Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a great GLUTEN FREE Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Here is a list of a ton of Thanksgiving related GF articles & blog posts.

This ought to keep you busy for a while!

1. Previous Gluten Free Raleigh posts
   
2. http://celiacdisease.about.com/b/2008/11/22/35-gluten-free-thanksgiving-recipes.htm
3. http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/desserts/a/PieCrusts.htm?r=9F
4. http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/desserts/a/PumpkinPies.htm?r=9F
5. http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/faqs/f/TurkeyStuffing.htm?r=9F
6. http://www.befreeforme.com/blog/?p=154
7. http://www.befreeforme.com/blog/?p=145
8. http://celiac-disease.com/gluten-free-pumpkin-tarlets-recipe/
9. http://celiac-disease.com/gluten-free-sausage-apple-stuffing-recipe/
10. http://celiac-disease.com/tips-for-a-gluten-free-thanksgiving/
11. http://www.celiac.com/articles/21705/1/Favorite-Fall-Stuffing-Gluten-Free/Page1.html
12. http://www.celiac.com/articles/21690/1/Gluten-Free-Thanksgiving-Planner/Page1.html
13. http://www.celiac.com/articles/21672/1/Tips-for-a-Gluten-Free-Thanksgiving-and-Safe-Holiday-Season/Page1.html
14. http://glutenfreeda.blogspot.com/2008/11/two-perfect-turkeys.html
15. http://glutenfreeda.blogspot.com/2008/11/thanksgiving-dinner-game-plan.html
16. http://surefoodsliving.com/2008/11/24/a-gluten-free-and-dairy-free-thanksgiving/
17. http://thesavvyceliac.com/2008/11/05/thanksgiving-coming-heres-a-gluten-free-stuffing-idea/
18. http://thesavvyceliac.com/2008/11/05/get-ready-for-your-gluten-free-thanksgiving/

In Case You Missed It: 11/20/08 Support Group Meeting Recap

Here is the agenda from last week's North Raleigh Celiac Support Group meeting held 11-20-2008, used with permission by Pat Berger. See my previous posts about the Support Group here.

Agenda

1. Rosie's Plate Special Tour, December 3rd. Open to our group and our Cel-Kids group. 15 spots available. RSVPs by Tuesday, Nov. 25th. Contact Pat Berger to RSVP.

2. Gluten-Free Guides Review

(a) The Essential Gluten-Free Guide, from Triumph Dining

(b) The Ultimate Guide to Gluten-Free Living, from Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University

(c) The CSA Gluten-Free Product Listing, from Celiac Sprue Association

3. Printed Material: Questionable Ingredients; information from October Meeting

4. Celiac Poem, (by Diane Craig), Lifeline, Vol.III, 2008

5. "The Usual..."

6. Michelle and Lori Corso, Twins Kitchen

7. Next meeting, December 18th, Cookie Exchange

If you missed the appearance by Twins Kitchen you should just go ahead and kick yourself now.

Useful Resources: Easy Eats GF Magazine

Thanks to the Triumph Dining Blog, I discovered a new GF Magazine. This one, called Easy Eats - The Magazine for Gluten Free Living, is actually free!

Check out their Web site here to subscribe and learn more. They apparently plan to feature a different city in each issue of the quarterly magazine. Let's hope they can feature Raleigh!

Useful Resources: Triumph Dining's Gluten Free Grocery Guide

I recently received a copy of the latest Triumph Dining The Essential Gluten Free Grocery Guide for my review from Ross Cohen, the President of Triumph Dining. I had seen their 1st edition and was already considering purchasing the 2nd edition when it became available.

Triumph Dining was founded in 2005 by Mr. Cohen and originally published GF Dining Cards (translated to 10 languages) for people to take to restaurants to help get a GF meal. In just 3 years time, Triumph has blossomed into a full fledged publishing company and added publications like The Essential Gluten-Free Restaurant Guide (updated annually) and The Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Guide (also updated annually). In that time frame, the company has sold over 40,000 copies of their products. They also offer a newsletter available via email and also write information on a Blog.

