Gluten Free Engineer - Making Gluten Free Easy

How to Get Started Gluten Free & Simple Tips for the Experienced

• Carrie Saunders • Episode 5

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Making the decision to go gluten-free can feel overwhelming at first. Whether you’ve just been diagnosed with celiac disease, discovered a gluten intolerance, or simply want to try a gluten-free lifestyle, there’s a lot to learn. But even if you’ve been gluten-free for a while, there are always ways to make it easier, safer, and more enjoyable.

That’s why in today’s episode, I’m breaking down exactly how to get started with gluten-free living and sharing tips for those who are already gluten-free but want to streamline their routines, avoid common pitfalls, and feel more confident in their choices.

If you’re feeling lost or just looking for fresh ideas, you’re in the right place!


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Speaker 1:

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode this podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Making the decision to go gluten-free can feel overwhelming at first, whether you've just been diagnosed with celiac disease, discovered a gluten intolerance or simply want to try a gluten-free lifestyle. There's a lot to learn, but even if you've been gluten-free for a while, there are always ways to make it easier, safer and more enjoyable. That's why, in today's episode, I'm breaking down exactly how to get started with gluten-free living and sharing tips for those who are already gluten-free but want to streamline their routines, avoid common pitfalls and feel more confident in their choices. If you're feeling lost or just looking for some fresh ideas, you're in the right place. Welcome to the Gluten-Free Engineer podcast. I'm your host, keri Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything, but I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show.

Speaker 1:

Today we're talking about how to get started going gluten-free and tips for those who are already gluten-free to make it even simpler and easier. So the first tip I want to give you is to start with the simplest trick, and this is sticking to single ingredient foods. The easiest way to go gluten-free is to focus on foods that don't have labels. Fresh fruits, vegetables, meat with no added ingredients, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy rice and potatoes are naturally all gluten-free and again I also want to emphasize make sure they don't have any added ingredients, because you might find meat, poultry, fish that has added ingredients that could contain gluten, especially if it has broth in it. So pick the ones that don't have a label, that only have one ingredient only. You'll find most of these around the perimeter of the grocery store as well, so start there before heading to the inner aisles.

Speaker 1:

We as a family typically shop literally in a U around the store. We'll go through the produce, go to the back aisle where the meats are, where the milk is, the butter, and then go down the last aisle, which is usually the frozen section in our Kroger store that is local to us. We will occasionally go down an aisle for those staples. That might be one more complicated gluten-free item where it's an actually processed gluten-free, but we really try not to eat too much processed gluten-free anyway. So the simplest, easiest trick is to pick single ingredient food items and then you know you're going to be pretty darn safe, given it's not cross-contaminated, and we'll go into that labor in case you're celiac and that's important to you.

Speaker 1:

So we first want to understand what gluten is and where is it hiding. Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley and rye and which means it's in bread, pasta, baked goods, soy sauce, dressings and even some seasonings. So those last three are where some of the places it can be hiding, and I'll say those again soy sauce dressings and even some seasonings. So we want to be reading ingredient labels carefully and learn to recognize gluten hidden names like malt, brewer's yeast and wheat starch. So if you do choose to eat processed foods that are gluten-free, you're going to want to make sure that you do not see any of these ingredients in your processed food, and that can sometimes be pretty hard to do sometimes. And another one to look for, too, is modified food starch. If it doesn't specify what the food starch is, it could be a problem. Now note in the United States it is required to label if a product has wheat in it, but it is not required to label if it has barley or rye. So if you're celiac or gluten intolerant and if you're gluten-free by choice and you want to stay clear of those, you're going to need to be reading the ingredients very carefully, and especially for celiacs and I will state again on that podcast episode if you're celiac, you want to make sure you're not eating a food that says processed in a facility that also processes wheat, unless it's certified gluten-free, then they are showing they have measures to keep you safe and they are testing the food. If they do not have that, then you're likely to get cross-contaminated and you may or may not realize it or react to it, but you're still likely going to be damaged by it if you're a celiac. So please be careful with that.

