Healthy eating = Healthy living

I think the first two years after being diagnosed with Celiac Disease should change a person's life. For life. Because it takes approximately 11 years to be diagnosed with Celiac by which time massive damage has occurred in our bodies I think a newly diagnosed person should be aware of every. single. thing. they eat.

In the last two months, I've talked with nutritionists, read books, googled, talked to other people that have CD. My book budget is almost as bloated as my new grocery budget is because I just can't get enough information. The health information from one book to the next is as different as the colors on a color wheel.

I think a lot of people, who don't have access to a nutritionist who specializes in Celiac Disease, or computer hear gluten free and do just that. They continue to eat potatoes, white rice, iceburg lettuce, corn etc. with abandon because it's gluten free.

They don't look at what they are putting in their bodies.

I read on a forum where someone had come across a sale on potatoes and purchased 200+ pounds of them and spent a week cooking and freezing mashed, twice baked, scalloped, you name it she had it in the freezer so all she had to do was thaw and reheat and she had her veggie already prepared.

OMG!

Now white potatoes do have their nutrition however once you peel, fry, cover with cheese, load with sour cream, butter, cheese, bacon bits or even chili what you have left is nutritionally lacking.

After purchasing (so far) 27 books on Celiac Disease and Gluten-Free cooking I FINALLY found THE book I have no problem recommending!

(photo courtesy of amazon)

This book is packed with nutritional advice. Pages and pages of what foods contain which vitamins, minerals, protein etc. It's hands down the #1 book for those newly diagnosed.

The skinny on oats....

In my pre-Celiac days nothing was better than a bowl of steel cut oats with chopped apples, pecans and a splash of pure maple syrup. As soon as the weather would start getting a little cooler this was a every weekend breakfast.

Once I was diagnosed, I quickly found certified gluten free oats (steel cut even), and was happy that not to much was going to change with my diet. Then I started researching Celiac and holy cow! Oats in the Gluten Free community are equivalent to talking politics in mixed company! Everyone has a different opinion and they are both strong.

I wanted to know WHY oats are so controversial. The sides against them say they have a protein that acts like gluten and are horribly cross contaminated. The sides for them say as long as they are certified gluten free they are fine in small doses. The protein Avenin in oats is responsible for all this debate. In a small amount of people with Celiac, this protein still causes an autoimmune response.

One article that I came across is from 2007 (link here) is a study done on 42 patients with Celiac that they followed for five years. At the end only 12 patients continued eating oats for the full five years and because these 12 patients showed no issues with oats it was deemed that they are safe? If 1 in 133 (give or take depending on the source) people have Celiac how are 12 patients going to prove that oats are safe for all Celiac patients? If a small amount of patients with Celiac have issues with oats how do you know that you aren't one of those small few?

Another article from the same site, from 2008 (link here) again states studies were done and oats are safe. Yet if you read the comments there are a few people that are still having issues with oats. The article states no increase in TtG, IgA levels was noted. A quote from the celiac.com forum

" you can get oats made in dedicated fields, harvested with dedicated machinery, and processed and shipped on dedicated equipment. these brands are more expensive and harder to find, but you can get it. BUT, studies have shown that about 10% of celiacs respond with the same immune response to avenin, the oat protein, as they do to gliadin, the wheat protein - because avenin is structurally very similar to gliadin. there is no blood test or other laboratory test that can be run to determine this. you would have to find it out for yourself by eating oats."

I asked my doctor what he thought and he told me that he doesn't know enough about Celiac disease to give me a definitive answer and that I should ask my nutritionist. So I met with my nutritionist and asked her about oats, her response was if they are certified gluten free then I don't see why you can't include them in a successful gluten free diet.

Many, many things are wrong with the above paragraph. First off, my DOCTOR doesn't know enough about Celiac? My nutritionist, fresh out of college, doesn't even know about about Celiac to know that as a newly diagnosed patient it's recommended by almost all associations that you wait at least six months to one year before introducing oats IF you are going to. As of this month I'm not going to consume oats until there is further testing done.

Celiac Disease....the Rich Man's Disease?

I had it said to me that Celiac is the Rich Man's Disease because it's so expensive. Have you ever heard of something so ludicrous? I mean come on. Yes the food is slightly more expensive but really in the long run it's not.

• I sat down and figured out how much it costs to make a loaf of bread, even when using brown rice flour that's $11.99/3 pound bag, and it works out to about three dollars a loaf. Not that much more than going to the grocery store and picking up a quality loaf of whole wheat bread.
• Prepackaged Ian's Turkey Corndogs are $5.49 a box. Horribly obnoxiously priced however they don't have nitrates and the kids love them. Plus you get what you pay for right?
• Gluten free all purpose mix. Here it's $4.99 a box. Not that different than bisquick. Maybe a little more expensive but not much

These are just a few examples and while some stuff is more expensive I look at gluten free food the same way I look at medications, if the benefits outweigh the cons then we are good. I don't but prepackaged gluten free stuff very often but they are nice to have on hand for those nights when I stay at work an extra hour and the kids are starving by the time I get home. I would much rather keep quick, easy stuff on hand in order to maintain our strict gluten free diet then end up going out to eat and risking cross contamination issues because I wasn't in the mood to cook. And staying on a strict gluten free diet saves me money because I don't have to go to the doctor all the time because I don't feel good, I'm slowly getting more and more energy back to play with my kids and to enjoy life. And that you can't put a price limit on!

