GlutenAway Blog: Advice For Families

Showing posts with label Advice For Families. Show all posts

Trick or Treat is right around the corner which means going out with food allergies can always make this a tough situation. You don't want your kids to not enjoy the fun experiences of dressing up, walking around to each house, grabbing as much candy as one can get. But of course, you also don't want your child to get terribly sick from the many food allergies that they may have to avoid. Us food allergy bloggers have lots of experiences in being a parent in these situations (myself excluded). Keep your children safe this Halloween but still let them have fun with these Tips on How to Trick or Treat with Food Allergies!

I'm 18 years old so I'm luckily done with the "back to school" days when it comes to high school. However, I will be starting college soon which means that I'll have to be prepared when it comes to eating gluten-free away from home. Eating gluten-free is already hard enough when you're an adult but planning for your kids can be much harder! Here are my top healthy gluten-free snacks for back to school that can be great for any age.

Have you ever been picked on for being gluten-free? Gotten an insensitive comment from someone saying, "oh, that must really suck you can't eat gluten." As teenagers, we see bullying almost every day. We grow up in a world where food allergies are becoming more and more prominent, yet some of us are still not taken seriously. I, myself, was never really bullied much as a kid. I grew up having a pretty normal life and always faced every situation with positivity. But when I got diagnosed with Celiac Disease at age 13, that started to change. People saw it as something that made made me different and saw it as something to pick on me about. I didn't show them that it bothered me, I didn't give them a reason to continue bullying me because fortunately enough, I enjoyed eating gluten-free. As a young teenager at the time, I thought high school would be the end of it. I assumed that only kids picked on each because surely a grown adult couldn't be immature enough to bully one another over food. But guess what? I was wrong.

Since school has started, many kids with food allergies have to face a lot going back to school. It's already overwhelming enough to go back to school no matter what age you are but I know having food allergies can make it much harder as well. I only went to an actual school for 2 years while being gluten-free. There's a lot to encounter like allergy bullying, trying to figure what to eat, dealing with teachers or people who bring in food for the class. Either way, having allergies during the school year can be difficult. That's why I wanted to share 5 tips to for kids to read or for parents to share with their kids to help make their back to school year experience better while living with food allergies.

In my last post I shared a few tips for raising a gluten-free child that I've applied over the years. But since there is so much Taylor and I have learned, I felt like it was too much to include in one post. There are so many things you learn while raising a kid alone, but raising a kid who is gluten-free as well is a whole other story. Here is part 2 and more tips that we've applied over the years to make going gluten-free for your child easier.

By now, most of you know Taylor pretty well through his blog posts, social media and video posts. There is absolutely no doubt that his is one amazing kid and is wise well beyond his years. Taylor and I have developed a very close relationship which has partially developed from our journey of becoming gluten-free and learning that we both have Celiac Disease. Over the past five or so years that I have been gluten-free and raised a gluten-free kid with Celiac Disease, I have learned a few things that have truly helped Taylor in adapting to his new lifestyle. These are things that we see as being extremely helpful in his transition to being gluten-free and it should be helpful to many of you.

It seems to me like a lot of people like to think eating gluten-free sucks. Some people assume that eating gluten-free means you are stuck to eating vegetables and other plain foods. People who are uneducated about it may think this is true. But if you do a little research you would learn that you can actually still enjoy a lot of foods while being gluten-free! I've been gluten-free for 4 years and I love it. I'm not gunna lie...it sucked at first. Over time I learned a lot of things though that made me realize that eating gluten-free really doesn't suck at all! Here are my reasons as a teenager for why I think eating gluten-free does not suck.

I know for a while now many of Taylor’s followers have asked to hear from his mom or have asked what role I have played in Taylor’s pursuit of his blog and making a difference in the gluten-free community. I thought a great way to kick off my efforts of supporting Taylor in providing new content for his blog is to give you a little glimpse behind the scenes of how things started, what we have gone through, and where we are now.

For this post, head on over to Dineaware.com! I was happy to share my take as a teenager about food allergy bullying as well as share a little more about myself. I think this is something that happens at any age and something that needs to be stopped. I've already discussed this topic once but I felt it was very necessary to talk about it again. You can read this full post through this link where I share my insights as a teenager who has dealt with these situations before.

We all deal with bullies at some point of our life. Bullies always find things to pick on that makes us different. The way we look, the way we talk, and apparently the way we eat. I always hear about people getting made fun of for being gluten-free or for eating a certain way. I hear about it with kids and I even hear about it with adults. It's one thing that seems to happen to all of us no matter what age we are. I'm 16 years old, I've dealt with bullies, but there's some things I've learned that put these people in their place. Even though I am so young I've learned a lot to avoid bullying and give bullies nothing to bully you about! These are some things I've learned early on and some things that I know will be helpful to you no matter what age you are.

