Going gluten free, advice please

[Tish1178]

Hi could anyone advise how to go gluten free with Hashimotos please. Despite my partner constantly offering me biscuits/cakes loaded with gluten I am prepared to give up anything with gluten in them. I do not have a huge disposable income so I want to keep costs to a minimum. Thanks

[Nanaedake]

The cheapest and best way to go gluten free is to buy fresh fruit, veg and meat and don't buy any 'gluten free' packaged products from supermarkets.

Cut out bread, pasta, cakes, noodles and anything made with wheat. Try to buy veg and fruit in season because it's cheapest then. So you need a range of recipies that work for seasonal food. I use a steamer because I can put veg, meat, fish in the steamer and leave it to cook without effort. I also like stir fry's because they are quick to cook. I use a slow cooker and pop in a whole chicken before I go to work then it's done when I get home. I can use for stir fry the next day and then make a soup in the slow cooker from the bones. It makes about 4 days of food for 3 of us. I use sweet potato instead of regular potatoes for a little carbohydrate.

Gluten free list and advice from celiac.org

celiac.org/live-gluten-free...

This is another gluten free list to select from although it says to avoid soy but I think that fermented soy is ok, just avoid soy products and soy beans that are not fermented.

drperlmutter.com/eat/list-o...

Some people are fine with occasional gluten free oats which are low cost but you need to check whether the packet says gluten free as some oats are not.

Plain Greek type yogurt is good for deserts with fruit or nuts. I also use it in stir fry's with a little Japanese soy sauce for flavour and a dash of vinegar but check the vinegar is gluten free because they are not all. Chinese soy sauce is not gluten free but Japanese soy sauce is - kikkoman and tamari are Japanese types.

For breakfast I have an egg or a piece of bacon or I make a yogurt pot with fruit, yoghurt, gluten free oats and nuts. Sometimes I have fish and salad or a little meat and cheese.

I shop in budget supermarkets and choose fresh, in season produce and cheaper cuts of meat. I use a slow cooker to make meat tender and then you can cook lower cost meats. I have to confess that I don't often eat organic food unless it's a good price and I only choose free range meat if a good price.

[milupa in reply to Nanaedake]

Super advice, slow cooker&cheaper cuts of meat=surprisingly delicious meals. May I add something about the soya sauce? Kikkoman is a brand, tamari is the name for wheat free soya sauce. Whilst us hashi types should avoid soya (tofu, soya milk) fermented soya is quite a healthy food. But this is separate from the gluten issue.

Can I eat at your house sometime

[Nanaedake in reply to milupa]

Yep, anytime, there's always plenty despite keeping to a budget.

[milupa in reply to Nanaedake]

That sounds lovely, I’ll bring the wine!

I have some local boar and stag goulash in the slow cooker, ready any moment now.

Enjoy your evening!

[Blue_Bee]

Hi Trish, I was diagnosed Coeliac about 15 years ago and am an expert in this area (we all have to be good at SOMEthing In addition to Nanadake’s fabulous tips, here are mine:

* gluten free means 100% gluten free

* gluten is not just in wheat; it’s in barley, rye, triclycate (sp?); spelt; and oats (Australian standard is NO oats; different in the UK...)

* get a new toaster for your gluten free bread

* use new, separate gluten-free chopping boards, wooden spoons and baking tins

* download the Coeliac Australia ingredients app onto your smartphone for easy checking when you are reading the labels of EVERYTHING. Note, AU GF means less than 3 parts per million and UK and US use less than 20 parts per million (from memory) so there may be some inconsistencies if you are using the AU app when shopping in the UK, Europe or USA.

Good luck with it!! I hope you feel better soon. BBxx

[vivbr]

Yes excellent answers to Now no more to add except that industrial fruit and végétale are higher polluted best to chose local pesticide free produce. Health is the only real capital we have so all those industrial products eliminated will help pay for thé healthier fresh foot, also I wish to add that you're taking an important, courageous and excellent décision that will help so much From the digestive and psychological points of view. Good Luck with cynical men, Just ignore their lack of imagination..

[Afshan64]

Great answers.

Giving up gluten was really a great boost to my health so I would say go for it. It feels hard at first but very quickly you will adjust, It can take several months to see the full benefits so be patient, although in my case I saw improvements immediately. And especially once or twice I caved in and ate a cake or something in the early days and my symptoms would flare up, joint pains, tiredness, brain fog, bad digestion, headache. So the temptation has gone for me completely, I don’t miss it at all.

if you find it hard to completely give up bread try rice cakes and corn cakes. Most gluten free breads and cakes are awful and often full of chemicals and sugars. But I did find that marks and Spencer’s gluten free bread is very nice. I’ve also found dove farm pasta is really nice.

