This week a food expert told me about his favorite gluten free bread and it's one that I wasn't familiar with and you may not have heard about either. It is Orgran's Bread Mix. You might have a tough time finding this on shelves, but it's available through Amazon. They have a box of 8 for $38.
It is apparently very simple to make. All you do is add water and oil. This former restaurant owner states that it's the best gluten free bread that he has ever tried. And having been gluten free for many years he should know.
The mix contains sorghum, rice flour, corm starch and raising agents.
You might try to find it at the new store in Everett, WA. Janell's Gluten Free Market opened last week and got a nice big splash in the local paper. I noticed in the photo that she carries Orgran products, and if she doesn't already have their bread mix, she may be willing to carry it. Just ask.
I'm looking forward to meeting Janell and I encourage you to visit her store. Her website is www.JanellsGlutenFreeMarket.com.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Back to Chicago...
in thought only. I have a pile of products and services that I learned about while in Chicago this summer at the Gluten Free Expo. I've shared some, and been wanting to share the rest with you and I've finally found some time. Not all of it is Chicago based, so anyone may find some worthy items.
Starting locally, DaLuciano's is wonderful Italian restaurant that has a gluten free menu. They are located in River Grove and their website is www.dalucianos.com.
A great resource in the Chicago area is LisaCooksAllergenFree.com. Lisa Williams is a specialist in cooking, dining and shopping with food allergies and provides an extremely practical service for people with food allergies. She'll work with you an virtually any aspect of living gluten free to help you live a healthier life. But it doesn't stop there. She also started Safe and Sound Dinners, a group dining experience for people who can understand each other. Her phone number is 1-773-665-0430.
Chicago also has Rose's Bakery, a 100% wheat and gluten free mecca in Evanston. Everyone at the conference I was at was raving about her bread. Visit www.RosesBakery.com or 1-847-859-2723.
Not to be outdone by any of the above, Susan Vess is a food coach and consultant, and author of Special Eats, an excellent cookbook for those avoiding both gluten and dairy. Her company is located in Wheaton and Lisle Illinois, and also supports three different groups that meet monthly in Wheaton and Naperville. For more information www.specialeats.com or call 1-888-682-3287. They also offer Cumin Clove, spice mixes free of gluten, dairy, soy and corn. Contact them for more information about the available options.
Loretta Hamelink offers Gluten Free Sensations, specializing in cookie, pancake and waffle mixes that taste like the real thing. Learn more at www.glutenfreesensastions.com.
Linda Simon of Kitchen Therapy is located in Janesville, Wisconsin. Her specialty is in helping people overcome their kitchen issues. I could use some help from her. I have all kinds of kitchen issues.
We've got Benevolent Kitchen in the New York area. Nicole Bubolo specializes in gluten free baking/cooking and provides hands-on cooking and baking courses for individuals or businesses. She can adapt to many needs, as can most of these fantastic people.
The Gluten Free Trading Company can be found in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As you can imagine, it's a store full of gluten free and hypoallergenic foods. They also offer mail order. And while you're there, ask about the local gluten free beer!
Andrea Kosinski of St. Louis, MO is the Chief Taste Office of Andrea's fine foods Gluten Free. Another excellent store for locating exactly what you need, and lots of it. I was born in St. Louis, so I should know.
And while we're in the neighborhood, the Bi-Staste Celiac Support Group in Illinois and Missouri. Visit www.bscsg.org.
Then there is Better Batter, a passionate family trying to simplify the world of batter mixes and the first place I've seen have little mini gluten free corn dogs.
And last but not least, Kettle Cuisine gluten free frozen soups. They should be available at Whole Foods and come in 10 different varieties. Visit www.kettlecuisine.com for more information.
I met most of the people mentioned above, and I can't speak highly enough about how friendly and helpful they were. It would have gotten tiresome if I had kept saying that in each line item, so I'm doing it here.
Starting locally, DaLuciano's is wonderful Italian restaurant that has a gluten free menu. They are located in River Grove and their website is www.dalucianos.com.
A great resource in the Chicago area is LisaCooksAllergenFree.com. Lisa Williams is a specialist in cooking, dining and shopping with food allergies and provides an extremely practical service for people with food allergies. She'll work with you an virtually any aspect of living gluten free to help you live a healthier life. But it doesn't stop there. She also started Safe and Sound Dinners, a group dining experience for people who can understand each other. Her phone number is 1-773-665-0430.