Over the last couple of years I've been living with my rare adrenal disorder, and over the last couple months I've been living with POTS as well. Since getting diagnosed my life has changed dramatically. I am still unable to do the many things I wish I could do normally, still unable to socialize the way I wish I could, and sill unable to eat many more things I wish I could as well. But out of all the things I'm unable to do, being a voice and advocating for my disorder and Celiac Disease is the one thing I can do. Accepting you have celiac disease is hard for anyone to do at any age! We all go through times of struggle and sometimes we just have to accept it for what it is.

For this video I decided to do it on Gluten and Candy to make you aware of what you should avoid or not when it comes to it. I just discuss the most popular brands of candies that are gluten-free as well as share ones you should avoid. I also share which candies you should be careful of as well even though they say they are gluten-free. More info is written below for everything I covered as well as a link to a gluten-free candy list. Hope this helps and I hope you enjoyed my costume!

Guest Post I did for CanIEatHere.com

For this post I was over at canieathere.com sharing my ideas and tips for parents of kids with food allergies. I mainly share some realistic ideas that any kid would enjoy from the mind of a teenager himself. Sometimes I feel like lunchbox ideas for kids that have food allergies can be extremely boring and have no variety at all. That's why I give my ideas to help you change up lunches and also make lunches easier for you as the parent.

As most of you know, I'm 17 years old, have Celiac Disease, an adrenal disorder, and many other diseases and disorders. Most people would look at me as a normal teenager and would never guess anything is wrong. I know I'm not normal and have a lot of things wrong with me, but at the end of the day I'm a pretty positive guy! A lot of what I do is not on my own and couldn't be done without the support of my girlfriend, Breann, who also has Celiac Disease and many other illnesses like me. It's crazy to think that at this age we found each other and both share the same illnesses. But honestly if I got to choose, I wouldn't ask to deal with it any other way! In this post my girlfriend and I share the illnesses we deal with together and what many people wouldn't know about us from what they see on the outside.

Since school has pretty much started for all kids now, I decided to write a post for something I thought was important. As you all know I'm very passionate about advocating for gluten-free and celiac disease awareness. But another thing I am very passionate about is advocating for healthy eating among teens. A lot of kids and teens are told to eat their vegetables and a certain way from their parents. But honestly a lot of ways kids are told to eat is completely unrealistic. That's why I wrote this post to explain the importance of eating healthy and what simple things can be done to do so for kids! I share all this from my perspective as a teen and I'm really hopeful this can get through to a lot of teens and families as well.

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..

Out of all the things I write about and express on my blog, the thing I talk about the least is my Adrenal Disorder. I know that my blog is called GlutenAway and is meant to be about the gluten-free lifestyle, but I feel like maybe you could get to learn a little more about me and my lifestyle each day as a 16 year old. I'll admit that most of the things I'll explain aren't easy and probably will seem hard to deal with. The fact that I'm physically unable to go to school, play sports, or go to a friends house any time I want may seem like my life wouldn't be enjoyable as a teenager. But really I've just learned to change my priorities over time and still find a way to be truly happy by the end of each day. Hopefully I can give you a better idea of my life as a 16 year old with a rare type of Adrenal Disorder and show you what it's like to live in my shoes each day.

For most of my early childhood I was the type of kid that went to school every day and ate the typical school lunch. Most of which consisted of pizza, burgers, sweetened milk, cookies and foods such as that. Since I was a kid I never really decided what was put on the dinner table, what was in my school lunch, and what I ate each day. I ate whatever was given to me like what most kids in America do as they grow up. But one thing I never considered was exactly what I was eating. Sure it was food, sure it tasted ok to me, but could this be affecting how I work in school and how I eat each day? Of course!

Many of the things I have learned and expressed on my blog couldn't of been done without the support and parenting from my mom. As hard as I imagine being a parent is, having a kid with celiac I know has to be harder. For this post, I actually had the pleasure to be able to guest blog for Jackie Ourman of jackieourman.com!

If there's one thing that couldn't bother me more it's the way the kids eat in this country. Not only are kids putting tons of crap in their body, but their doing it without even knowing. A lot of this is probably all surprising to hear from a 15 year old because honestly, I don't think many other kids my age care or are even aware. There's a lot of things that I feel contribute to why kids are eating the way they are and are not making a change to eat healthy. In this post I'll talk about what I feel contributes to why kids my age eat the way they do and what I think it eventually will lead to in time. Hopefully this will give you a different look at things from how I see them as a 15 year old.

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