Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Gluten Problems

How many of you or family and/or friends have this problem? I really need to and want to know.
Lactose intolerance?
The video from my award winning moment is now accessible from my home page. I like it. It shows me for the glutton that I am. When peaople ask me how I started doing what I do, I reply that I always loved to eat almost everything, that I am greedy by nature and you can catch me with my hands in the food and my fingers in my mouth.
There is a cold borscht recipe up for recipe of the week and new mushroom stuff in vegetable tips. The white asparagus info has been stored in veg tips.

7 comments:

Lori Lynn said...

Yes, not me, but my cousin and good friend both have gluten issues. They were so happy to finally figure out was their problem was.

I am having trouble opening your website?

La Cuisine d'Helene said...

My brother-in-law had celiac disease. So we always try to come up with new recipes at each gatherings. It's not always easy.

Barbara said...

Dear Lori, I was celiac as a child and am considering writing a book to address the problem and give recipes. In the meantime, almost all the recipes in Roasting can be used.
Sorry you are having trouble opening the web site. The link to the side of the Blog should take you there or try Bkafka.com

Helene, no it's not easy but it can be gratifying. I will post recipes as I go along.

Anonymous said...

So as to your question about gluten. It would seem that I am gluten intolerant, BUT appear to get along ok if I neglect the good stuff - whole wheat - and just have the occasional white pasta or Italian/French type bread. I can tolerate Ezekiel Bread. Medical testing reveals some but not all of the blood markers for Celiac, so it is inconclusive and regular MD's can't stand dealing with this issue anyway. Chinese medicine people want me to give up ever looking at wheat/dairy/sugar/fruit/alcohol etc. which leaves me wanting to pull the covers over my head and smoke dope.
This is probably too much information for you but my point is, I wonder if there are a lot of people like myself out there who are neither here nor there, walking some vague line of being careful about what we eat but not completely sure what we should or should not be eating. I also wonder if it is not wheat per se that I don't tolerate well, but the molds that inevitably get ground into the flour along with wheat that has been sitting in silos for God knows how long.
Your question is more complicated than it seems at first glance. Enjoying your emails,
MC

Anonymous said...

A little further thinking about this as I've gone about my day; increasingly I hear about gluten
intolerance almost everywhere I go. It seems to be just like ADD; a few people had it, and now the world is full of them. In a class I take, there is another woman whose daughter and two grandchildren have Celiac disease. My brother's family has a good friend, same thing. Our local paper ran a story on a chef here who prepares gluten-free meals for people who want to pay for someone else to do their cooking.
MC

Barbara said...

Dear Anonymous
Your experience isn't odd but rather typical if unpleasant.
I had an experience related to your Chinese medicine one. I also had somewhat wobbly findings. I was in Venice and went into a pharmacy. My husband pointed out that they had a sign up saying that they had a simple computerized test to analyze allergies. I made an appointment and went in. They hooked me up to a machine much like a lie detector that attached an electrode to what they called an acupressure point on one of my fingers. I watched fascinated as the read out danced across a computer screen. Fortunately, my Italian was up to the job. The results were much like your: no gluten, no dairy...Sugar, fruit etc. were not mentioned.

As to alcohol, I quickly realized in the try and know way that it is wheat-based alcohols such as most vodka, Scotch, rye and beer that I cannot have.

Don't hide. There are plenty of wonderful foods that you and I can eat freely and happily.

I also have found doctors somewhat less than helpful; but that may be because the intolerance itself is complex and in some ways idiosyncratic. I will be posting some recipes in the next months and I hope that they will delight you.

For some reason, this is a problem that seems to be growing.

I will be glad to answer questions that you may have and you can send any similarly afflicted or cooking for those who are my way as well.

Good luck and thank you for the in put.

Anonymous said...

my husband seems to have a serious gluten problem, but the tests were negative. He's much happier eating GF and casein free. I went along for the ride. I enjoy eating this way and now my headaches are so much better; I've reduced my migraine meds by half.

So glad to see some GF recipes I can trust to be tasty! I've already marked the GF recipes in my copy of your SOUP cookbook.

But, from what I have read, you do not outgrow celiac.If you had it as a child, you are celiac always. At least, that's how they look at it now.

Best wishes