[Ginny_Ickle in reply to Afshan64]

Aldi and Sainsbury among others now have some legume-based pastas. Soya, lentil, green pea, black bean. They aren't bad, and make a quick meal, though it helps to match the faint flavour to a compatible sauce : green pea might be great with a carbonara, not so hot in a primavera.

I've seen buckwheat pasta, too, and that is delicious - - just be sure it is not mixed with wheat.

[megarub]

Good advice here.

I'd add that some folk have a dependence on sugar/wheat/gluten, and stopping eating it is like giving up anything we're mildly addicted to.

You may get a headache or other discomfort, then pretty soon start to feel much, much better.

Nuts and seeds are my fast food now when I'm peckish.

Family/partner etc need to understand and support gluten-free. Likening cakes and biscuits to a 'treat' is daft!

[mado]

Ooooh there is some wonderful advice here. I gave up about three years ago. I never have a bloated stomach, I lost half a stone just by giving up gluten. I have never been much of a bread person but cakes were the cause of my weight. I feel so much better. It’s really worth a go. Maybe start baking at home. Tbh there is so much available now, that should make it easier. Good luck

[MacG]

Hi Tish,

Even though I went gluten-free myself three years ago I have found some great useful nuggets myself in the posts above. Can I add anything??

1) Re. the nuts and seeds that megarub mentions: We always have a pot of ROASTED nuts on the go and if we feel peckish we will have a few nuts. Roasted nuts are quite expensive and often have oil and or salt added. Once again, to keep costs down and keep things healthy I buy packets of "normal" (i.e., unroasted/unsalted nuts) and when I have the oven on cooking something else, I put a tray of nuts into the bottom of the oven just to colour them up a bit. Careful....it doesn't take long (about 10 mins) and you certainly don't want to cook or burn them, you just want to get a bit of colour on them to intensify the flavour. A treat is to have a few roasted nuts and a couple of squares of dark (85% cocoa solids) chocolate. Two or three brazil nuts a day help you to keep your selenium topped up, which is essential for good thyroid health. Better than any biscuit/cake!! Try and get your boyfriend into this too!

Money saving tips:

1) I stock up on nuts when all the Christmas nuts are reduced at the end of December (but don't fall into the trap of buying the ones that are salted or have chocolate bits in). These usually keep us going until Easter!!!

2) Every so often supermarkets have 3 for 2 on baking goods. A good time to replenish your stock!

Enough about nuts......

Bread: I tend to eat less and less bread but the only gluten free bread that I like is Schar wholesome seeded loaf. Is good untoasted - not cakey texture or sweet like a lot of the other gluten-free bread, having said this it does make really nice crunchy toast. Shop around- prices vary quite considerably. I know one supermarket where I can pick up a loaf for £2.34 and others where I can easily pay £2.60. Once again, every so often different supermarkets have 3 for 2 offers on gluten-free so I use this as an opportunity to stock up.

I also have a couple of really nice recipes for "special occasion" bread which I found in a little Hamlyn all colour cookbook: 200 gluten-free recipes. ISBN:13: 978-0-600-62268-0. (Cut price bookshops tend to sell these little Hamlyn guides.) Both the chilli corn bread and the feta and herb loaf work really well.

Good luck!

[Jennie16]

I've found it much easier than I ever thought I would. I do still really miss bread and I haven't perfected my mince pie pastry yet (broke a filling on my first batch!!!) but apart from that I eat very similarly to how I did before.

Aldi are beginning to stock more gluten free products... I buy their spaghetti but find it quite starchy, so a good rinse with boiling water after cooking it is essential. If I ever need some fast food, Tesco does quite a nice frozen pizza.

When I bake cakes I always freeze them as they seem to be a little less crumbly when they are eaten after being defrosted.

It's really important to read every label of every product that you buy and be aware of all the different forms of gluten to look out for (someone has already mentioned them above). I got caught out with some coloured cake sprinkles that I thought were just sugar strands!

The hardest thing is eating out as I feel such a nuisance asking for and then trawling through the allergen guide! Even eating out would be fine if you're a steak and chips type of person though (as long as they have a fryer specifically for gluten free products!) As a family of 7, we don't encounter this expensive problem very often 😄

Good luck!

[Chippysue]

Try not to buy the gluten free stuff as it’s pacjed with sugar and rubbish.

Make the bread that Dr Sarah Myhill does, it’s fab.

I think everyone would be better off without gluten!

[milupa in reply to Chippysue]

I second Dr Myhill's keto bread (instruction video on youtube).

I try to keep sugar to a minimum, gluten free replacement foods tend to be pure carb concoctions.

[Blue_Bee]

One more tip... have your own GF labelled containers in the fridge and pantry, for butter and other spreads. Otherwise they’ll soon become contaminated by crumbs and other bits of gluten by unclean knives.

