and/or diarrhea

Coughing or wheezing

Difficulty breathing

Loss of consciousness

I'd planned originally to keep my daughter off the EIGHT most common food allergens until she turned three, but that didn't end up happening. Her daycare gave her oats since that's a typical, "safe" first food. When I went in to see her in the afternoon, I asked her caregivers if she had fallen because her face was bright red and blotchy, just like mine gets thirty to sixty minutes after eating barley, oats, or rye.

They at first thought it was dry skin from her drool, but I doubted it since that had never happened before.

The redness grew worse over the afternoon. Here's how she looked later that day when we came home:

 Claire (8 Months Old) with a Reaction to Oats

 

So, I took her off oats, rye, barley, and wheat and the rash cleared up. I'll try it all again when she's three, when she can say, "Tummy ache."

 

I ended up trying most of the other common food allergens, nuts, eggs, milk, and soy, and at first she reacted to eggs (developed hives) and carrots seemed to cause a diaper rash. But, I reintroduced both and as far as I can tell, she seems fine with them now. I still haven't tried shellfish since my husband is allergic to crabs and we rarely eat shellfish. I've offered her fish, but she hardly ate any of it.

 

 

Do you have a child with food allergies? Please share your story in the comment section below.

Five Reasons NOT to Offer Sympathy for A Gluten Free Guest

Do you ever go to a dinner party at the house of a family or friend who has known that you’re on the GF diet for years and when there’s a dish you can’t eat the host says, as though he/she just remembered, “Oh, sorry – you can’t eat this!” Then they offer you sympathy, which only makes you feel worse.

This has happened to me a number of times. From my own experience, I believe sympathy for a person on a special diet should be downplayed or, better yet, omitted. They don’t need it, for one thing, but also it is annoying and even more annoying when the host should have remembered that they could have made the dish gluten free. 

 Five Reasons to Drop the Sympathy for a Gluten Free Guest

1.       There are ways to make almost every dish gluten free, so although they may miss out on a certain dish at that meal, they can make it themselves later.

2.       They may feel like you could have made the dinner gluten free so that they could eat every dish if you’d tried.

3.       They probably already feel upset about not being able to eat everything. Offering sympathy will remind them of what they are missing, like opening an old wound.

4.       They might be tempted to ‘cheat’ to make you feel less bad about forgetting.

5.       They may feel embarrassed talking about their dietary restrictions if there are other guests.

Have any of you experienced an amount of sympathy over your GF diet that you're uncomfortable with? Please leave comments below.

How to Host a Gluten Free Guest for the Holidays

For the Celiac or Gluten-Sensitive Individual

Going to a relative’s house can be nerve-racking when you must adhere to a gluten free diet. One thing I have learned over the last decade is it’s critical to communicate your dietary needs ahead of time. It’s common to feel embarrassed or worry about hurting people’s feelings, but the situation will be worse if you wait until the meal is being prepared to check and read labels. Don’t show up at a person’s house and then tell them, especially if you’re an overnight guest. Be clear about your level of sensitivity (Ex: Is cross contamination an issue?) and give them some example meals or let them know what you will do to help when you arrive to make things easier.

For the Host/Hostess

For those of you fixing a meal for an individual following a gluten free diet, I recommend checking for easy substitutes for your planned dishes. You can buy gluten free bread for stuffing, GF flour for gravy, and rice flour and xanthum gum as a substitute for regular flour in pies.

It’s easier than you may think to cook and bake gluten free foods, however it does require extra research and planning. I suggest keeping it simple. If you’re preparing a typical holiday meal with a Turkey you’ll need:

• A basic GF flour mix for the gravy (Bob’s Red Mill GF All Purpose Flour works well and has complex carbohydrates.)
• A GF bread mix or prepared GF bread for the stuffing and for the table
• A GF dessert

If you live out in the country where there is a limited gluten free section in the supermarket, you can order flours and mixes online. Vitacost is a great, discount company that I use regularly (www.Vitacost.com). It’s easy to navigate and simple to find a variety of products.

Keep in mind that it’s okay to have regular, gluten-based dishes. It will be cheaper and will most likely be preferred by those not on a GF diet. Your GF guest will understand, although she will feel hurt if there is dessert, stuffing, or gravy for everyone else, but not them (depending on dietary or culinary preferences). If time is not on your side in your preparations, ask the GF person to bring a few dishes of their own that you can’t get to or to help with the preparations in another way.
 