Chicago also has Rose's Bakery, a 100% wheat and gluten free mecca in Evanston. Everyone at the conference I was at was raving about her bread. Visit www.RosesBakery.com or 1-847-859-2723.
Not to be outdone by any of the above, Susan Vess is a food coach and consultant, and author of Special Eats, an excellent cookbook for those avoiding both gluten and dairy. Her company is located in Wheaton and Lisle Illinois, and also supports three different groups that meet monthly in Wheaton and Naperville. For more information www.specialeats.com or call 1-888-682-3287. They also offer Cumin Clove, spice mixes free of gluten, dairy, soy and corn. Contact them for more information about the available options.
Loretta Hamelink offers Gluten Free Sensations, specializing in cookie, pancake and waffle mixes that taste like the real thing. Learn more at www.glutenfreesensastions.com.
Linda Simon of Kitchen Therapy is located in Janesville, Wisconsin. Her specialty is in helping people overcome their kitchen issues. I could use some help from her. I have all kinds of kitchen issues.
We've got Benevolent Kitchen in the New York area. Nicole Bubolo specializes in gluten free baking/cooking and provides hands-on cooking and baking courses for individuals or businesses. She can adapt to many needs, as can most of these fantastic people.
The Gluten Free Trading Company can be found in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. As you can imagine, it's a store full of gluten free and hypoallergenic foods. They also offer mail order. And while you're there, ask about the local gluten free beer!
Andrea Kosinski of St. Louis, MO is the Chief Taste Office of Andrea's fine foods Gluten Free. Another excellent store for locating exactly what you need, and lots of it. I was born in St. Louis, so I should know.
And while we're in the neighborhood, the Bi-Staste Celiac Support Group in Illinois and Missouri. Visit www.bscsg.org.
Then there is Better Batter, a passionate family trying to simplify the world of batter mixes and the first place I've seen have little mini gluten free corn dogs.
And last but not least, Kettle Cuisine gluten free frozen soups. They should be available at Whole Foods and come in 10 different varieties. Visit www.kettlecuisine.com for more information.
I met most of the people mentioned above, and I can't speak highly enough about how friendly and helpful they were. It would have gotten tiresome if I had kept saying that in each line item, so I'm doing it here.
Monday, November 30, 2009
An Excellent Article on Food Allergies
I recently ran across a 2004 research article on IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and food allergies. It is the only article that I've seen that provides a comprehensive look at IBS, addressing many of the issues that we find to be important in helping people solve their digestive problems and other health problems.
The abstract reads: The notion of food allergy in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not new. However, recent evidence suggests significant reduction in IBS symptom severity in patients on elimination diets, provided that dietary elimination is based on foods against which the individual had raised IgG antibodies (emphasis mine). These findings should encourage studies dissecting the mechanisms responsible for IgG production against dietary antigens and their putative role in IBS.
However, most interesting and enlightening is the authors statement on how we view and use the word allergy. It's a bit technical, but I think that you'll find it helpful.
Bringing empirical observations ad fontes advances science. In astrophysics, the term “black hole” was introduced to describe an extremely dense star which had collapsed into a singularity under its own gravity. A black hole radiates nothing; it absorbs all matter and energy falling within its sphere. The name was coined only after revisiting the initial theoretical achievements of Karl Schwarzschild, when observations made outside the earth’s atmosphere gave astrophysicists empirical x ray data on a new type of cosmic object. In allergology, in contrast, adherence to a paradigm whereby allergy is defined by the presence of specific IgE antibodies has hampered disentanglement. As a result, allergy remains a dubiously defined term with no unambiguous empirical content or explanatory power. The time has come to seize upon the available empirical data and plunge into the original theory of Clemens von Pirquet.
The term allergy was introduced by von Pirquet to denote a changed immunological reactivity which manifests itself on second exposure to an antigen (reviewed by Kay1). This altered reactivity is uncommitted, giving no indication of the direction of change; equally harmful and protective immune reactivity reflects prior encounter (see fig 1 [triangle]Figure 1). In modern terms, altered reactivity can be seen to evince either the most common mode of immune response elicited by the intestinal immune system, tolerance, recently defined as any mechanism by which a potentially injurious immune response is prevented, suppressed, or shifted to a non-injurious class of immune response,2 or abrogation of such an actively maintained process, which is currently linked to immunoinflammatory disease. Reassessment of the original theory of allergy is important as it would appear that it is not the immunological resources gained during antigen exposure, measurable by specific antibodies or specifically responding lymphocytes, which are decisive for the presence or absence of disease, but the complex cascade of events determining their use.