Speaker 1:

If you are a celiac, now the next step you can do is start cleaning out your pantry and restock with foods that are safe, and I know this can be a little disheartening, especially if you've either been diagnosed with celiac, you know you have a high gluten intolerance, or even when you're choosing to go gluten-free. This can be a bit disheartening to get rid of some of these foods, but let's think of some creative ways we can give those to the food bank or to somebody else who can utilize these foods. So we want to go through our pantry and remove all foods that contain gluten if you really want to be super strict about this and I will honestly highly recommend that this occurs if you have celiac disease and we'll go into this in another podcast episode sometime in the future but myself and my oldest before we realized the other people in our household had celiac as well. We were feeling bad when there was gluten in our house because we were getting cross-contamination that jelly jar, that peanut butter jar, that stick of butter, that toaster and we'll go into an episode exclusively about cross-contamination soon. But just think about that and that's one of the good reasons to go through your pantry and get rid of everything If you and or your family member is celiac, highly gluten intolerant, or if you just want to have everybody be gluten-free and be on the same diet. So we want to go through our food pantry and remove foods that contain gluten. Be sure to check for those hidden glutens. They can be in canned soups as a thickener. They can be in sauces and even candy. I can't tell you, when I was beginning to be gluten-free and realizing and realized I had celiac, that I was getting gluten from the kids darn Halloween candy and not even realizing it. So please be careful of the candy, and we'll probably do an even a specific episode on how to be safe around the holidays with candy and treats as well so we'll go into that in more detail in another episode and treats as well. So we'll go into that in more detail in another episode.

Speaker 1:

And then we want to replace those with naturally gluten-free foods and safe alternatives for you and for your favorite items. So the easiest, like I said, way to do that is to replace it with whole foods, ones that are one ingredient. They have absolutely no label on them. It just says apples or bananas or chicken or beef, you know, no other added preservatives in there or ingredients, because then you start running the risk of having some gluten in it and you're going to feel better, honestly, just because you're getting rid of so many processed foods. Now, yes, we can have that indulgence every once in a while and have that processed food that is gluten free or or certified gluten-free if you need that. But really we all feel much better if we're eating whole ingredients anyway. It's much easier on our stomachs. So and I want to touch on this some preventing cross-contamination at home. We're just going to touch on the some of this episode because it's not the focus of the episode.

Speaker 1:

But if you share a kitchen with a non-gluten-free family member, you're going to want to have a dedicated, separate cookware and utensils for gluten-free cooking. If you're a celiac or highly gluten sensitive, this is super important. I'm talking anything that is wooden is very important. This is one of the things my dietician said. She said you need to get rid of all your cutting boards that are wooden or plastic or might have little tiny cracks in them Rolling pins. I even found nonstick cookware. Well, it's not great to be cooking with it anyway. On a different note, this is before I started using stainless steel and I didn't realize that my nonstick cookware had enough cracks and crevices in it that it was containing some of the gluten from previous years and years and years of cooking in it, and I felt so much better when we replaced our pots and pans, you're also going to want a separate toaster. Toaster is a great place to hide those gluten crumbs in there and it's a great way to get sick if you're celiac or gluten intolerant.

Speaker 1:

And then we also want to be using squeeze bottles for condiments like mayo, mustard, et cetera, to avoid a double dipping of crumbs or label them. This is what we ran into, like I mentioned, in our house is. You know, myself and my oldest were getting sick in the beginning of this gluten-free journey because somebody else in the house wasn't careful enough and was double dipping in, like the jelly jar or the peanut butter jar or on the butter dish, and getting some gluten crumbs on the butter that was gluten-free otherwise. So we want to make sure that we are either labeling or using squeeze type bottles there. We also want to learn to read labels like a pro and just think of yourself being a detective. It kind of makes it a little bit more fun rather than arduous. So we want to look for certified gluten-free labels. That's the easiest, safest way to have a processed food that is gluten-free and that's safe gluten-free for all different types of gluten-free people. It guarantees the product meets strict gluten-free standards and you should be perfectly safe with those.

