Going Gluten Free / Dairy Free

So this post probably belonged somewhere a few posts back, but it didn't exactly go with the medical updates. I want to get this out there because it's important and our first trip to Whole Foods with the intention on going gluten free was a bit of a disaster because we didn't have a clue what to look for or what was available.

If you are just starting a gluten free diet I hope to save you a lot of headache / money (hopefully) by sharing the products I think are edible and how to save money on them. Because we are also dairy free, unfortunately I won't be able to recommend too many gluten free items that have dairy in it because I haven't been buying those.

Butter! How could I have forgotten to add BUTTER!?!

I started out using Earth Balance Soy Free / Dairy free butter (it's the red label one):

 Then learned about Ghee also known as clarified butter which is made from organic cow milk based butter, only the protein casein and whey has been removed. I first purchased ghee, but at $10 for a small jar I eventually learned how to make it myself!

Now I very very rarely use any vegetable oils, and only use Ghee or Coconut Oil / Butter:

We'll start with breakfast:

Toast - I have tried several Udi's gluten free breads (in the frozen section) some without yeast, some without potato flour, and definitely only those without dairy. I tried a few other brands (bread/food of life brand is my second favorite) but the white bread is my favorite:



I use this bread for making sandwiches and french toast too!

Waffles: The van's brand is pretty terrible but I LOVE the organic Homestyle gluten free waffles by Nature's Path. You can find these in the frozen aisle as well. They are sweetened with pear juice instead of cane sugar which is awesome and smell like real buttery Belgian waffles when toasting in the toaster oven:

Eggs and Bacon:  I now buy cage free, antibiotic free, free range chicken eggs and the Pederson's Natural Farms bacon is the very best bacon I've ever had! It's the only brand that states right on the package: Uncured Cherry Smoked Bacon, Pork raised without the use of antibiotics, or growth stimulants. Ever! No artificial ingredients, No preservatives, No gluten, No lactose, No MSG. Sorry but couldn't find a good picture of either egg brand or bacon brands online.

Cereal: Gorilla munch is awesome and comes in bulk sizes (at my store) and sometimes has a coupon. It tastes very similar to Captain Crunch only it doesn't tear the roof of your mouth off!

These kind of remind me of frosted flakes:



They sell adult brand cereals too that are gluten free, I just haven't found any I really liked yet. I do buy the puffed brown rice and use it in cooking things like apple crisp or peach cobbler so you might want to check it out - it's just bland as a cereal so I add a little brown sugar and Cinnamon when I eat it.

As for milk substitutes I LOVE Almond milk, specifically the 365 brand Organic Unsweetened Almond Milk from Whole foods, and Ben likes the Silk Pure Almond Vanilla flavor. Coconut milks are also yummy and I use those for baking.

Yogurt: There's only one kind we buy and it's SO Delicious. That's literally the brand name because it's that good. I like the plain and vanilla flavors and for the past month (through August 31st) Whole Foods has a $1 off coupon and I buy between 4-6 a week so that's around $20 a month in savings right there). I also use a store coupon for the So Delicious Coconut Kefir drink (vanilla flavor) and mix a couple spoonfuls of the kefir (natural probiotic) into the yogurt and this is a wonderful breakfast (or dessert). I like to add organic frozen blueberries and Enjoy Life chocolate chips to it or a 1/4 cup Gluten Free Cranberry Granola by Udi's. YUM!!!

I have a few recipes for making gluten free pancakes, homemade blueberry or chocolate cranberry muffins, pancakes and banana bread / muffins, but won't go through posting all that here. If you want to make breakfast foods from scratch I recommend ordering any / all of these cookbooks because they not only offer the recipes but go into great detail over WHY it's healthy to incorporate more coconut into your diet and the benefits of removing gluten, etc:

http://www.amazon.com/Internal-Bliss-Cookbook-following-Psychology/dp/0615409318/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1310862967&sr=8-5

http://www.amazon.com/Recipes-Specific-Carbohydrate-Diet-Lactose-Free/dp/159233282X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310862923&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Cooking-Coconut-Flour-Gluten-Free-Alternative/dp/0941599884/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1310863050&sr=1-1

Lunch and dinner:
I make our lunch and dinners from scratch (for the large part) and use a mixture of Hol Grain Brown rice bread crumbs and Better batter seasoned flour mix for making chicken nuggets / fish sticks. I also use coconut flakes and crushed pecans for breading too.

seasoned chicken fingers

coconut fish sticks

pecan crusted salmon

Once you learn to make your own breaded chicken you can add a marinara sauce to make a chicken parmesean or a orange preserves (with a touch of white pepper, sweet red chili sauce or whatever spices you like) and can make a chinese style orange chicken:

orange style chicken

We just LOVE the seasoned flour at Better Batter and have used it on chicken and mahi mahi or halibut and it's better (not to mention healthier) than any dinner at a restaurant!

seasoned flour mahi mahi

seasoned flour fried chicken

If you are just starting out and aren't ready to take on cooking just yet, Amy's gluten free / dairy free mac n cheese is the ONLY mac n cheese that I've found to be edible and it's found in the frozen food section:

and Ian's chicken nuggest and fish sticks are also in the frozen food section:

It's very expensive to buy these foods premade though so if you aren't good at cooking, I'd suggest you learn to cook unless you have unlimited funds to spend on these preprepared foods.