Essentially the article is pointing out that in practice we have traditionally limited ourselves to using the word allergy only when we believe that it is an IgE reaction to something. Yet the immune system is capable of manifesting many different types of allergic reactions, not just IgE reactions.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that I too have found to be incredibly disruptive to our understanding of why we are unhealthy. Medicine seems to be far less scientific than other branches of science, if one can even call medicine a branch of science.
And finally, the article has this to say about IBS: In common with allergic disease, IBS appears to result from an interplay between susceptibility genes and impaired gut barrier functions, immunological dysregulation, together with bacterial and viral infections and other environmental factors.
A rare breath of fresh air and keen thinking in the world of IBS. Thank you to the lead author, Dr. Isolauri of Finland. You can see the full article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1774228/. You can also find many other excellent and related articles at the Innate Health Foundation Website.
The abstract reads: The notion of food allergy in irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is not new. However, recent evidence suggests significant reduction in IBS symptom severity in patients on elimination diets, provided that dietary elimination is based on foods against which the individual had raised IgG antibodies (emphasis mine). These findings should encourage studies dissecting the mechanisms responsible for IgG production against dietary antigens and their putative role in IBS.
However, most interesting and enlightening is the authors statement on how we view and use the word allergy. It's a bit technical, but I think that you'll find it helpful.
Bringing empirical observations ad fontes advances science. In astrophysics, the term “black hole” was introduced to describe an extremely dense star which had collapsed into a singularity under its own gravity. A black hole radiates nothing; it absorbs all matter and energy falling within its sphere. The name was coined only after revisiting the initial theoretical achievements of Karl Schwarzschild, when observations made outside the earth’s atmosphere gave astrophysicists empirical x ray data on a new type of cosmic object. In allergology, in contrast, adherence to a paradigm whereby allergy is defined by the presence of specific IgE antibodies has hampered disentanglement. As a result, allergy remains a dubiously defined term with no unambiguous empirical content or explanatory power. The time has come to seize upon the available empirical data and plunge into the original theory of Clemens von Pirquet.
The term allergy was introduced by von Pirquet to denote a changed immunological reactivity which manifests itself on second exposure to an antigen (reviewed by Kay1). This altered reactivity is uncommitted, giving no indication of the direction of change; equally harmful and protective immune reactivity reflects prior encounter (see fig 1 [triangle]Figure 1). In modern terms, altered reactivity can be seen to evince either the most common mode of immune response elicited by the intestinal immune system, tolerance, recently defined as any mechanism by which a potentially injurious immune response is prevented, suppressed, or shifted to a non-injurious class of immune response,2 or abrogation of such an actively maintained process, which is currently linked to immunoinflammatory disease. Reassessment of the original theory of allergy is important as it would appear that it is not the immunological resources gained during antigen exposure, measurable by specific antibodies or specifically responding lymphocytes, which are decisive for the presence or absence of disease, but the complex cascade of events determining their use.
Essentially the article is pointing out that in practice we have traditionally limited ourselves to using the word allergy only when we believe that it is an IgE reaction to something. Yet the immune system is capable of manifesting many different types of allergic reactions, not just IgE reactions.
This is exactly the kind of thinking that I too have found to be incredibly disruptive to our understanding of why we are unhealthy. Medicine seems to be far less scientific than other branches of science, if one can even call medicine a branch of science.
And finally, the article has this to say about IBS: In common with allergic disease, IBS appears to result from an interplay between susceptibility genes and impaired gut barrier functions, immunological dysregulation, together with bacterial and viral infections and other environmental factors.
A rare breath of fresh air and keen thinking in the world of IBS. Thank you to the lead author, Dr. Isolauri of Finland. You can see the full article at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1774228/. You can also find many other excellent and related articles at the Innate Health Foundation Website.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Rice Nog for the Holidays
Since we're on a rice theme I wanted to tell you about a new product that my family discovered this year.
You've all heard of Eggnog, that incredibly rich, fatty, heavy, calorie laden and allergenic product that humans like to drink this time of year. Of course, if you should be avoiding dairy and/or egg (or simply care about your health, which I realize is not a holiday theme) then it is about the worst thing that you could possibly do to yourself.
