My brother and his wife went wheat-free a year or so ago. They're coming to visit. I'll find out the scoop and let you know.

It's all about the carbs.

Glad it going so well, keep up the good work

I'm glad it's going well for you and your husband.

Now, since this is a cooking forum, what are you cooking instead?

Annie

We are still eating most of the same things we always ate, just not using wheat flour products. We are eating less pasta and bread, put we have pancakes every weekend made with Pamela's Pancake and Baking Mix. I have been using almond and coconut flour in desert recipes also. Yesterday I made a Key Lime Pie with a Macaroon Crust instead of a graham cracker crust, it was yummy!

Here is a link that might be useful: Pie recipe found here

It's great, isn't it. My iron levels increased and still are (no longer anemic), My CRP, WBC, and ESR are all within normal range since going gluten free. Granted I still have stay away from dairy and a few other things but not as strictly as gluten. LOL, I feel like I am eating less healthy than before with this high fat diet. Good luck and hope you enjoy it. There are lots of websites for recipe ideas. Here's a favourite at my place...
Flax Cookies
1/2 cup ground flax
> 1/4 cup ground pumpkin seeds
> 2 tbsp pumpkin protein powder (or any protein powder)
> 2 tbsp chia seeds
> 2 tbsp sugar
> 1/2 cup shredded coconut, unsweetened
> 1/3 cup coconut oil
> 1 tbsp vanilla
> 2 eggs
> 2 tbsp chopped raisins or dates
> 3 tbsp chopped chocolate (dark)
> 1/2 tsp baking powder
> 1/2 tsp baking soda
> sprinkle salt
> > 14 minutes at 350.

>
>

That pie looks yummy!

Now since hubby had a heart attack in January they told him to be sure the first item on bread list etc says wheat.

I'll be interested in your progress, fishymom. The Kid has decided she's gluten intolerant...she feels much better, skin problems have cleared up. "Don't you remember how sick I got when I drank beer, Mom?" (Ummmm...notreally....she must have hid it well.)

I was on a rant about it, "I was raised on Wonderbread and cream of mushroom soup casseroles. She was raised on home-grown meat and vegies and homemade whole grain bread. Just doesn't seem right that she's the one with intolerances. If I would have fed her junk would she be resistant? build up a tolerance?"

Dh said, "It's not the same wheat." Ok, point taken, lol.

It's been a grand experiment coming up with food everyone can eat. SIL has Crohn's so that's a whole 'nother clinker in the mix (and he doesn't like coconut, but we're trying to turn him.) Fortunately he is a foodie, so we are all embracing the challenge.

Thanks for the recipes. Cookie8, those cookies look like power food for anyone....I think I'll make a batch for work. I've been collecting odd ingredients and T&T recipes, and trying to mill some alternative flours. It took forever to do brown rice flour, but when it was done, it was way finer than storebought.

I've never had any issues with whole-wheat products. White flour on the other hand does make me feel ill. I don't think wheat in itself is the boogeyman it has been made out to be (unless you have a true allergy and/or suffer from Celiac's). Refined grain products are the culprit.

Slimey, you have no idea how sick wheat made me. I'm not celiac, but I am intolerant. It is an allergy-- at least according to the skin test results. My inflammation increases exponentially when I eat almost any type of grain.
My daughter's friend had terrible acne. When she went gluten free, it was gone. Anyone with an autoimmune disease should at least try giving up wheat, yeast and dairy. The result rocked my world!

I should have made myself more clear. I was referring to your husband, not you.

That must be great news fishymom. It will be 18-months for us in June. I asked hubby if he "misses" having anything, and he said I've done a good job substituting nearly everything we ate before going gluten-free, and some things we love even more.

