Gluten Free Mom

Celiac Disease in the News - Elisabeth Hasselbeck's New Book

Elisabeth Hasselbeck

If you are tied into the gluten free community, you know there is a lot of buzz right now about Elisabeth Hasselbeck's new book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide .  I have not had a chance to read the book yet, but apparently it includes some misperceptions about celiac disease. Wednesday night on the Celiac List Serv Elaine Monarch of the Celiac Disease Foundation posted this letter in response to Elisabeth's new book:

Celiac Colleagues:

I am writing to call your attention to the current publicity surrounding the
new book, The G-free Diet, A Gluten-Free Survival Guide by Elisabeth
Hasselbeck, co-host of The View. While it is important to call attention
to celiac disease, the information must be accurate - the inaccuracies in
this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs and to those
yet to be diagnosed if people self diagnose and start eating GF. Our mission
is to assist in getting people accurately diagnosed and the message in this
book could defeat this mission. It appears that this book is being marketed
as a fitness diet - eat g-free and feel so much better. Celiac is
incorrectly referred to as an allergy not an autoimmune disease.

The GF diet is the medically mediated prescription that controls the
condition for a diagnosed celiac. Several items in the book are misleading
and inaccurate and place further limitations on the GF diet. The
gluten-free lifestyle is a lifelong commitment for the diagnosed celiac, not
an option, not a fad diet - adhering to the GF lifestyle requires patience
and persistence. This lifestyle can not be trivialized.

Thank you.

Elaine Monarch

Celiac Disease Foundation
Founder & Executive Director
13251 Ventura Blvd. Suite 1
Studio City, CA 91604

Like I said, I have not read the book but I did watch the interview of Elisabeth on Larry King Live last night.  I thought she did a good job, but you can click here to watch the interview yourself and reach your own conclusions.  She begins talking about celiac disease 12:55 into the interview.

Martha Stewart Magazine:

On a less controversial note, Martha Stewart Magazine also had an article on gluten free living which includes recipes for a delicious looking chocolate cake.  Thanks to the Internet you do not have to buy the magazine to read the article.  Just click here and it will take you to Martha's website.

Health Magazine

I was waiting for my daughter flipping through a Health Magazine and ran across an article on addressing causes of tiredness in women.  Guess what?  Celiac disease was mentioned as one of the causes.  Sorry I could not find this article on line. 

What about in your area?

On-line Grocery Scans Products for GF

I have returned from vacation and was planning a lovely post on how great Mexico was, but ran across this in the news this morning and had to share it.

This is so cool - Peapod is an on-line grocery store.

Peapod delivers to 1,500 zip codes and over 12,700,000 households in the following metro areas:

Boston Cape Cod, Mass. Fairfax County, Va. Montgomery County, Md. Washington, D.C. Cromwell, Conn. Fairfield County, Conn. Hartford, Conn. New Haven, Conn. Long Island, N.Y. Mt. Vernon, N.Y. Medford, N.Y. Rhode Island Chicago Baltimore Watchung, N.J. Milwaukee, WI W. Danbury, Conn.

Peapod features over 8,000 products in a range of categories: produce; meat and seafood; deli items; prepared foods; natural and organic foods; Kosher foods; office and school supplies; seasonal items; and video products; pet items; health and beauty aids; wine, beer and spirits (in specific markets) and private labels from Peapod by Stop & Shop and Peapod by Giant So what is so cool about that?  The company now has what they call a  Nutrifilter which you can use to determine the contents of their food products, including gluten.  Here is a news article on Nutrifilter.  According to Peapod's website, the filter will: screen out all foods containing gluten based on the manufacturer's packaging claim. Products that do not normally contain gluten are not necessarily included

Even though they do not deliver to this area yet, I had to try it out and not on something easy like bread.  So I tried chicken broth and some dairy products and it seemed to work great.  However, when I tried gum and candy, there were some items that I know  are gluten free that did not show up as so.  I'd be curious to see if anyone else has tried this out and what they think.

Take 5 Minutes to make A Difference

We all know the numbers - only one percent of the estimated 3 million Americans who have celiac disease have been diagnosed.  Aren't we lucky to be part of that one percent. 

Let's help raise some awareness!!!

**Be a Celiac Advocate:

Send an email to your legislator urging them to  support H.Con.Res. 70 -- Celiac Awareness Legislation.  This legislation was introduced by Rep. Nita Lowey to make May National Celiac Disease Awareness Month.  More awareness benefits us all in the terms of funding research, more insurance coverage, better labeling and more gluten free food options. 