As an alternative we started to see Soy Nog a few years ago. This is a great option if you can eat soy based products, and for everyone else is a better way to get the flavor of eggnog without the toxicity of real eggnog, but it still left some people without an option.
It was only a matter of time until it came out, and this year we have Rice Nog. Rice Nog may be even lighter than Soy Nog, and certainly has that yummy flavor without all of the excessiveness.
I think that it's been out for a year, but this year is the first time that I've seen it in my local grocery store. It doesn't seem to be on the Rice Dream website, and I didn't find a site listing all of the ingredients, but I can tell you that they did add cane sugar to it.
So enjoy some holiday cheer, and don't let your 8 year old drink the whole container before you get some!
You've all heard of Eggnog, that incredibly rich, fatty, heavy, calorie laden and allergenic product that humans like to drink this time of year. Of course, if you should be avoiding dairy and/or egg (or simply care about your health, which I realize is not a holiday theme) then it is about the worst thing that you could possibly do to yourself.
As an alternative we started to see Soy Nog a few years ago. This is a great option if you can eat soy based products, and for everyone else is a better way to get the flavor of eggnog without the toxicity of real eggnog, but it still left some people without an option.
It was only a matter of time until it came out, and this year we have Rice Nog. Rice Nog may be even lighter than Soy Nog, and certainly has that yummy flavor without all of the excessiveness.
I think that it's been out for a year, but this year is the first time that I've seen it in my local grocery store. It doesn't seem to be on the Rice Dream website, and I didn't find a site listing all of the ingredients, but I can tell you that they did add cane sugar to it.
So enjoy some holiday cheer, and don't let your 8 year old drink the whole container before you get some!
Rice Yogurt
A patient recently informed me that she had found rice yogurt at Whole Foods and found it to be "really really good!" I thought that I'd pass this along because I haven't seen rice based yogurt very often. Maybe it's becoming easier to find.
Of course, if you should avoid dairy and soy, then your yogurt choices become much more limited. But now there is also coconut milk based yogurts, which come in several flavors and I find quite nice.
You can learn more about Ricera Yogurt products at www.ricerafoods.com.
By the way, she liked the vanilla flavor.
Of course, if you should avoid dairy and soy, then your yogurt choices become much more limited. But now there is also coconut milk based yogurts, which come in several flavors and I find quite nice.
You can learn more about Ricera Yogurt products at www.ricerafoods.com.
By the way, she liked the vanilla flavor.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Car Sickness and Food Allergies
Numerous patients have expressed to me how they used to get sick when they would ride in a car. People often think that this is just the way it is, but many people find that when they discover their gluten intolerance or food allergy and eliminate that food from their diet that they no longer get nauseated when riding in a vehicle.
This is a very logical connection. If your digestive tract is already upset, even slightly, then riding in a car is probably only going to make it worse. Even if you don't have any other noticeable digestive problems, being in a car can be just enough to bring out the symptoms of a weak digestive tract.
So keep this in mind if you know anyone who has a problem with car sickness or motion sickness. It may just be that they have a food allergy or intolerance.
This is a very logical connection. If your digestive tract is already upset, even slightly, then riding in a car is probably only going to make it worse. Even if you don't have any other noticeable digestive problems, being in a car can be just enough to bring out the symptoms of a weak digestive tract.
So keep this in mind if you know anyone who has a problem with car sickness or motion sickness. It may just be that they have a food allergy or intolerance.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Gluten Free Stuffing
In honor of the upcoming holiday I am passing along a GF stuffing recipe that I recently picked up. It's called Basic Stuffing. If you've got another favorite stuffing recipe, don't be shy about posting it here!
This is a simple stuffing of herbs, bread, onion, celery and butter or nondairy butter, moistened with stock and baked in the oven.
8 cups of stale, finely cubed bread
1/2 pound butter or nondairy spread
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
Saute the onions and celery in the butter and add the pepper. Stir in the cubed bread and mix to moisten. Place into a buttered casserole dish, adding just enough stock to moisten to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
This is a simple stuffing of herbs, bread, onion, celery and butter or nondairy butter, moistened with stock and baked in the oven.
8 cups of stale, finely cubed bread
1/2 pound butter or nondairy spread
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 cup chicken or vegetable stock
Saute the onions and celery in the butter and add the pepper. Stir in the cubed bread and mix to moisten. Place into a buttered casserole dish, adding just enough stock to moisten to taste. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
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