I feel better than I have in years (wheat = inflammation), and we're hoping to prevent diabetes so the test results caught my attention (hubby lost 2 siblings in the last 5-years - ages 55 and 67 - due to complications from diabetes, and 2 more have diabetes, one severely).

cookie8-

Thanks for sharing the cookie recipe. I'm going to try to get them made tomorrow. You may also like this recipe. It's one of our favorites and I try to keep some in the freezer. They make a pretty good "meal replacement" cookie when we travel.

PEANUT BUTTER CRUNCH COOKIES
Melt together, stir, and let cool:
1 stick butter
3/4 c. peanut butter
Place in a large bowl along with remaining ingredients:
1 t. baking soda
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 c. Unsalted dry-roast peanuts
1/2 c. sunflower seeds (raw or roasted)
1/2 c. almond flour
1/2 c. palm sugar (low-glycemic) - or brown sugar
1/2 c. mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 c. fine-shred unsweetened coconut
1/2 c. cacao nibs (optional)
Use a hand-held electric mixer to blend the mixture. I use a #50 scoop and place dough on 2 parchment-lined sheet pans (40 cookies). Press dough down slightly. Bake in a pre-heated 375-degree F oven for 12-minutes. Allow to sit on pan a minute or two before removing to cooling rack.

-Grainlady

cookie8-

Your recipe for Flax Cookies turned out great and a copy of it quickly made it's way into the BEST OF G-F recipe book. Thanks for sharing it. :-) -Grainlady

I'm glad you liked them. I will try yours out this weekend. Too hot and muggy to turn the oven on here. I had a bad habit of throwing things together and not writing down what I did. I could never recreate anything so lesson learned and if it's a hit, it gets written down right away.

Fishymom, just wait for a year being gluten free - especially for your husband. It just gets better and better.
KatieC, I was raised on white bread and no organic products so I don't think it's a tolerance thing. Mine build up (intolerances) over years and my health got worse and worse. My husband tried to tell me that our kids will become very intolerant if we don't feed them gluten. I asked him if he prefers deteriorating their health slowly instead as it did with me. Yes, they had symptoms of something, rashes, loose stools, tummy aches, etc. Not enough to test them for Celiac (as doctor says) but to say it's "normal". I don't think it is.

Having witnessed so much over the years through family and friends, watching and paying attention to how we respond to different foods and our environment, an allergy test, an elimination diet, stress test, etc., does give clues to better health.

Well worth a trial or total switch, and may need another adjustment in a few years.

I have no trouble with food. My allergy tests have been identical to my fathers. Oak trees, : ). So strange. The rest of the list is minor.
I have a good friend that has been hospitalized three times, 3-5 days, from splinters.
He's a wood worker. A product, sheet form, louan/moranti in thins sheets, 4-6 layers, glued together in opposite directions. The wood used in this sheet can be anything and not known. Crazy.

I sneeze in the morning, once up, for 10 min, then fine all day. My dad the same. He still tries this and that, various methods and squirts and allergy meds. I refuse as not necessary and feel worse from side effects.
I could never blame a victim of ill health searching a way to fell better be it food trials or searching to rid migraines, skin rashes, digestion, etc.
Finding relief can be such a better quality of life.

fishymom - I've been wheat-free for just a week, leading into what will probably turn into a total elimination diet for gluten, soy, etc. Glad to hear it's working for you. Please keep us posted.

I happened to discuss this with a highly respected physical therapist who is a totally science-based person. Her relative is a wheat farmer out west, and one of the few left that grows non-GMO wheat the way it was grown years ago. The irony is that his wheat gets sold overseas, not in the U.S. Go figure. Anyway, she has numerous patients with RA who have seen dramatic improvements after omitting gluten, or at least wheat, from their diets.

Anyway, if anyone here has tips for fast, wheat-free (or gluten-free) breakfasts, I'd love to hear them. That's the one meal I'm struggling with, because I'm so used to relying on bread products. I'm trying not to replace what I'm not eating with gluten-free products that are just as process as their gluten-containing counterparts.

