GlutenAway Blog: Did You Know?

Showing posts with label Did You Know?. Show all posts

By: Laura McCutcheon (Taylor's Mom)

When it comes to GlutenAway, Taylor is the voice and driver of this blog and everything social media. In the past I haven’t contributed much when it comes to content unless it was something that I truly feel will benefit his followers – advice on parenting, social situations, etc.

In the past four years, I have had five people in my life try to commit suicide. Three with pills and two with a gun. This past week, someone I knew well and worked closely with took her own life. She was an incredible human being – giving, bright, driven and loved by so many. She was well known in the professional community. No one saw this coming. I am left shocked and saddened. Left wondering how I can help or if there is something that I can do.

Depression in general needs to be addressed in this country as a true medical condition. More importantly, the stigmatism behind mental health illnesses needs to be addressed and confronted head on. I thought if there's anything I can do, I can bring awareness to the connection between Celiac Disease, gluten sensitivities, and depression and help those who are diagnosed or coping with this illness. To help them know that they are not alone, that there is some scientific medical reasoning behind it, and that there is no shame in reaching out or talking to someone for help.

By now you know that General Mills has recalled 1.8 million boxes of "gluten-free" cheerios due to the presence of wheat within their product. In case you've been living under a rock and haven't heard about this story yet, you can read the full recall, here.

I personally never tried the new "gluten-free" cheerios because of this very reason. I knew that something would go wrong sooner or later and I guarantee an incident like this will happen again. It's bound too. It truly sucks to see so many people get excited about a product like this, only to be glutened yet again. If you've read the process on how they make cheerios gluten-free, it makes zero sense. Not that I don't believe that their process works. But it makes zero sense as to how they can guarantee each box is under 20 ppm...the truth is, they can't.

I hate being the one to tell you this but Cheerios being gluten-free is not something we can trust. I'd love to tell you to go grab a box of Cheerios right now and get at it, but simply, it's not the truth. Cheerios can't be trusted because of this incident and unfortunately, it will not be the last.

Instead of continuing to eat Cheerios hoping that an incident like this won't happen again, why don't I offer you some awesome alternatives to Cheerios that you can ACTUALLY trust. See below :)

There are many myths out there about being gluten-free that you'd be surprised people would actually believe. I come across these myths almost every single day and get countless comments from people who believe in them. Even some of those who are gluten-free believe in them but you can be one to judge for yourself. Being gluten-free isn't easy, so take the time to read these 5 myths and put them all to bed within the public and gluten-free community.

If you're just going gluten-free, you've probably done a lot of research or at least looked into what may contain gluten. We're all pretty fortunate enough to live in an age where so much information is available on the internet with the touch of a button. A place where people can share expert information on forms and everything people need to know about gluten. It's pretty great, isn't it? As our president once said,

Man he was a cool guy. At this point I hope you know that not everything you read on the internet is true. There's actually been a lot of misconceptions going around about certain items that contain gluten, but actually do not! Here are some of the top 10 most common items that people mistake for containing gluten. I even thought some of these contained gluten for a while!

Every May, we spend the month trying to raise awareness for a disease we all know. Celiac Disease. There are so many people who are still undiagnosed, unaware, or uneducated about Celiac Disease in the United States. I definitely agree that we need to keep spreading awareness for our disease so that people understand and know that it's real. Within our community, Celiac Disease is always talked about year round, but what about the other underlying health problems that come along with it? Osteoporosis is just one of the many serious health problems that can come from undiagnosed Celiac Disease. Years of consuming gluten when the body shouldn't be ingesting it can cause so many problems, osteoporosis being one of them. That's why it's so important to not only spread awareness for Celiac Disease this month, but to also spread awareness for the other health problems that can come along with it.

You may be surprised to know that some naturally gluten-free products you buy from main brands like, Publix, Kroger, Giant Eagle, etc. may not actually be gluten-free. Nuts, vegetables, and other naturally gluten-free products can be made on shared equipment possibly with wheat. Lately, I've been trying to pay more attention to the labels on the foods I eat. I've always been pretty good about reading labels but the one thing I haven't paid much attention to is whether a product is made on shared equipment or not. You may be aware of what ingredients to look out for or how safe certain products are, but when it comes to food being made on shared equipment, how safe are you?