Awakening.....

I'm simply flabbergasted at the foods that have wheat in them.

• Bouillon. Really? Why? What purpose does putting wheat in bullion cubes serve? I even tried to google and find the why and came up with nothing.
• Beef/chicken base. Again I don't know why.

So with this tidbit in mind I set out today to make my own veggie and Chicken broth. And came across some interesting facts.

• It's so easy. Even if I wasn't a cook it's easy to throw a bunch of veggies in some water and cook it for an hour.
• It's extremely inexpensive. I could go purchase pre-made broth, after finding the only gluten free broth I can find in my small town, at $3.69 a box that barely made one pot of potato soup. Or, I can make my own stock pot full of veggie broth for about $5.00.
• I know exactly what's in my broth and don't have to call or email the manufacturer to find out what "natural flavoring" could be.

Let's move on to regular eating. It's been four days and I miss the convenience of running to the store to get a loaf of bread, bread crumbs, something for the kids to eat for lunch or heck even something for me to eat for lunch. I'm very optimistic by nature and while I get annoyed that every. single. detail about eating how has to be planned at least a few hours if not an entire day in advance I'm also thankful. Nutrition is very important to me. Even before my diagnosis. Now If I have a stressful day and just want to run through a drive-thru and grab some dinner I know I can't. Now we are almost forced to eat carefully and healthy. That's what cool about this. Even though I know there will be nights I'll end up in tears because I would love nothing more than to order pizza, throw a blanket down in the living room and have a picnic without having to cook OR do dishes in the long run we will be healthier! That's the prize I have my eye on!

Day 2.

Had an awesome day. Filled with my personal favorite gluten free bagels made by yours truly. Did I mention how yummy they are and they even have a tiny bit of nutrition which I'm quickly discovering gluten free bread isn't full of nutrition is is? Sigh. I'm slightly crazy about teaching the five year old boy child and 2 year old girl child that veggies are great and should be eaten all. the. time.

Enter gluten free bread. Sigh. So my bagel recipe uses no less than five and more like eight gluten free flours. However, they are decent so when I have to have bread they will be my go to recipe!

I've been writing down everything that I eat simply because I have an appointment with a dietitian and it would be nice to show her I know what I'm doing and I'm interested to see what I think about my early days a year from now.

I digress. As I'm writing down my day I notice that I didn't even think twice about that Large McDonalds McCafe Caramel Iced Coffee I got this afternoon. I just ordered and drank it and does it have gluten in it? Crap. Evaluate how I feel and notice I have a slight headache but that could be from the long day at work, the screaming kids I came home to, or a variety of other things. I pull out the laptop and set to work on google to find the answer to the coffee dilemma. This of course gets me no where as just as many people say caramel coloring is glutinous as those that say in the U.S it's gluten free. No help. (if you are reading this by accident and now the answer please comment and tell me. I promise I won't cyber stalk you for being my single reader, aside from my mom)

Off to go eat some Enjoy Life Snickerdoodle cookies dipped in Very Vanilla Soy Milk.

The verdict is in.....

I have Celiac Disease. Diagnosed exactly two days ago.

I wish I could say that I found this really great doctor that had this really obscure thought as to what my afflictions might be. Or that I told him all my symptoms and he immediately said "Oh I know what we should do next." That all would have been to easy and everyone knows nothing about Celiac Disease is easy....right?

I've had this rash for almost 11 years. It's always been on my feet and ONLY on my feet. I've been through countless doctors telling me it's Athletes feet (really?) or ringworm (I was officially horrified/disgusted) and my personal favorite answer was (wait for it)

"I don't know."

Really?? That's your educated answer that you just charged me $150 bucks for? Thanks for that.

So I went to trusty google for help. I have numerous degrees from google university and went to work searching my symptoms (really I typed in herpes of the foot because, I assume, THAT'S what it feels like) and came up with Dermatitis Herpetiformis. Wow cool. But never in my research did I find that a gluten free diet would help this condition OR that 25% of patients with Celiac Disease have this.

Flash forward a few months and I started researching and dabbling in a gluten free diet for my wild children. I didn't think about it at the time but my feet were decent. Almost to the point that I could actually consider getting a pedicure. I of course didn't maintain a gluten free diet full time and soon my rash was back in full force. I went back to google again and this time discovered there IS a link between DH and Celiac Disease.

I made two appointments. One with an internal medicine doctor and one with a dermatologist. The dermatologist said it looks like regular eczema but went ahead and biopsied it anyway. The MD asked to see it and said hmmm. He then said well we can test you for Celiac. Seriously no problems.

So I got tested on Thursday and my results came back on Tuesday and were definitely positive. Because I have a positive biopsy for DH I, luckily, don't have to have a intestinal biopsy.

Now on to get the kids tested and work on implementing this gluten free diet!