The Grocery Guide
The 2nd Edition Grocery Guide is a 230+ page book which features nearly twice as many Gluten Free products as the 1st Edition. The guide has 30,000 products covered and includes over 1,000 brand name products. The Guide is smaller than the size of a sheet of paper and can easily be taken along with you to the grocery store. We all know that navigating a typical grocery store (usually has over 40,000) products can be a daunting task. My first trip after going Gluten Free cost me about 3 hours. The experience is better now but a guide can be very helpful. Personally, I use the guide to make notes on the grocery list (before I leave the house) about which brands I should look out for while shopping. Like if bacon is on the list, I would make a small note beside that item on my list for Oscar Meyer.

The Guide starts out with a Easy Reference Table of Contents which clearly shows which page in the guide has more information about the particular type of product you are looking to buy. Looking for Sour Cream, check out page 37... Taco Shells - page 110. You get the idea. You can then just flip to that page and find more details about the brands that make the GF product you are looking for.

Some products in the details section have little symbols beside them. The symbols let you know if the product is made in a facility with GF lines, equipment, environment of facilities or if testing is done to determine the level of gluten. There are also symbols to let you know if Cross-Contamination is a possible issue. Some products are also more closely reviewed by Triumph staff to determine the gluten content of the ingredients.

Next comes an eight-page section with general tips for grocery shopping, an overview of Food Labeling Laws and a helpful reminder about the limitations of the guide (always read the label before you put the product in your cart).

The last section is the meat of the guide which features over 200 pages of detailed information about GF products. The categories are as follows: Dairy & Eggs, Beverages, Baking Aisle, Canned & Pre-packaged goods, Packaged Sides, Meals & Meal Helpers, Condiments, Sauces & Dressings, Cereal & Bread, Snacks & Convenience Foods, Baby Food & Formula, Frozen Foods and finally Meats.

Click here to purchase your Grocery Guide for about $20. Triumph also offers a money back guarantee if you are not happy with your purchase.

A Good (Scary) Read

See below for the Chicago Tribune's investigation into Allergy Threat: Mislabeling, lax oversight threaten people with allergies. This makes me feel pretty sick. This should be a call to action for those of us unlucky enough to suffer from a food allergy. Why do the food companies and not the FDA decide when to do a recall? Why does the food company get to write the recall information press release which often times looks more like an advertisement than a safety recall? Sometimes the food companies never even issue a recall (about 50% of the time) even though the FDA knows about the issue and considers the products as "likely to cause serious harm or death". Why is there no standard for labeling your product "Gluten Free"?

What is going on with the FDA and USDA (click the links to contact them)?

Part one - "Children at risk in food roulette"

Part two - "A recipe for disaster: Whole Foods' handling of chocolate bar shows how warnings fail" (A warning about Whole Foods' "good manufacturing practices [were] used to segregate ingredients in a facility that also processes milk, wheat and soy ingredients." Label).

The Chicago Tribune has also created an Allergy Recall tracking database where you can search all allergy-related food recalls from the last 10 years by product, allergen, recalling firm, kind of food or by using multiple fields. The Tribune found that nearly 2,800 recalls have occurred in the last ten years (an average of 5 per week) due to hidden allergens.

ALSO - Wellshire Farms is a company featured in the first article. Here is their official response statement. It includes the words"Our Wellshire products are tested at a level of 200 ppm or less, which is equivalent to 99.98% gluten free." Most Gluten Free people I have spoken with aim for zero ppm while Europe and the new proposed FDA regulations suggest 20 ppm. Feel free in joining me in writing a letter to Louis B. Colameco, III President of Wellshire to share your concern.

Anybody else have an uneasy feeling in their stomachs?
What are you going to do about it?

UPDATE- See the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network Web site for information about Allergy recalls. You can also sign up for email alerts.

UPDATE - See Enjoy Life's CEO response to the Tribune investigation - "Long Overdue"

Rosie's Plate - Thanksgiving Order Reminder

Just a friendly reminder that today (11/20) is the last day to order Thanksgiving items from Rosie's Plate.

See my previous post here.

Useful Resources: GFree - Gluten Free Menu Planning

Based on a tip from a reader, I decided to check out another Gluten Free Menu Planning Web site... this one is called GFree. I posted about another service last week.

