gluten free familyA mum's blog about gluten-free living in Australia

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Just a few years ago, gluten free muesli was a dried cardboard affair with a hodge-podge of odd tasting grains – some of which were so crunchy you could lose a tooth or two if you chewed with too much enthusiasm.

Oh how the times have changed! Now there is a smorgasbord of yummy brands to pick from – offering fabulous texture and taste in what is one of my favourite breakfast staples.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Food for Health gluten free muesli (right).

Breakfast happens to be a favourite meal of mine – but it all became so much more complicated when we had to stop eating gluten.  Bacon and eggs is never quite the same without a round of hot, buttered toast, and my favourite cereals all dropped off the menu when wheat fell out of favour in our home.

But like all things, we have learned to adapt – and a few new products on the market have helped us to bring some of the yum factor back into brekky. Here is a round up of some of our favourites. Read the rest of this entry »

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Vitarium crumpets

Ahhh the hot English treat that tastes as good with plain butter as any spread you can think of. Yes, its been a long time since I bought a packet of those home from the supermarket.

But all that changed last week after Vitarium sent me a box of their gluten free crumpet mix and asked me to give it a go.

I’ve seen it on the supermarket shelves and never quite had the courage to test it out, but with the royal nuptials on Friday night I decided there could be no better time to whip up an experimental batch for the family to munch on throughout the ceremony. Read the rest of this entry »

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We did not shirk all of our blogging duties over the Christmas break. We remained vigilant in our search for hot new GF products with the potential to fill our hearts and our pantries. Here are a few recent sightings: Read the rest of this entry »

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Every so often we unearth a new gluten free product that makes a big improvement to our quality of life.

Lately, however, it is some older products that have been reinvented or distributed in a new way that have proved to be our saviour – and it is the reinvention of two new breakfast staples that has me all a-flutter this week.

Rice puffs
Our big breakfast discovery for the week are these “new and improved” rice puffs from Freedom Food. We tried this brand a few years ago – but there was something amiss with the texture and taste so we swiftly moved on to Nature’s Path Crispy Rice, which we have been eating happily ever since.

Only problem is they are hard to find – and our local IGA only has them in stock sporadically so we need to buy up a truckload when we see them. Read the rest of this entry »

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Back from another weekend away, and thanks to some handy self catering we managed not to fall of the gluten free wagon even once. Not knowingly at least.

Of course with kiddies in the car and a long stint on the freeway it becomes almost impossible to dodge the mighty Maccas when coming and going from our weekend hideaway – and we found ourselves driving through those golden arches on more than one occasion this weekend.

Gluten free food is not a traditional focus for hamburger restaurants, but the good thing with the big chains is that once you get to know their menu, you can at least have some type of assurances about what you are eating.

Lucky for us when we last checked, McDonalds french fries in Australia were officially gluten free (although it is worth noting that not all restaurant chips are) and we don’t seem to have any trouble with them at all.  [UPDATE Sept 27 2012: A reader recently wrote in to say her son had reacted to chips recently - and she had discovered that not all McDonalds fry their chips in a dedicated vat. The company told her you need to check with each outlet individually to check on this - disappointing!!].

And while McDonalds bricks & mortar is not the simplest place to hunt down gluten free info, the company has published fairly comprehensive food sensitivity charts, ingredients and nutritional information on its website. Read the rest of this entry »

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Are oats gluten free?

We have been avoiding traditional porridge and all things oaty for a good while now.

But recently I read that oats do not actually contain gluten, despite their usual inclusion in the list of foods to avoid for the gluten intolerant.

Having scraped into the bin the soggy, uneaten remains of every single gluten free cereal on the market, I am more than keen to put porridge back on the family breakfast menu. So what’s the score?

I’ve done some digging and this is what I found out:

Studies conflict on the topic but the upshot is that oats are okay for some people with ceoliac disease and not for others. The problem is there is no way at present to predict who will and who won’t react. And that is why oats appear on all of those lists.

The reason for the reaction to oats in some people is that while oat protein, called avenin, is different, it does have a similar sequence to the toxic protein sequences found in wheat, barley and rye.

And then there is the other problem of contamination. Oats are often grown in rotation with wheat which means a percentage slips through. There is also the potential for contamination in storage, transport and processing. Because of this, most oats can’t be labelled gluten free.

People newly diagnosed with ceoliac disease are therefore advised to stay off oats for at least the first year of being on a gluten free diet.

Those who are gluten intolerant have a little more leeway to experiment. And given oats are considered one of the most nutritious grains, that is what I now plan to do.

[UPDATE: experiment was a spectacular failure. For the record, it seems to have the same effect as gluten on us]

MB

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