Follow this link to be a Celiac Advocate .  I just did it and it actually took me less than 30 seconds!!  Forward this link to your celiac community.

**Say Hi to Mary

  Mary with one of the Jonas Brothers

Mary is a High School Student from Ohio who has recently diagnosed with celiac disease.  She has designed a web site for celiac awareness as part of a school project.   

Follow this link to sign Mary's guest book and let her know just how huge and loving the celiac community is.

**Something Fun for You

Okay, you have done all of this clicking, now it is time to reward yourself and support our favorite cause at the same time.

Go to Make Mine Gluten Free and shop for the latest in GF fashion accessories - I really like the aprons and the canvas shopping bags.  No, I have absolutely no financial interest in this website. 

   

Parent TV News Story About Kids and Celiac Disease

Parent TV features a news story on kids and celiac disease including an interview with Dr. Green the Director of The Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University and author of the book, Celiac Disease, a Hidden Epidemic.

 

Enzyme May Treat Gluten Intolerance

Here is an article you might find interesting: Enzyme May Treat Gluten Intolerance

An enzyme has been recently identified that is able to degrade gluten in a laboratory simulation of the gastrointestinal tract. If clinical trials bear out the findings, adding the enzyme to gluten-containing meals "might eliminate gluten toxicity, thus offering patients the possibility of abandoning (occasionally) their strict gluten-free diet," write the authors

For the rest of the story, follow this link Gluten Enzyme.

2008 Celiac Conferences

Sorry I have been absent,

the "dog" has been biting at my rosebush (read the post below to understand) and sniped it completely to the ground,

in other words, my newly revised website that I spent hours on,

crashed,

disappeared,

vanished.

I am not a webmaster -

thankfully, living near Microsoft, I have friends who are,

and after a few (okay a lot of emails and calls), my website is back up.

Now, looking forward to 2008.

I have been collecting information on upcoming Celiac Conferences. 

I have heard they are wonderful places to connect with others with similar diet restrictions, extremely educational and you get to sample a lot of gluten free food.

Here is what I have found so far.

Please pass along any others you know of:

• April 3-6, 2008

"The Higher Truth of Health"
A Health Conference to Educate, Entertain
and Enlighten You Taos Convention Center   -    Taos, New Mexico
Brought to you by the Intestinal Health Institute
and Dr. Kenneth Fine

https://www.homepagetx.com/ihi/

• May 3, 2008

Celiac Disease Foundation presents its Annual Education Conference & Food Faire on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, California at the Moseley-Salvatori Conference Center.

http://www.celiac.org/newsEvents/conference2008.php

• May 9-11, 2008 

2008 VICTORIA CONFERENCE
T.G.I.F. The Gluten Intolerance Festival

The next national conference of the Canadian Celiac Association National to be held in beautiful Victoria, British Columbia. May 9-11. 2008.    http://www.victoriaceliac.org/

• June 6 and 7, 2008

GIG Annual Education Conference  Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas

From someone on ListServ:  You absolutely can't go wrong in attending the GIG National Education Conference in the Dallas/Fort Worth, TX area.  The lineup of speakers is outstanding with almost all of the major researchers, doctors, cookbook authors in regards to celiac disease/gluten intolerance and the GF diet, and reps from the American Celiac Disease Alliance on top of that.  What more could you ask for?  We're also planning wonderful food and fun.  Come meet GF friends from all over the U.S.  Register at www.gluten.net 

• October 17-19, 2008

   

31st Annual CSA Conference in La Vista, Nebraska

http://www.csaceliacs.org/Conferences/2008AnnualCSAConference.php

• September 11 – 13, 2008

XIII International Celiac Disease Symposium 2008

The 13th World celiac meeting will take place in Amsterdam

• November 3, 2008

Children’s Hospital Celiac Conference in Columbus, Ohio with Dr. Fasano a Professor of Pediatrics and Director, Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at the University Of Maryland School Of Medicine in Baltimore. He is Medical Director for the Center for Celiac Research at the University. 

  http://www.nationwidechildrens.org/gd/applications/controller.cfm?page=275&cid=94&type=1&CatID=3

It would be a great excuse to go to Amsterdam,

but I am leaning towards Victoria BC because it is close, beautiful and has lots of great GF dining options and

Dallas/TX because I have heard this is a great conference and I have lots of family in Texas.

www.glutenfreemom.com

I love the following.

It is from the blog of Curtis Ann Matlock.

She actually has lots of wonderful things to say,

but this one keeps popping back in my head:

I have a rosebush that my grandmother started from a twig she plucked from a bush at her mother’s home some sixty years ago.  When we sold my grandmother’s home, I dug up that very same bush and hauled it eighteen hundred miles to plant at my home, where it has flourished.