By Laura Miller (Taylor's Mom)

So I like to think that I am a really educated gluten free person who has been through the ropes and has a pretty good grasp on what is and what Is not gluten-free. For years now I have been eating sushi without a care in the world … that is until last weekend. We were out with a group of friends and we ordered our food. I ordered a tuna roll and brought my San-J Tamari Soy Sauce with me – prepared and ready to eat. The waiter just happened to overhear a conversation that I was having with my friends about my gluten free diet and he told me that their sushi was not gluten free. He said that the product they used to hold the rice together contained wheat. What???? My mind was completely blown. All these years I thought that I was safely eating sushi when who knows how many times I got sick and had no idea it was from the sushi.

With Support from ContentChecked
Since going gluten-free, I'm sure there's many foods you've grown to miss. You may have trouble finding the right alternative or you don't find a good alternative at all! With my new "Gluten Free Substitutions" posts, I hope to make that better by sharing with you all the best gluten-free recipes and products to replace the foods you once missed. Some products have easy gluten-free substitutions you can find with the help of the ContentChecked app. While other products don't have any alternatives at all and may need a little more help to make. That's why I'm kicking off this campaign with a substitution for one of the most missed foods in the gluten-free community...Twizzlers.

By now you've probably all heard about the new gluten-free options coming to both Pizza Hut and Coors Light. If you haven't heard about this day yet and you're a guy, this is probably the best day of your life. Pizza Hut and Coors announced that they will be offering gluten-free options coming soon by the end of this month. In a way, it's an awesome win for the gluten-free community! But when big companies get involved to the gluten-free industry, you have to wonder if they're going to do it right. Here's all the big things you need to know about both products and when you can see them coming soon!

So you've already gone gluten-free. You may have been gluten-free for a month, 6 months, a year or more, but fatigue is still an issue for you. Some people, and probably most people, experience tons of relief after going gluten-free. Your immune system begins to restore, your energy gets better, you don't have as much GI problems. But other people, like myself, still deal with tons of symptoms daily that don't seem to go away! This can include fatigue, brain fog, digestion problems, trouble concentrating, and the list goes on. So you're probably asking yourself, "why do I still have all these symptoms if going gluten-free is supposed to make it better?" The biggest reason that most people don't consider is adrenal fatigue. Adrenal fatigue occurs when the body goes under tons of stress. So you can imagine, having gluten after all those years you should be avoiding it causes a major stress on the body that takes more than just a gluten-free diet to recover.

Coconut oil has many health benefits including boosted immune system, proper digestion and regulated metabolism, weight loss, cholesterol level maintenance, skin and hair care. It has also proven to provide relief for kidney problems, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer.

Coconut oil contains lauric acid which our body turns into monolaurin which is known to help the body deal with viruses and bacteria that cause diseases. Check out the many more health benefits of coconut oil below!

If you haven't heard yet, the U.S. food labeling system is getting a change for the first time in more than 20 years. A lot of huge changes are coming to our labels which means it can be either bad or good for some. Most of these changes will probably make you happy but there are some pretty obvious things not being done which should be. These changes are all pretty big and changes you will see coming in the next few years. I'll share with you what's going to change with the labels and give my input as a teenager about what still needs to be done in the future.

If you haven't heard yet, which most of you probably have, Girl Scouts have finally released new gluten-free cookies. Right now they are in test trial in select locations but either way it's a big deal! Girl Scouts obviously make many brands of amazing cookies that are not gluten-free. So that leaves me to wonder a lot of things! What flavors are there, who are they safe for, when will they be coming to more areas soon? Everything you need to know I researched for you! I did some research to figure out what precautions they take to make them, flavors, nutrition info, and much more!

