You have celiac. Me too. That bites. So get over it, one bite at a time.
Makes me sick too...
Peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter peanut butter
There. I said it ten times fast.
But does it make me sick? Yes.
Why? I have no idea.
What say you?
My Toaster
I have my own toaster. It’s way better than their toaster.
When my toaster does push ups, the earth moves.
My toaster can kill two stones with one bird.
My toaster can beat up their toaster. With one burner tied behind it’s back.
My toaster makes crumbs that turn into yummy, golden doughnut holes. Maple glazed in fact.
Other than all of that, the best thing about my toaster is that no wheat worshiping, un-celiac, gluten tolerant people can use it. You see, we have two toasters in our kitchen. Mine and theirs. They’re on opposite sides of the kitchen. They never, ever speak to each other. I’m very proud of my toasters’ anti-social tendencies.
These crumbs are gluten free!
One of the first adjustments we made to our kitchen when I was diagnosed with celiac disease was to set up a system of dueling toasters. Looking back, that $20 was a much better investment than the Tie-Dye Snuggie I bought in the same visit to Wal-Mart. I make my own special Udi’s bagels, cheese toast, Glutino English Muffins, and whatever else I feel like baking without worry of cross contamination. The rest of my family continues to insist on poisoning themselves with gluteny stuff that goes in their toaster, but I don’t care. Really, I don’t.
If you’ve been diagnosed with celiac or some other gluten intolerance, do yourself a big favor. Be selfish and get your own toaster!
P.S. Remember to train house guests to use the right toaster!
Gluten Free Breakfast at McDonald's
Sounds a little scary doesn’t it?
As you may know from previous posts, I am an ultra-sensitive celiac and apparently have been blessed with amazing gluten detection superpowers. So when it comes to eating any kind of food in any kind of public establishment, I’m positively skeptical.
It turns out that McDonald’s Eggs and McDonald’s Breakfast Sausage are both gluten free. So are their burgers (minus buns of course) but we’ll cover that in a separate post. It goes without saying that their biscuits and english muffins are not. Neither are the hash browns.
Over the years, I have found and fine tuned easy ways to order things that I know to be gluten free without going through the whole explanation of celiac disease, gluten, food allergies, and twenty minutes worth of medical science explanation. One of the shortcuts I used to use at McDonald’s was to order a Big Breakfast meal without the biscuit. I like to order a coffee so paying the combo price while throwing away the biscuit was not that bad a deal. Also, almost always, the hash browns are served in a separate paper hash brown baggie, so there was little risk of cross contamination there. The gotcha in this plan was that far to often (for me anyway) someone in the kitchen would see “Big Breakfast” on their monitor, assemble it complete with biscuit, and then notice the “no biscuit” modifier. So my biscuit would be removed from the platter while leaving a trail of poisonous crumbs of doom for me to eat with my eggs and sausage. Bad plan. My gluten free breakfast was not so gluten free anymore.
So here’s the trick. Every McDonalds that I have encountered allows you to purchase side orders of both eggs and sausage. There’s a button on the cash register for it, and so far, no one has even given me a puzzled look when I ask for it. Maybe I’m the only one that didn’t know that little secret (highly likely) but it sure does make gluten free eating at McDonald’s easier and safer.
You see, when you order eggs and/or sausage as a side item, you reduce the risk of someone just ‘removing’ a biscuit and/or hash browns from the plate. That’s where I’ve gotten into trouble in the past. In the hustle and bustle of a morning rush kitchen, things tend to get lined up and its easy to fill an order for a Big Breakfast without biscuit by simply removing the biscuit from a regular order. And these leaves crumbs and a high probability of cross contamination.
If you order the side item, yours is prepared special – just eggs and just sausage. Most of the time my eggs and sausage are delivered in separate burger boxes. Once in a while, they are put together in the same tray normally used to serve a big breakfast. I don’t really care either way, as in any case I always look for crumbs or other evidence that mine was a modified and fully biscuitted meal.
Enjoy your fast food! More or less.
I hate going to restaurants. Especially when I’m traveling on business.
There you are with a bunch of peers from the office, partners, or customers and you get to interrupt the order taking process with a 17 minute grilling of the server.
Are your steaks marinated?
What else do you cook on the grill?
Am I going to die if I eat here?
What else is on the plate? Onion straws, fried items, sauces, condensed gluten dust?
Do you have any reason to want to harm me?
How exactly are your mashed potatoes prepared?
Is any pan coating spray used in preparation?
Are your sauteed vegetables prepared with oil, real butter, or a plastic facsimile of butter?
What seasonings are added to grilled items?
Have you sterilized your hands since last handling bread?
And so on…
Meanwhile, your business associates have either fainted from malnutrition or quietly left via the back door to find another restaurant.
But sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. This evening for instance. My hotel in Salt Lake City is right across the street from a Romano’s Macaroni Grill. Yep, a pasta place. Brilliant Tom. Let’s go try to eat there without getting sick. Maybe for dessert I could hit an Atlanta Bread Company or something.
Anyway, as there were no other choices within easy walking distance, I poked my head in and asked if by chance they had a gluten free menu. And yes, I was embarrassed to ask this question at a pasta place.
As a matter of fact they do – and it’s very well done. Unlike many companies who are more concerned with writing endless disclaimers than useful information, Romano’s offered a factual, current, and quite useful gluten free menu. In fact, their web site offers a PDF guide that covers about 8 different food sensitivity categories. You can find it here.
To make a long story short, I ordered a great meal and felt quite safe doing it. Check this out:
Eating Gluten Free at Macaroni Grill
Strip steak.
Lightly sauteed spinach.
Roasted garlic cloves.
Fresh rosemary just for fun. And it smelled pretty.
Mmmmm.
I was impressed.
Kudo’s to Romano’s for doing a great job of communicating useful information about the food they serve and making it easy for us celiacs and other food sensitivity sufferers.
I’ll be back!
Disclaimer: The writers of Celiac Bites assume no liability for any consequences related to the use of enhanced server interrogation techniques outlined below.
Recently I wrote about Dying, I mean, Dining Out and the challenges of eating in restaurants safely. That got me thinking about the “usual” questions that I ask servers when I recklessly endanger my life eat out at restaurants. Here are a few ideas to get you started:
I would love to hear what y’all check for when dining out so please let me know!
I have fallen into the time sucking addiction known as Twitter (find me at twitter.com/celiacbites) and every day I run across someone who has just been diagnosed with Celiac. Most are just as confused and lost as I once was, wondering if they will ever be able to survive without Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Pop-Tarts. 
If you have followed this blog, you may have noticed I have a thing for Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Pop-Tarts. But I’m not bitter about NEVER BEING ABLE TO EAT THEM AGAIN! Sorry for that, I’m OK now. Not bitter, not bitter, not bitter, not bitter.
As I have referenced in earlier posts, learning to eat absolutely gluten free is a long and complex process. It’s not just eliminating bread and flour. Those pesky Viking descendants – the gliadins – have managed to infiltrate just about every food product known to man, including Pop-Tarts. You simply are not going to become an expert at maintaining a gluten free lifestyle for a good six months. Trust me, you will make mistakes and gluten yourself. Plenty of times.
The problem I hope to help you solve with this post is how to manage the gap between your first post-diagnosis hunger pangs and the end of your gluten free 
learning curve, however long that may be. You see, about four hours, maybe six, after your diagnosis, you are going to be HUNGRY. If you’re like me, you may have been HUNGRY for a long time as a result of celiac induced malnutrition. Learning an effective gluten free diet in a few hours is not a realistic option. And you can’t really go on a water and kiwi diet for the next six months either.
The trap that most newly diagnosed Celiacs fall into is immediately trying to start with an exclusive diet as opposed to an inclusive diet. By exclusive, I mean starting with the universe of available foods and then excluding, or ruling out, things that you can no longer eat. There are two main problems with this approach. First, it’s really depressing for your first thoughts about your new lifestyle to be focused on all the things you can’t eat. Second, you simply are not going to know all the intricacies of which foods and ingredients are in fact gluten free. You will get sick. A lot. And that bites. Trust me, I can feel your pain brother (or sister.)
After trying to start with an exclusive approach to eating, and failing miserably, I had my Duh! moment. 
Why not turn my approach (and frown) upside down and start with a universe of zero “safe” foods and add to the list things that are absolutely gluten free. Over time, as I learned more, I could add to my “safe” list. This approach virtually eliminated my gluten incident frequency while allowing me a series of small “victories” as I learned new things that I could enjoy. It’s all a matter of positive versus a negative perspective. After much deliberation, I have concluded that a positive perspective is, like, way better. Or as my kids would say, the positive outlook is totally beast.
Basic building blocks of an inclusive diet:
Fresh meats, poultry, and seafood. Fresh is the key word here.
Not can fresh, but raw fresh. Consider anything pre-packaged in plastic or that contains an ingredient list as suspect. This includes deli meats until you verify them. Beware of anything that could be pre-marinated or pre-seasoned. Beware of anything frozen as well. Don’t eat Spam. Mainly because it’s just, well, Spam.