Goldgirl
ideas that we do here:
-bacon and eggs
-eggs and veggies
-smoothies
-avocado
-banana dipped in almond butter with chia, hemp and flax seeds on the side
-quinoa (make a pot and keep in fridge) with coconut oil, almond butter, peanut butter, seeds, -chopped fruit, dried fruit, chopped nuts, endless varieties really
-plain nut butter or coconut oil with seeds and nuts mixed in (a little goes a long way)
-salmon and egg
-rice flakes (hot cereal) with same combos as quinoa
-gluten free toast (Udi's is our favourite brand)
-almond meal based muffins (see paleo websites - they are also low sugar)
I usually don't eat breakfast but do intermittent fasting so I really only have to worry about two meals a day. My kids still eat breakfast so these are our go-tos. If you are doing this for arthritis you should also look at nightshades, dairy and sugar causing inflammation. There are a lot of options without having to buy gluten free processed products.

Thanks cookie! I'm doing it for 30-years of undiagnosed GI issues (IBS, the catchall), and autoimmune thyroid disease (Graves and Hashi's, believe it or not).

I already limit dairy because I'm sensitive to casein - I have a little cream in the one cup of coffee I have each day, and occasional cheese and ice cream. For some reason, regular milk causes me the most problems, but I've never been a milk drinker anyway.

I've read extensively that folks with thyroid issues should avoid nightshades, as well as almonds and spinach, which are apparently goitrogenic foods, although if one's iodine level is okay and one isn't eating huge quantities of these foods, I'm not sure it's really a problem. I was doing a smoothie in the morning that I really liked - spinach/kale, almond milk, dried peanut butter, half a banana, and a few other things. But I can't have calcium within 4 hours of thyroid meds, which I take first thing in the morning, and I forgot that almond milk has calcium - until I noticed that I was going hypo. I'm also not sure about the almond milk and spinach. So I'm trying to come up with new options.

Here are some high protein pancakes that Elery ate while on the 17 Day Diet from Hell. Ugh. I hated that diet. Anyway, his daughter loves these, she's celiac:

Pancakes

1/2 cup organic cottage cheese
2 organic eggs
1/2 tsp bakingpowder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp vanilla

Mix all ingredients in a blender. Heat nonstick pan with medium heat, pour batter and add any fruits like blueberries or apple pieces to it, cook each side or 3-5 min.

I added chives for a savory pancakes, and fruit for a sweeter one. They are best right away, they tend to go flat if you don't eat them immediately, but Elery used them as wraps too.

Annie

Also, a new great recipe:
Pumpkin Waffles (which probably can be pancakes)
1 cup ground almonds
3 eggs (separated)
1/3 cup tapioca or potato starch\
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
rice milk or almond milk to thin (if you have to)
combine everything very well (you want it to be pretty much like a cake mix batter) EXCEPT the egg whites, beat these until holds shape and fold into mix. I made these last week and didn't write it down and should have. They turned out great. Hm, wonder how apple sauce would be instead of the oil? We aren't concerned about fat here so just thought of it now.
Yeah, that dairy thing is a killer for me too. As are nightshades. I seem fine with peppers though.

I have IBS and oatmeal really helps my GI issues. I did a wheat free diet years ago because it was recommended in a book as a way to help severe menstrual cramps and migranes. Apparently wheat has some chemical in it that is inflammatory (not the gluten, since I wasn't on a totally gluten free diet). I was wheat free for three months but eventually went off the diet because I felt oh so much worse. Turned out I had low thyroid and when I started taking thyroid supplements my health dramatically improved. The cramps, not so much but the only thing that has ever helped that was exercise. Anyway, I still try to limit my wheat after that experience. I just love me some wheat products though. I also try to limit dairy. Modern milk is horrible for the gastrointestinal tract. Considering they irradiate milk so much that you can buy it in a cardboard container on the shelf, it is missing all the beneficial bacteria now days. The biggest things I have found that help me are avoiding a lot of the sugar and processed carbs, limiting dairy, and drinking lots of water. But I don't have RA or gluten intolerance, so I feel for those of you that do. Thankfully there are a lot of products out there now for this market. I can't believe the difference between now and when I tried the wheat free diet back in the 90's. My boss is gluten intolerant and she just went to the local pizza place today and got a gluten free pizza, that's how ubiquitous the stuff is nowdays. Great that we have so many dietary options available to us. I'll never forget how nice my co-workers were when I was on that wheat free diet. I had my birthday and they threw me a party at work, complete with jello cake with whipped cream icing! I have a picture of me blowing out the candles on it.