Greetings from another gluten free blogger! My name is Kristen Taylor and I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease in 2007. Sometimes it is hard to believe it has only been 6 years on a gluten free diet because I can’t imagine my life any other way. On the other hand, I remember the day I was diagnosed like it was yesterday. I was a sophomore in college at the University of North Carolina where I was playing lacrosse for both UNC and the USA team. I was ecstatic to be back at school for the fall semester and it seemed like everything was falling into place perfectly. That was until just getting out of bed became hard. I was exhausted, losing weight, nauseous, had painful headaches all day long, and began blacking out up to 15 times/day. What on earth was going on???

A lot of you may know that Celiac Disease isn't the only type of illness I deal with. I deal with many others such as a rare adrenal disorder and POTS as well. Because of these illnesses I have to take many different types of medication multiple times a day. Most of you probably do not take the type of medication I do since it is obviously for my disorders. However, a lot of you probably do take vitamins and other pain relievers to help with your day to day celiac problems. I do the same and recently I have been getting very sick for a reason I could not explain. I had no clue what was going on and after reading the label of ibuprofen I have been taking, I discovered that it had lactose which I am extremely sensitive too. It led me to wonder what else I've been taking may have gluten or lactose in it and immediately made me feel like I have to share this important topic with you.

When I visited the hospital in mid August I noticed a lot of new things were added to make eating gluten-free easier. It had been 2 years since I stayed in the hospital last, so I was worried about what my options would be when it came to food. I was very surprised to see how incredibly knowledgeable the kitchen was of gluten-free food and how many options they had as well. The food and options available was one thing, but the doctors and their knoweledge of celiac disease was a completely different story. It still amazes me to see how little doctors know about celiac disease and how unaware they are on this topic. If my hospital visit made me realize anything, it made me realize that the kitchen staff of the hospital knew more about the gluten-free diet than the doctors themselves. Pretty upsetting to hear when it comes to the medical community..

Not to long ago I posted a question on my Facebook Page which happened to get a lot of feedback. The question was, "What's the most annoying product you've found gluten in?" Really I was expecting a lot of different responses like, Twizzlers, tooth paste, dressing, and much more. But it led me to think there really are so many crazy things that do have gluten hidden in them that people may be unaware of! That's why I created this list of the top products with hidden gluten to make people more aware of the food they are eating!

So this is a topic I have recently come across but of course (Since I'm 16) have never really had to worry about. If some of the occasional effects you may be having from wine involve headaches, an upset stomach, or extreme fatigue, then it may be more than just the wine. After coming across this article I discovered that cross contamination in wine is actually a possible scenario and is something you should all be considering. Of course if you're under 21 like me, you're fine...but if you're over 21, you should really look into this more.

Even though my adrenal issues are a little more extreme, Adrenal Fatigue is something that I believe many people that have Celiac Disease or are gluten-free deal with each day. It's not some crazy rare disease that you may or may not have. No, it's something that's proven to affect everybody in some points of their life, especially those with Celiac. This is a great post about how people that are gluten sensitive are more likely to have adrenal issues throughout their life. I got to share my input as well as a little bit of my story in this post on Glutenfreeschool.com.

You an read this post, Here!

I wanted to thank Jennifer Fugo for sharing part of my story in this post and for shedding more light on this topic. I truly believe that there are many gluten-free individuals that are suffering from adrenal fatigue symptoms each day that they can easily fix. I hope you enjoy my input in this post and I hope you learn a little more about Adrenal Fatigue as well!

When I first started writing this post it was going to be about a healthy and possibly sugar free alternative to syrup. The only problem was that there were none. With my adrenal disorder I have to avoid almost any type of sugar so naturally I looked into sugar free syrups that I could possibly use. After reading the ingredients and trying to understand how they can even call some of these products syrup, I realized a much bigger problem. Most people look at products that say sugar, fat, or gluten-free and automatically go to the label..not the ingredients! Now a days they are trying to put these on everything and people think it's healthy! Some people may have educated themselves enough to know what I'll explain below, but I guarantee a majority of the average everyday citizens would not.

You an read this post, Here!

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