Rice. It’s a good thing that I love rice, because I eat a ton of it. And I am talking clear plastic bag, cooked at home rice – not the San Francisco stuff that comes in boxes! No trolleys for you! Depending on your current condition, you may or may not be able to put some real butter on it. Whatever your feelings about Fabio,
Fabio the Butter Man
stay away from fake butter junk that comes in tubs. If you can’t do dairy yet, try a little pure olive oil with some Kosher salt – it’s not too bad of a substitute. For breakfast, I make home made rice cereal, which is basically regular white rice, butter, and pure maple syrup or pure brown sugar. This allows me to put a lot little extra brown sugar on there to compensate for my LOSS OF BROWN SUGAR AND CINNAMON POP-TARTS! Check the labels on the maple syrup and brown sugar to make sure there are no other ingredients!
Fresh fruits and veggies. Again, stay away from anything processed. Get the stuff you have to put in your own plastic bag in the produce section!
Eggs. Fresh eggs are a staple for me. There are lot’s of ways to prepare them and a little fresh butter or olive oil for cooking is just peachy. Making large batches of hard boiled eggs is a particularly convenient way to deal with snacks, lunches at work, etc.
The suggestions above assume that you personally pulled these things off the store shelves and prepared them. If you eat the same things from a restaurant, you have lost the certainty that the ingredients are pure and absolutely gluten free. You have also opened a big door number three with cross contamination behind it.
As you start to heal, you’ll be able to add other safe items to your list such as cheeses, dairy, some sweets, and more. I will comment on that more in later posts.
So you are off to a rock ‘n roll gluten free diet, but you’re not quite out of the woods yet. Join us next time when we talk about Eating lipstick and other fun ways to poison yourself!
Me (over and over again): “No, but I am allergic to being asked if I’m allergic to bread.”
Next Question: “So can you eat donuts?”
Me: “Can you eat rocks?”
Celiac Disease is an autoimmune condition, not an allergy. There’s a big difference between the two, the main one being that autoimmune sounds a lot more impressive. So impressive in fact that most people have no idea what an autoimmune condition is. That’s what makes it kind of fun if you’re one who thrives on the pity of others. When I tell people that I have an autoimmune condition, they tend to immediately take two steps back in case its contagious. Then there is that saaaad look…
From a practical perspective, there’s not much to be gained by trying to tell people that I have an autoimmune disease, and not an allergy. I have to confess that when in restaurants trying to explain what I can and cannot eat, I always tell people that I am “allergic” to gluten. It’s just a lot easier, even if my illness does not sound nearly as cool.
So what’s an allergy? Technically, allergies are highly sensitive reactions by ones body to certain, and usually normal, substances. Allergies are also a little bit like shoes. You can get them most anytime during your life. It’s also possible that you can outgrow them, but not always. While allergies can be quite serious, and even fatal, they can be described as a reaction to exposure to wheat or other allergens. So, yes, there are people who are actually allergic to wheat, and therefore share a necessary gluten free lifestyle with people diagnosed with Celiac. Life is not very pleasant for those poor folks either.
On the other hand, Celiac, being an autoimmune condition, is more like a chain reaction. If you read my post on Vikings and Blazing Saddles fight scenes, you’ll understand the comparison, where the presence of gluten, and more specifically gliadins, create a full scale war between auto-antibodies and your hapless, and helpless, villi.
So the next time someone asks if you’re allergic to bread, you can answer with confidence…
Yes!
Trust me, it’s a lot easier to explain than the truth!
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Having been diagnosed myself about six years ago, I feel pretty qualified to offer up this diagnostic checklist: You fall asleep at your desk more than three times per day and now have bruises on your forehead from hitting the keyboard. The letter “H” is permanently stamped into your right eyebrow. You eat like there’s [...]
Sometimes you just have to respect your gut instinct for important decisions. (Pun intended) After about six months of dealing with all of the items on the surefire Celiac diagnostic checklist, I decided to pay a visit to the local gastroenterologist. That was fun. I’ll spare the details, but let’s just say that the local [...]
*** Warning! There is a better than even chance that the following post contains satirical content. The authors of this site cannot assume any liability for potential public backlash against Oompa Loompas, Mel Brooks movies, and/or the good people of Norway. Thank you for your understanding. *** Just been diagnosed? Don’t quite understand what Celiac [...]
Question (from pretty much everyone): “Are you allergic to bread?” Me (over and over again): “No, but I am allergic to being asked if I’m allergic to bread.” Next Question: “So can you eat donuts?” Me: “Can you eat rocks?” Celiac Disease is an autoimmune condition, not an allergy. There’s a big difference between the [...]
The concept of “autoimmune” is pretty simple. Basically, your auto-antibodies have a terminal crack habit. Either that, or they have spent too many days watching re-runs of Gilligans Island and have lost all short term memory as a result.
Glutino English Muffins are one of my long term favorites. I always have some in the freezer. The only thing about them is that they don't really … [Read More...]
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After an 18 month adventure through the catacombs of the medical system, I was formally diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The bright side of that journey is that I know 3,712 nasty and horrible conditions that I do NOT have. [Read More …]