Hosting an Overnight GF Guest

One thing to remember is that although many GF people still can eat all the foods that are naturally gluten free, they still DO need complex carbohydrates. Just leaving out the bread and flour means that person is missing out on almost an entire food group! Make sure each meal has one of the whole grains listed in my post “Whole Grains and The Gluten Free Diet.”


You can order a GF starter kit at Bob’s Red Mill here to keep on hand in case you realize last minute you don’t have as much GF food as you’d thought:

http://www.bobsredmill.com/product.php?productid=1110&cat=15&page=2

A Sample Menu for an Overnight GF Guest:

Breakfast: Bob Red Mill’s Might Tasty GF Hot Cereal and Milk or Milk Substitute and Fruit

Lunch:  Spaghetti with a brown rice pasta (Tinkyada brand) or quinoa pasta (Ancient Harvest brand)

Dinner:  A Main Dish, Vegetables, and Brown Rice or GF Whole Grain Bread

Things to Be Aware Of

If someone is bothering to adhere to a GF diet, small amounts of flour in the mixes and sauces that you normally use is most likely an issue. Ask the GF person to be sure. Also, don’t add potential gluten containing items to a dish, such as croutons to a salad, and please don’t advise the GF guest just to eat around them. Most GF people cannot do that without consequences, or, at the very least, it will make them nervous.

Unless you check and it’s okay, don’t use a cutting board for bread and then chop up something for the GF person. Also, don’t share toasters, cookie trays, pots, or pans without cleaning them out thoroughly if that’s possible. Many GF breads aren’t as good without a toasting, but the oven can be used for that. 
 

Do You Travel For Work?

Starving at an All You Can Eat Buffet


I wrote the exerpt below last summer, during my final trip for a job I loved but decided to leave to be home with my daughter:

Not many people in this country know what it's like to surrounded by food but STARVING. Maybe a missed meal here or there. Well, living gluten and dairy free, and needing to travel for work, has meant I'm forced to go for periods of time underfed, all while being offered pounds and pounds of free pastries, bagels, muffins, cookies, you name it. I usually lose 5 pounds every time I travel overnight for work. This may sound great, but not when I don't want to lose weight, like right now. I'm still nursing my hungry toddler so my calorie demands are high. I'm at a 6 day long conference, it's only day 2 and I'm already starving. The only whole grain I had yesterday was a bowl of cereal in the morning - sorghum and flax. I had a salad for lunch, and chicken and corn for dinner. Is corn a whole grain?

I realized yesterday I didn't pack enough food. There's always a balance. I want just the right amount so I don't have to bring any home. But since I don't have enough, I'm trying, struggling to ration my cereal, almond and soy milk, and protein bars. I almost started to cry today, waiting for lunch. I was so hungry, and then, when it came, I knew it wouldn't fill me up at all. It was just GF noodles and tomato sauce. Going without dairy is the hardest thing. I'm about to throw in the towel, but it's a lose-lose situation. Either I follow my diet and I'm hungry, or I cheat and eat dairy and feel better for a few hours, only to suffer a crippling stomach ache later. My only consolation is that I probably could afford to lose the few pounds I'd gained while pregnant. I'm wearing black, but for some reason they make me look huge. Yet, I'd prefer not to lose weight because I'm trying to increase my muscle mass instead.

Before I cut out gluten and dairy, it wasn't easy for me to maintain my weight, but I could do it by eating a lot of salads. Now, it's almost too easy.

Millet Article

http://www.registercitizen.com/general-news/20131122/give-quinoa-a-break-and-try-this-whole-grain

How to Cook Brown Rice

A rice cooker is essential to the gluten free diet. It's quick and easy to put some rice, quinoa, millet, amaranth or other grain in the cooker, add the appropriate amount of water, some salt, and oil and walk away until you're ready to eat. It automatically turns to "warm" and I've never burned anything in one before. You don't have to stir the grain during the cooking process and it's faster than cooking on the stove.

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite way to eat rice is a mix of basmati, long grain, short grain, and wild rice. You can often buy it in bulk at Costco. I cook it just like brown rice with 2 - 2.5 times the amount of water. Then I add about a teaspoon of oil per cup of rice and half a teaspoon of salt.

 

It goes great in omelets, stir fry, or just plain with some soy sauce or extra salt.