Speaker 1:

As I mentioned earlier, if a label says processed and facilitated also processes wheat, I would definitely stay clear of that. If you're a celiac, if you're gluten intolerant, you might also want to stay clear of that. Stay clear of that If you're a celiac, if you're gluten intolerant, you might also want to stay clear of that. And if you're choosing to have a gluten-free lifestyle, I don't feel like you're going to get a reaction from that and you should be fine, but that is completely up to you and your doctor. You also want to avoid foods with big ingredients, like modified foodstarts, which I mentioned a little bit earlier too, because you don't know what the source is. You don't know what the source of that food starch is, so you want to be steer clear of it, unless they say corn, because many times they'll let you know that it's corn or rice, but you don't know unless they actually specify or unless it's wheat. They're legally supposed to say wheat when it's in the United States.

Speaker 1:

And then, when you're being gluten-free and you want to make it easy and you're starting out, plan your meals and find safe restaurants ahead. We talked about this on our dining out episode, but we want to do some planning ahead. Whenever we go out to restaurants, we want to make sure there are safe items available on their menu. So I'm going to refer to that episode in the show notes too. We want to make sure we're planning ahead, making sure that they're at our level of safety that we need, you know, being one way, or celiac gluten intolerant or choose to be gluten-free. And then we also want to use, you know, potential apps like Find Me Gluten-Free, which we have had great success over the many years, and we will link to that in the show notes as well. It's a great way to find gluten-free restaurants and see others' reviews of it, to see how well they did. And you also want to ask about how food is prepared at these restaurants. We want to make sure that it's not cooked with shared surfaces or shared fryers and, like I said, we go into more detail about this in our episode on dining out. So we'll link to that in the show notes for more details there.

Speaker 1:

And then I want you to find your go-to gluten-free products and brands and as we go along on this podcast, we'll be doing some product reviews and I'll be telling you some of our experiences with different products and brands that are out there. Which ones are better for, let's say, we're talking about pasta. Which ones are better for, like, spaghetti pasta? Which ones are better for soup type pasta? Which brands are better for sandwiches? Which ones are better for toast? So we'll be going through some product reviews later on in this podcast show.

Speaker 1:

But I want you to start testing out some gluten-free different products. Find ones you like, and they can be a bit different in texture and in a taste. So you want to. But there's so many varieties out there. There's so many different gluten-free breads now than there was when I started this gluten-free journey, especially in our town. That's available and there's some that it's really kind of hard to tell that they're actually gluten-free now. So you're going to find some that you really love out there, but sometimes it does take a trial and error type of methodology and we'll try to do our best to review here on the show. You can also join our free Facebook group, which we'll link to as well, and ask some opinions in there. I think crowdsourcing is a great way to find the brands that you like. Also, gluten-free baking can be tricky and we will be doing quite a few YouTube videos on gluten-free baking and how to make that successful, because I've definitely had some failures in the over 12 years or so of being gluten-free. So we will be doing some YouTube videos on that. But do know that it can be a little bit tricky and that you're going to just have to try it out and have some fun with it and then, as you're going gluten-free, just know that there's going to be some trial and error.

Speaker 1:

Like I've alluded to several times in the podcast, it just takes some time to adjust to a gluten-free lifestyle. If this is completely brand new to you, and that's okay. It's like learning to walk or learning to ride a bike. You know you sometimes fail along the way as you're learning these new skills. This is a new skill, a new way of eating likely for you, especially if you're brand new to the gluten-free lifestyle and you know it's okay to make some mistakes. Hopefully the tips I've given you, though, in this episode help you don't make mistakes that make you sick and you've found a way to avoid gluten altogether. But when you're cooking and baking and doing all the things you know new gluten-free, you might make some cooking mistakes as far as how things turn out, and that's okay. Just laugh it off. Have some fun. Be a detective, like I was, and listen to the podcast and we will help give you all kinds of tips, as well as on the YouTube channel, and we also have lots of great gluten-free recipes that we are working on putting on our website as well, so be sure to visit that regularly, because I'm always adding some new gluten-free recipes to that as well.