Planning a gluten free / dairy free lunch and dinner is in a way easier for me than breakfast, since raw meats, fruits and vegetables are naturally gluten free. More and more items that are naturally gluten free are now proud to display a gluten free logo on their product label. Be careful with any prepackages meats because gluten can be hidden inside the ingredients as a filler. Boar's Head deli meats are now displaying which ones are gluten free. We sometimes buy hot dogs (because they are easy) and Apple Gate makes uncured ones that are nitrate and nitrite free (as well as gluten free / casein free of course!)

Pasta: I really love the Tinkyada brand noodles, De Boles makes the best lasagna noodles, and Lundberg's Penne pasta is amazing! All of these brands make Brown Rice pasta which I think is so close to the real thing you can't even tell the difference. Pasta's that use Quinoa or Corn (to me) tend to be gritty, off tasting, and crumble / fall apart more easily.

Tinkyada tri-colored veggie pasta with ground beef marinara

Pizza: Udi's makes a gluten free pizza crust in the frozen food aisle but because we don't have a cheese substitute we like we just eat it with lots of vegetables on it. Am going to try out a new cauliflower pizza crust soon so will let you know if that's any good.

Dairy free vegetable pizza

We try to only eat grass fed, organic, antibiotic free, hormone free meats and organic fruits and vegetables as well. We only eat wild caught fish too.

Snacks: Glutino Crackers, Synder's Gluten free Pretzels, Corn chips and Plantain Chips are the staple snacks in our home.

Dessert: I make all of our muffins, cookies, brownies, cakes and treats by scratch using Rice flours, coconut flours, almond flour, tapioca flour, sorghum sweet flour, garbanzo bean flour and quinoa flour. I have had WONDERFUL experiences using BetterBatter's flour (and Seasoned Flour for fried foods is amazing) and am interested in trying out their cake mixes. I have not found ANY cookies or treats that are worth the cost for the taste. I use the Enjoy Life chocolate chips that I listed above in my cookies, brownies and cakes and have not had much success using the cake mixes (the vanilla ones taste too much like corn bread to me). If you know of a gluten free / dairy free / soy free cake mix / dessert mix / premade cookies, etc that is yummy feel free to pass it along and email me at TheVeryBreastThing.gmail.com

All of the desserts below use a combination of flours but I'll list the main flour used in each one:

Homemade chocolate chip, snickerdoodle and sugar cookies using mostly rice, tapioca and sorghum flours

Coconut flour and rice flour chocolate brownies using Nestle 100% cocoa powder and Enjoy Life chips

Almond flour and rice flour cinnamin walnut coffee cake

Rice and garbanzo bean flour chocolate cupcakes

My favorite easy dessert that requires NO COOKING is Ice Cream, and Purely Decadent is FABULOUS! I love love love the vanilla bean, cookie dough and mint chocolate.

Probiotic Drinks: Good Belly has a couple that are dairy free and are not bad, but Bio-K is pretty nasty.

Some other products I tried and REALLY didn't like:

Nearly every premade cookie and many other crackers. Daiya rice milk cheese. Rice Vegan cheese was slightly better, but only just. They sell an Almond based cheese which is actually REALLY good except in the ingredients it lists Casein Protein (cow milk protein) which really ticked me off because what's the point of making a dairy free cheese if you're going to add cow milk back into it? Tofutti cream cheese is pretty good only it's made of soy and we don't do soy either :( I was not impressed, at all, with the Bob's Red Mill's biscuit mix or pizza dough mix. The buckwheat cereal and pancake mix was just plain gross. If I remember any other brands I went through, or have a bad experience with any new ones that I try out, I'll add them to this list.


Well hopefully if you're just starting out you will have a least an idea of what's out there and won't have to waste money on products that you know nothing about! Remember to ALWAYS read labels because most things will state allergy alerts. For example, nuts are naturally gluten free, but the bulk almonds sold at Sam's club (members mark brand) state: Manufactured and packaged on equipment that is shared with wheat, dairy, soy, etc or something along those lines so because of cross-contamination I won't buy those for my family.

I feel so fortunate that more and more gluten free foods are available and believe that as more doctors understand the health problems gluten is causing individuals with sensitivities / intolerances the more we will see gluten free foods take over! Thank God we live in a time that makes it easier for us to take better care of our families. I wish you happy shopping and hope you will find it easier to go gluten free after becoming familiar with some of the brands I trust. If you ever want to email me a recipe or brand you love please do so!