GFree is a Gluten Free menu planning service similar to MealPlansWithout.com but is a little easier on the pocket book at $10/month. You can also purchase a year's worth of menu planning for $79 (30% discount).

GFree offers simple and delicious gluten-free recipes, every day. GFree is a menu planning service providing all of the tools so you can prepare healthy gluten-free dinners. Whether you’ve been diagnosed with Celiac, have an autistic child or you are looking for a healthier lifestyle, GFree will help you answer “what’s for dinner?” You choose your weekly gluten-free recipes and the automatic grocery list is tabulated. Shop once a week and have all of the ingredients needed for five meals.

Click here for a sample menu.
Click here for a sample grocery shopping list.
Click here for the FAQ section.

More from the Web site...

Freezer
The most popular feature with GFree is the freezer tab. Each month we offer recipes, grocery list and freezer labels. Cook for a few hours and stock your freezer with perfect dinners that you can just pull out in the morning. GFree has you covered!

TEAM MEMBERS
Ann Bender & Karen Hutcherson
Both marketers by profession, Ann and Karen both have a fondness for good food and healthy cooking. They understand the importance of the nightly family dinner and developed Relish! a premier menu-planning service (relishrelish.com). Relish! received hundreds of requests to offer the same type of service but to make it gluten-free. Because of the complexity of the product, they solicited the help of gluten-free cooking expert, Carol Fenster, to provide all of the recipes and many of her famous bread and dessert recipes!

Carol Fenster
Carol has a Ph.D. and is truly a pioneer of gluten-free cooking. What began nearly 20 years ago as a solution to Carol Fenster’s own gluten intolerance grew into a thriving position as a leading expert on gluten-free cooking. The author of 8 gluten-free cookbooks, she also develops gluten-free products for leading manufacturers and consults world-wide on issues related to gluten-free cooking.

All of the recipes you see on GFree are developed Carol Fenster. She’s an expert in gluten-free baking and offers simple recipes that allow you and your family to savor breads and baked goods like you never thought possible.

ENJOY!

GF Pizza Update: Uno Chicago Grill

More Gluten Free Pizza news - looks like Uno Chicago Grill has plans to roll out it's new GF Pizza nation-wide in 2009. The pizza has been under research & development for over a year and is being piloted in the chain's Northeastern stores (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts). If you've ever been to Uno you know that they already have a gluten-free menu with over 12 items ranging from entrees, salads, sides and desserts. For guest convenience and safety, Uno clearly labels menu items with ingredients that are linked to the most common food allergies, such as fish/shellfish, soy, tree nuts/peanuts, egg, milk and wheat/gluten.

Uno Chicago Grill has 1 Raleigh location at Brier Creek. The chain was voted America's Healthiest Chain Restaurant in April 2008 by Health Magazine.

See the following article for more information.

Gourmet Frais Update

In October, I wrote about a new local company called Gourmet Frais, which is creating tasty gluten-free snack food items. See that post here. The French word Frais is defined as cool, crisp, fresh.

A few days ago, I received a taste testing package in the mail from the owner of Gourmet Frais, Susanna Wilde. It included the following items; Not Really Cheeze Krackers, Cherry Walnut Brownies, Cherry Walnut Hemp Brownies and Cacao & Creme Cookies.

All of the snack items made at Gourmet Frais are "Living Foods" which consists "primarily of fruits, vegetables, sprouted beans & grains, nuts and seeds. The nutritional value of the food is maintained and enzymatic activity preserved by baking below 115 °F".

I have to say that the snacks provided to me for taste testing were pretty tasty. I would recommend that we support (or continue to support) local companies who are catering to our GF needs. To see more of the products offered, click here.

More information from the Gourmet Frais Web site...