[Mary76mary76]

CAUTION........when I went gluten free my absorption of My levothyroxine increased.......I had heart palpitations etc.....then realised I had to drastically reduce my levothyroxine and eventually settled on half ie 100 mcg per day instead of the previous 200 mcg per day. Good luck

[elwins]

I have been lucky have found a gluten free cafe, they make great bread and cakes and everything in the cafe is gluten free, I agree with what has been said in previous posts.

[EbonyEvans in reply to elwins]

May I ask what town you are in? Someone needs to do this in London!

[Ginny_Ickle in reply to EbonyEvans]

They have.

There's at least one good gluten free bakery, too.

And I know the Prince George pub in Dalston does a gorgeous GF fish and chips.

[EbonyEvans in reply to Ginny_Ickle]

Thank you! Looks like my Fridays are going to be in East London 🙏🏾🤞🏾🤗

[CSmithLadd]

For those who may not understand why gluten is such an issue for us:

Gluten free for almost two years. Doing so has completely changed my life. Absorption of everything is better -- yes, including thyroid replacement hormones, as someone attested to above.

No more gluten to be mistaken for antibodies that causes the immune system to go on red alert and wreak havoc throughout the body. Makes an enormous difference in how you feel. No more bloating!

Gluten is extremely easy to give up once you discover how much better you feel -- and understanding how going gluten-free will improve thyroid (and thus overall) health.

Hands down, like a miracle. No more gut issues with Crohn's, IBS and other maladies that had been chronic for forty years. I'm no medications at all. I take my thyroid hormones and stay away from gluten. I also don't eat dairy or meat. I find that meat gives me issues as its simply too difficult to digest. Surely, my body is going to take some time to return back to optimal.

Fine with me. I feel good. I can wait. If it never happens that I can again eat dairy or meat -- I have no problem with that. There are plenty of substitutes that work. (On a side note, I prepared Jack Fruit and had it over rice... it was absolutely delicious. Looks like tuna but is a vegetable... after cooking it pulls away just like pulled pork).

My point is that for however you want to change your dietary habits to improve your health -- there is always a way! Also, more and more are going gluten-free. My first encounter was a friend who had a "wheat allergy" and thus had to also steer clear of all gluten. That was over twenty years ago. Now, everyone knows about the issues for some with gluten. The list is growing, though. Gluten is just not a good thing in our diets where gluten is used as a thickener in many products.

Great advice from others here, especially Nanaedake. However, I want it to be known that you can still have pasta, cake, breads, and everything else that gluten-free flours made of rice, almonds, tapioca, arrowroot, and potato flours (among others) afford us to have. In fact, made a three-layer gluten-free carrot cake that was so good... made my eyes roll back in my head! The alternative flours are excellent but there are some tricks to know with some of them. But anyone can learn how to use them. The results are astonishing.

I also refrain from all refined sugar (it feeds inflammation). Since giving it up, my fibromyalgia is almost non-existent. No more aches and pains as if arthritic from head to toe! I do it by using beekeeper honey (as the honey in stores is often a mixture made of high-fructose corn syrup with the honey) and Stevita (not Stevia, but natural Stevia leaves from Brazil that are squeezed to leave behind a yellowish liquid called "Stevita"). Stevita is perhaps the best natural sweetener. For milk or cream, I use coconut cream/milk. So being without dairy is no biggie, I still use "cheeses" made from coconut oils that are amazing.

Many pizzerias have gluten-free pizza these days. It's wonderful!

What I'm saying is that for whatever it is you wish to give up to better your health, you can find alternatives so that your life isn't unnecessarily disrupted. That includes gluten.

Like gluten-free pastas. There are a myriad of them and other gluten-free products that can be of help to you, including gluten-free breads, saltine crackers, chips, cookies, cakes, and almost anything else you can think of that is found with gluten. However, many store products use too much refined sugar or other additives that can also cause adverse affects to us. So, unless it's an exceptional product, I'll replicate it at home by baking it myself.

Hope this encourages you. I promise you won't regret forgoing gluten. It's such a bane to the quest for good health.

Healing Hugs!

[elwins]

Thanks for reply I live in Nottingham, the cafe is in the town of Newark. They have a completely gluten free kitchen. I understand they are hoping to work with a baker in Chesterfield to get gluten free products in more shops.

[ArtyTrish in reply to elwins]

Ooh, just read this post. I'm fairly new on here and spotted this thread thinking it might be interesting...I was right! I also live in Nottingham and my parents in Chesterfield. I'd be interested to know which baker it is and also the café. I don't get over to Newark often but I might make a special visit.

[elwins]

You can find them on the internet Newark Artison Gluton free bakery and cafe at 12 chain lane just of the market place near Jane Young. Everything comes from a Gluten free kitchen, they are looking to expand in the future, particularly to getting more gluten free bread into more outlets, they talked of working with a bakery firm in the future. They sell bread and cakes to take away and I freeze the bread. Hope this helps.

[ArtyTrish in reply to elwins]

Thanks. I think I'll pay them a visit.