Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Far from gluten free

Healthy is one thing, but marketers and manufacturers are going nuts and they are making things very hard on my family.
The health-food craze is good, and hopefully introduces whole grains to children across the nation — I just wish they would stop introducing them to my child because she has a gluten allergy.
According to WebMD, "Gluten, the protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, is the common denominator in most of the grain-based products we eat, such as cereals, breads, and pasta."
Big sister can eat some bread products, the highly processed breads don't bother in moderation. Plain white Wonderbread or its generic equivalent are fine if she just has one grilled cheese. But when you add some whole grains in there she gets hives and a nasty belly ache.
The problem is everyone is adding whole grains to everything. Many schools (including the one she attends) now serve whole wheat buns with hamburgers and hot dogs.
There isn't a whole lot she can actually eat in the cafeteria line. We get around this by sending a lunch with her to school most every day.
It isn't until you start looking that you realize how many things have glutens in them.
WebMD lists a few: Salad dressings, Cold cuts, Egg substitutes, Instant flavored rice mixes, Flavored potato chips, Imitation crab (surimi), Some herbal teas, Licorice and some chocolates.
That's right, some chocolates.
We've spent a lot of years now, reading every package and acting like detectives just to keep our daughter healthy and to find things she can eat. (Mostly this ends up being the beautiful wife because I'm no where near as good at it as she is.)
Recently, my Beautiful Wife broke down and ordered a decent-sized box of gluten-free food from an Internet site. I'll let you know how that goes in future posts.

1 comment:

FibroHubby said...

I feel your pain, once my wife went gluten free, we had to pour over the ingredients for everything in the house!