GlutenWatchers

A recent trip to San Juan, PR exposed a new world of gluten free eating. We realized during this trip that warm, sunny San Juan eats a staple of corn, rice, beans, plantains, and assorted meats (lots of meats & sea-foods!)
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I know a lot of us are constantly being pinched hard by the high costs of staying gluten-free. The Celiac Disease Foundation has a detailed description of how one can claim deductions for the extra money spent on staying gluten-free. This is useful only for folks who itemize their deductions, these folks can claim the extra expense as Medical Expense. Check out the details on the Celiac.org website.Make sure to check out the Tax deduction worksheet at the bottom of that page.

The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness have organized a free webinar on Oct 7 titled: Veggies & beyond: Why Celiacs need a nutritionally-dense diet. Sign up for it on the NFCA website.

Excuse me for drooling, but I am sure you would too, if you walked down Flushing Main Street in Queens, New York City. For those of you not familiar with Flushing, it is a rich, vibrant area of Queens borough that is chock-full of immigrant communities. So the other day, my family & I planned a trip to the Queens Botanical Garden; as one walks down Main Street, one is met with local supermarkets with fruit displays outside the store- huge piles of ripe, golden fruits of the types I have seen, & some I have never seen.

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I have a confession to make, I am a little sick of finding a trillion recipes for GF breads, cakes, muffins, cookies on the web. No offence meant to folks who love these, but come on, there has to be much more to life than just these foods. I am sure there are a ton of celiacs who are avoiding yeast and sugars/ agave & what-not, I am one of them for sure! So on one of our forays looking for something exciting, we came across this recipe for samosas and does it look yummy! For folks who don’t know what samosas are, they are a delicious pastry filled with vegetables (usually potato & peas) or meats. In India, these are accompanied by a sour-sweet chutney, & you are likely to find this food in every restaurant & sweetmeat shop in India. Trouble for us celiacs is the pastry is typically made of maida (refined flour).
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Don’t we celiacs often wonder: is Celiac Disease a new-fangled disease of our modern times ( what with all the industrial food we are eating) and our forefathers did not really have issues like these; or is it that celiac has always existed, it is only now that due to more awareness on the part of both patients & doctors, more people are actually being diagnosed.
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Food cultures & traditions across the world are rich with healthy, natural ways of eating. Our ancestors also knew that in order to survive, they will need to extract the maximum nutrition out of their foods, especially when food was not as plentiful nor healthcare as advanced. And so one will find fermented foods abound in every major culture. What are your favorite fermented food recipes?
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Making gluten-free baklava with hand rolled GF filo. This recipe uses sugar & yeast, though, so may not work for celiacs avoiding these two ingredients. If you have an alternate recipe for baklava, do post it in the comments section below. .

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• Gut Bacteria Offer New Hope for People with Celiac Disease
  Probiotics and/or prebiotics may help alleviate the severity of celiac disease. According to a new research study, intestinal bacteria in celiac patients.
• Watching our pet’s diet, is gluten affecting them too
  People don’t generally think that the food they feed their pets not only affects their pets, but also impacts their lives as well..
• Milk, wheat-free diet may not help autism: US studyA popular diet that eliminates wheat and milk protein does not appear to help children with autism, but early behavioral treatments do, researchers reported on Wednesday.
• Gluten intolerance is rising Is it our imagination, or are gluten intolerance, and dietary disorders in general, increasingly in the news? Does this mean they’re on the rise?
  The answers are yes and yes, according to experts.
• Gluten Proofing kids Recently, her teacher approached us with the idea that perhaps Georgia had something going on with her diet, possibly a gluten intolerance that was lending to her behavior. She kept insisting that maybe gluten was the culprit. So being the responsible parents we are, we set out to eliminate gluten from our household.

• C-section increases celiac risk
  Individuals diagnosed with celiac disease early in their childhood are more likely to be born through cesarean section, a new study finds. More links: Do C-sections increase risk of celiac?, But study found no link between cesarean births, other inflammatory bowel condition
• Diet not the issue with autism
  A popular diet that eliminates wheat and milk protein does not appear to help children with autism, but early behavioral treatments do, researchers reported.
• Celiac disease requires special diet for health – not weight loss
• Learning a different way to eat MOUNT VERNON — Four years ago, at the age of 6, Twin Oak fourth-grader Lauren Keaton was diagnosed with celiac disease. Grocery shopping, food preparation and eating out suddenly became much more complicated for her and her family.
• A new book Celiac Disease Patients Empowered To Get Healthy In New Book From The AGA from the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) offers broad and practical knowledge on celiac disease and gluten-related disorders, empowering those who are undiagnosed and those living with the disease to achieve the best possible health and well-being. Celiac disease is one of the most common autoimmune and gastrointestinal diseases. More than 95 percent of all people with …Read More >>