goldgirl-

I live in the middle of wheat country (Kansas) and have been around grain production all my life, have used wheat for making everything from wheatgrass to "wheat meat" and have many varieties in storage (hard winter, hard spring, soft spring, red and white varieties, durum, spelt, Kamut, einkorn, triticale- which is a cross of durum wheat and rye), and have studied the subject quite a bit.

Genetically modified (GM) wheat (when a gene or partial gene sequence was inserted or deleted using gene-splicing technology for herbicide-resistance, or reduction of celiac disease-provoking sequences - as examples) is ONLY being produced in test patches and it's NOT sold or used commercially in the U.S. Nor is it in general production or sold as seed wheat, so your friend doesn't have all her facts straight. What she probably means is that the wheat has been hybridized (crossing different strains to generate new characteristics - such as higher protein, shorter straw, white wheat - which lacks the genes for bran color, etc.), and that is NOT the same as genetic modification, but still has some concerns surrounding it.

Even so-called "heritage" or "heirloom" varieties (such as Turkey Red - which was the first hard winter wheat grown in the late 1870's in Kansas - brought here by German-Russian Mennonites - and Red Fife) have been hybridized through selection, and are different genetically from the early varieties of wheat or wheat-like grasses such as emmer, Kamut, einkorn, and even spelt.

As if going gluten-free wasn't enough of a challenge, many people who avoid gluten also need to avoid dairy. You may want to try recipes using coconut flour, coconut milk, and dairy-free coconut yogurt for the probiotics, instead of almond flour/meal/milk. Coconut flour is a low-carb gluten-free alternative to wheat. I tend to avoid the high-glycemic flours and starches common to many gluten-free baking recipes since we are also trying to avoid diabetes (rampant in hubby's family) by being on a low-glycemic diet.

If you can tolerate oats, there are all kinds of oat-based recipes. Buckwheat is another gluten-free choice for breakfast foods, along with quinoa, amaranth and flax. I also make waffles using sprouted lentils - and that's just a partial list of options.

Coconut, oat, and rice milk can be made at home (along with other kinds of nut and seed milks). I would personally avoid the commercial brands due to sweeteners, stabilizers, thickeners, and other ingredients included in these non-dairy milk products. They are less expensive and easy-to-make at home if you have a high-speed blender. I recently found instructions for making "oat kefir" and "oat yogurt", so they are on my list of things-to-try (mostly out of curiosity).

Check your local library (or through inter-library loan) for copies of:

-Gluten, Wheat, & Dairy Free - a LOVE FOOD production.

-The Spunky Coconut Cookbook - by Kelly V. Brozyna (gluten free, casein free, sugar free)

-Cooking With Coconut Flour - Bruce Fife, N.D.

-The Everything Coconut Diet Cookbook - Anji Sandage with Lorena Novak Bull, RD

You can also find an enormous amount of recipes using coconut flour on-line (see link below). The one down-side to using coconut flour is the large amount of eggs you also need to use. I often make coconut flour muffins and coconut flour bread to use for breakfast.

You may also find some recipes that would work for you by checking Paleo and Low-Carb sites since they both generally avoid grains. Low-Carb recipes often use a lot of protein powder, but I have to limit the amount of protein powders I consume (from all sources - whey, egg white, rice, pea, etc.) because they cause inflammation.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Tropical Traditions