I keep starting new bushes from it, and last spring I took one of those little beginners a thousand miles to plant at my son’s new home. The small thing instantly began growing with pretty shoots and verdant green leaves, which son’s dog promptly chomped off.

Eventually the dog ate the entire bush– yes, thorns and all–right down to the ground! Now the dog is gone (She tended to want to chew on neighbors and delivery people, too, so a new home with a fence had to be found.) and, if you look closely at where the bush is planted, you can see the promise of green life stirring yet again.

That’s me and this blogging site. Each time I put forth a new piece of writing here, along comes life and chomps me right off.  Such is the way with any good endeavor, anything that is creative in nature. Resistance, Steven Pressfield names it in his book, The War of Art, saying that the more important the action is to our particular soul’s growth, the more Resistance we will encounter while we pursue it. He capitalizes Resistance, giving it personification.

There is always another chance…This thing called failure is not the falling down but staying down.   — Mary Pickford

The thing is to keep getting up and trying again. You will get somewhere, and very often it is far further and in a direction more grand than you ever imagined. My efforts at this blog have led me to decide to install a blog at my own url. Easy everyone said. Ha! But, oh, what an adventure! And often I think of that little rosebush, and smile.

So too it has been with my website, Gluten Free Mom.com. 

I would set aside a day to work on it, and no sooner did I sit down at my computer than the school would call to say one of my children was sick.

I would sit aside a week night to work on it, and my husband would have to stay at work late.

But I keep persisting (sometimes into late in the night) and here it is,

at least the introductory version.

My intent is only to help others - to freely share the wealth of information I continue to gather on the gluten free lifestyle.

My roses are anyone and everyone that I might help in the smallest way -

They make the most beautiful bouquet. 

This is just the introductory version - life does not stop so there is always more to come.

So, for now, here it is:

gluten free mom.com.

American Family Physician Article on Celiac Disease

Not wanting to be too serious during the holiday season, but this is a link to a great article on Celiac Disease.

It is the December 15th edition of American Family Physician. 

American Family Physician Article on Celiac Disease.

I think it is sometimes easy for extended-family members to forget how serious celiac disease can be (especially when they see how healthy you are now that you are on the gluten-free diet),so I forwarded this article to members of our family. 

Celiac Disease in the News

It is so great to see that awareness of celiac disease is on the rise across the country.

Raising Awareness of Celiac Disease in Illinois:

http://media.www.dailyvidette.com/media/storage/paper420/news/2007/11/15/News/Ssid-Raises.Awareness.On.Quad.For.Celiac.Disease-3102755.shtml

From The Street.com, Big Firms Taking a Slice of the Gluten Free Pie

http://www.thestreet.com/s/big-firms-take-a-slice-of-gluten-free-pie/newsanalysis/food-beverage/10387573.html?puc=_tscrss

Building a Company on Gluten Free Food from Baltimore:

http://www.examiner.com/a-1056826~Building_a_company_on_gluten_free_cooking.html?cid=rss-Baltimore

Learning to Cope from Ludington, MI:

http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news.php?story_id=38223

Celiac disease in general from Cincinnati:

http://news.cincypost.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071102/LIFE/711020350

Celiac Disease Becoming Prominent from Syracuse:

http://www.9wsyr.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=12ade2fa-89fa-4b60-9c3d-df9f90c20c34&rss=112

Living with Celiac Disease from Boston:

http://www.myfoxboston.com/myfox/pages/News/Detail?contentId=5033726&version=1&locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&pageId=3.5.1

Gluten Free Diet is Tasty from Rapid City http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2007/11/26/news/features/doc4733294456153972224207.txty:

Lobbying for GF Girl Scout Cookies

As we all know, this is the time of year when Girl Scout Cookies go on sale. Being a former Girl Scout Cookie Mom, we gorged on these cookies in the past.  Now, however, it is always hard when our daughter sells the cookies but can't eat any herself.  We are going to spend this weekend trying to make Gluten Free Girl Scout cookies and I will post the results on Monday with any recipes that are successful. 

In the mean time, email the bakers for GSA and encourage them  to make an allergy free cookie.  You can email them at abcbakers@interbake.com.  FYI, the following is the response from GSA:

Thank you for your inquiry regarding gluten free and wheat free products. Our Research & Development department is constantly working on new products and ways to make the Girl Scout cookies that are good for everyone.  I will pass your comments along and hopefully something will come out in the future.