Gourmet Frais Snacks can help with:
-WEIGHT LOSS – without giving up snacks like brownies or crackers
-HEALTH CONCERNS such as heart disease or high cholesterol (& triglycerides)
-CUTTING sugar, chemicals, preservatives, artificial colors & flavors out of diet
-GLUTEN ALLERGY or CELIAC

Gourmet Frais snacks contain:
-NO Wheat
-NO Dairy
-NO Eggs
-NO Peanuts or other Legumes
-NO Shellfish
-NO chemicals
-NO preservatives
-NO artificial colors/flavors
-NO Sugar – sweetened with Dates, Raw Agave Nectar or Raw Honey

Gourmet Frais snacks are:
-All Natural & Healthy for You
-Organic (most ingredients)
-Made from “Living” ingredients from nature: Tree Nuts, Seeds, Fruits, Vegetables, Sprouted Grain (gluten free), and “Super Foods” like Cacao

Gourmet Frais snacks are NEVER baked above 115°F
-To preserve nutritional value
-To maintain enzymatic activity and aid in digestion
-To provide "living" food for living bodies

Gourmet Frais Brownies and Cookies are made w/ Raw Cacao - a "Super Food"
-Feed your body healthy ANTIOXIDANTS which many health experts say can help prevent many diseases, such as cancer.
-Help lower your “bad” LDL cholesterol to reduce risk of heart attack & stroke
-Help raise your levels of serotonin, phenylethylamine, and anandamide (known as the “bliss chemical”) all of which can both help elevate mood, reduce depression, and reduce PMS symptoms.
-Help your body produce endorphins giving you a "runner's high" like a jogger feels after a run.

Useful Resources: The Sensible Celiac

Anytime I come across something useful on the Web pertaining to Celiac Disease or being Gluten Free, I like to pass it along to the readers of GFR. I had seen The Sensible Celiac site before when I was first diagnosed over the summer and was reminded of it recently when I received an email from Steve Rider, the owner of the Sensible Celiac site.

Here is a copy of the email which sums up what they do over at The Sensible Celiac...

The Sensible Celiac was founded in May of 2004 with the intention of promoting a scientific, reality-based approach to dealing with Celiac disease.

We seek to promote the use of medical science to understand and inform people affected by Celiac disease, while at the same time debunking disinformation that comes from less scientific sources.

The main feature of our website, SensibleCeliac.com, is a discussion forum. Because of our 30 year background in the computer industry and experience with web hosting we have been able to configure and install certain custom tailored 'bots that search the web for gluten-free recipes and news about Celiac disease, posting summaries of each recipe or news item found in forum boards created for that purpose.

We are tracking 3 pharmaceutical research projects world-wide currently testing possible medical treatments for Celiac disease. Another board in our forum exists just for this medical science information.

To further expand our support for medical science and reality-based thinking we sponsor the Celiac disease news feed at the UK website Medworm.

We also use news aggregation techniques to present a news page, with links to stories about Celiac disease from various sources.

In another area of our website a small PHP script has allowed us to create a web page that includes a default listing of YouTube videos about Celiac disease along with a list of canned searches that will let you locate more specific subjects related to this autoimmune disease and the diet it still requires.

Another feature of the Sensible Celiac is our store, in partnership with Amazon.com, but with search criteria we have very carefully designed to make it much easier to find gluten free food items. You can add various items to your shopping cart at our web site, even GF cookbooks, rice cookers and bread machines, then proceed to Amazon for order fulfillment. Shopping at our store supports our ongoing efforts to help the Celiac community and dispel myth-based thinking about medical care.

Over 300 people have already chosen to join the discussion forum at the Sensible Celiac. Your participation is more than welcome, it would be greatly appreciated. Our very fast and expertly maintained dual-core dedicated web server can easily handle thousands more users.

Here are links directly to the areas of our website mentioned in this message:

Medical Science News:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/discuss/index.php/board,18.0.html

Automated Celiac News Bot:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/discuss/index.php/board,16.0.html

Gluten Free Recipe Bot:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/discuss/index.php/board,6.0.html

Current Celiac News Page:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/news.php

YouTube Videos Script:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/videos/index.php

Gluten Free Food:
http://www.sensibleceliac.com/store/

Please accept our invitation to visit the Sensible Celiac today. We hope you will decide to join our community.

Steve Rider
the Sensible Celiac

http://SensibleCeliac.com/
http://AllAboutCeliac.org/
http://MyCeliacBlog.com/
http://TheGFStore.com/

More of our many, many websites about celiac disease:
http://celiacpages.com/
http://celiac.me/
http://glutenfreepro.com/
http://gluten-freestore.com/
http://glutenfreesearch.org/
http://glutenfreelive.com/
http://celiacshop.com/

ENJOY!