Speaker 1:

Also, when you get accidentally glutened while learning, don't be too hard on yourself and what I found too in the over 12 years of being and knowing I've been celiac. I've probably been celiac, honestly, all my life if I look back at my childhood and symptoms I had then. But note that when you're accidentally glutened, especially when you're celiac or gluten intolerant, you are going to probably find in those first like, say, six months or a year of going gluten free, that a little bit of gluten might not bother you too much. But the more and the more and the more your gut heals, the more dramatic it's going to be when you do get that little bit of gluten, which is why I stress on the podcast how careful we really need to be, because if we're celiac and we get a little bit of gluten, it damages our system. No matter whether we have symptoms or not, it does damage our system. So you do need to be very careful and adamant about making sure you're as gluten-free as possible.

Speaker 1:

And I found, in those first, I would say, probably three or four years of being gluten-free, I felt like a new person about every six months. I just felt like I was just healing from the inside out and feeling so much better the longer I was gluten-free, I just felt I just can't even describe it. You can probably hear in my voice I just felt so much better and everybody was like, don't you miss gluten? I'm like I don't miss feeling sick and not knowing why the sickness of celiac disease came upon me slowly over years, as far as recognizing that I wasn't feeling good, because at first you didn't know I wasn't feeling good and it came over so gradually I didn't realize until I realized I had celiac and started going off gluten and I started healing and I started feeling better. My gut felt better, my brain felt better, my migraines were disappearing, my hair was doing better, my nails were doing better, my skin was doing better. So many things were doing better the more and more. I was off gluten.

Speaker 1:

So just know it's a process. Know that if you accidentally get gluten, learn from it and, you know, work to not do that again. You know, don't be so hard on yourself. Just, you know, be diligent about it. Also, if you're choosing a gluten-free lifestyle, and whether you are or aren't, when you first go gluten-free, your body may go through a detox period as it heals, and so be patient with it. You might feel worse before you feel better.

Speaker 1:

So just know that your body, your body, can become addicted to things that we eat. You know, we all know, that we can be addicted to sugar. We can be addicted to caffeine. We can also be addicted to wheat and gluten and the things that it produces in our body. So don't feel badly if you feel worse first. That's pretty darn common actually, and it should go away within like about a month. So some people it's only two weeks, some people it's three or four. So listen to your body and just be gentle to it and just know that, especially if you're gluten, if you're celiac or gluten intolerant, that the process is necessary, and just be kind to yourself.

Speaker 1:

Give yourself some comfort foods and drinks that are safe and gluten-free and you know that nice lemonade or whatever might make you feel comforted. And you know good to yourself and just be good to yourself when you're on this gluten-free journey, especially if it's for the first time. So going gluten-free doesn't have to be overwhelming. First off, just go through the grocery store and pick one item ingredients only. So I'm talking fruits, vegetables, meats with no additives to it, potatoes, rice all those things with no additives in it. I'm talking just plain rice. You don't want to get the box rice with all the flavors in it. Yet until you're really good at reading labels and start out simple like that, you're actually going to probably find you really enjoy eating these simple foods again. And there's some great brands out there that can really make some additive flavors to your foods, and we'll go over those in another episode. But there's some of my favorite brands that we'll talk about soon.

Speaker 1:

But focus on what you can eat, don't worry about what you can't. Don't focus on that. Be thankful and focus on the things you can eat and take it one step at a time and in no time it will become second nature to you, just like it is to me on being gluten-free. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten-Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreeengineercom. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode, and we will see you next week. The Gluten-Free Engineer podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten-free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide a medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns or advice specific to your health.

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Carrie Saunders

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