This article is the first in a series on how to get started on a gluten free diet. To make sure that you get all of the posts in the series, as well as a free menu plan, sign up for free email updates in the right sidebar.
The hardest part of the gluten free diet is probably when you realize that wheat is in almost every processed food imaginable. So don’t think about that now! Give yourself a week to mourn the fact that you can’t buy normal bread and pasta, and that Campbell’s soup can no longer dwell in your pantry. Mourn the obvious losses – we’ll deal with the rest later. For the first week, just focus on eating whole, unprocessed foods.
So, what are whole, unprocessed foods?
- Fruits and vegetables that do not come in a package.
- Meats that the butcher has processed in the store and that have not been puffed full of saline solution and seasonings.
- Grains that only have one ingredient listed on the packaging, e.g,. “Rice” and do not say “Contains Wheat” or “is processed in a facility that also processes wheat”.
- And since you always have to break the rules you create, any processed food that is CLEARLY marked as gluten free.
Most people are not used to cooking with whole, unprocessed foods or for looking for gluten in their foods, so don’t freak out if you still can’t figure out what to eat. I’m going to give you some ideas for breakfast and lunch and a menu plan (with shopping list) for your suppers.
Breakfast:
If you usually eat cold cereal for breakfast, then this week try Rice Chex, Corn Chex, Cinnamon Chex, Honey Nut Chex, Chocolate Chex, or Strawberry Chex. These Chex cereals are the only mainstream gluten free cereals. If you live near an urban center, you may find that your grocery store carries other gluten free specialty cereals, and if they do then feel free to try them. The advantage of starting with Chex is that it’s widely available, less expensive than other gluten free cereals, and familiar (Please note that most of these Chex cereals have only recently become available as “gluten free”, so be sure to look for that marking on the box. Some stores may still have boxes on the shelf that contain barley malt flavoring)
If you usually eat a breakfast bar for breakfast, first check to see if your usual bar is marked gluten free. If not, then I’d suggest switching to cereal or fresh fruit for a week. You’ll be tempted to read the labels on all of the breakfast bars in the grocery store, but that’s just going to depress you. Save that for next week. Unless your store carries Larabars – those are all gluten free.
If you usually eat a hot breakfast, then see how many eggs recipes that you can come up with. A few that I can think of off the top of my head are: scrambled, fried, poached, omelette with veggies, and frittatas. Bacon, saussage, and hot cereals are all processed and should be avoided this week unless they are marked gluten free.
Lunch:
If you have access to a microwave at lunch, then the easiest option is to eat leftovers from last night’s meal for lunch. Add a salad or fresh fruit if you need to round out the meal. Lunch is easily the most bread-centric meal of the day, so don’t freak out when everyone around you is having sandwiches. You will be able to eat good bread again.
If you don’t have access to a microwave, then pack a large salad and some fresh fruit. I like to add chickpeas to my salad as the protein – that way I don’t have to worry if I forget to take my lunch to the refrigerator. A lot of salad dressings contain gluten; an easy solution is to make your own vinaigrette at home and take that with you to dress your salad. Check out these recipes from Michael Ruhlman’s new book, Ratio, if you need some guidance.
If you have to go out for lunch, please try to get the lunch moved to a restaurant that has a gluten free menu or has a chef that is very familiar with the diet. You are new to gluten free foods and you are very likely to slip up if you try to identfy the gluten foods on your own.
Call the restaurant before hand and talk to the manager or the chef and explain to them that you have to eat gluten free, but that you’re going to need their help since you are new to the diet. They should be able to tell you which items from their menu are gluten free, or can be prepared gluten free. The manager at a good restaurant should also be willing to oversee the preparation of your food to make sure no one slips up. And, if you call ahead, hopefuly all of this can take place discreetly in the background, especially if it’s a business meeting.
Supper: To make supper easy for you, I think you’ve basically got two options. The first option is to prepare simple meals of a meat (seasoned with salt, pepper, and/or other herbs), a side of fresh vegetables, and a side of rice and potatoes. The second option is to print off the free menu plan that I’ll be publishing later this week, and follow it. It will have recipes for 6 meals, a cookie recipe, and a shopping list.
The point of these options is to keep you from having to search for recipes and then make sure that all of the ingredients in the recipes are gluten free. That would be way too frustrating for the first week of the diet. Option one will probably work best for those people that are accustomed to cooking without a recipe and feel comfortable dealing with unprocessed foods. Option two, the menu plan, should work for everyone else.
Homework: Make a list of what you want to eat for each day of next week. Here’s an example:
Monday: Rice Chex and banana for breakfast, green salad (with chickpeas) and balsamic vinaigrette dressing for lunch; cheddar cheese slices and an apple for snack; baked chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and roasted veggies for supper
That’s enough of a brain dump for now. Please feel free to ask questions and share your experiences in the comments. You’re also welcome to answer the questions of others because I definitely do not have all the answers =)
All I can say is THANK YOU SO MUCH! I can tell these posts are going to be very very helpful.
Porridge made using Quinoa flakes is great for cold mornings. I usually make it with just milk 1:4/5. Quinoa can be a little expensive so I often grate a small apple in and add a little cinnamon to stretch it.
I sure wish you had done this 2 years ago. I will be passing on the link to others though. I’ve met many people that were lost at first, just like us, and could use help finding the way.
Thank you so much! I just had my endoscopy yesterday and got the “positive” result today. I was feeling so overwhelmed – we eat lots of whole wheat/whole grain foods in our house. I didn’t know where to start. This is great!!!
I love the idea of your mealplans since we are just starting our gluten free journey, but we need casein free as well. How prominent are dairy products in your meal plans?
Hi Mary,
I think it’s a great recommendation for people to start out on natural whole foods, but for the most part, their diet should stay that way long term. Many of the gluten free alternatives to processed foods are just as high in sugar and refined carbohydrates. Too many people who are eating these foods on a regular basis are making the mistake of following an unhealthy gluten free diet.
Our chocolate, strawberry and cinnamon chex are NOT marked gluten free like the others, and contain barley malt flavoring. You might be giving someone wrong information if I am not mistaken!
Oops, sorry, I didn’t see the disclaimer. I buy my rice, corn and honey chex at a very busy Walmart, where the shelves regularly get restocked. I just figured that since they were not yet gluten free, that they had decided against making them gluten free.
@Kara: I consciously try to pick recipes that do not contain dairy, or in which the dairy could be optional or easily substituted. For example, the free menu will have a recipe for quesadillas, but you could use non-dairy cheese and leave off the sour cream topping. Or you could just eat the filling like fajitas if you didn’t want to use the non-dairy cheese.
@Vin: I completely agree and that’s the approach that I take in my own kitchen. However, in two years of blogging I’ve found that some people are not ready to make that switch yet unless they are forced to do if for financial reasons. The switch to gluten free is enough of a mental and emotional stretch by itself. I think we finally made the switch to a vegetarian, whole foods- focused diet after we had been gluten free for 3 years.
@The Chatty Housewife: Rice Chex has been gluten free for awhile, so all of those boxes should be gluten free. However you’ll need to check the other varieties carefully for several months.
[...] One: 1. Figure out what you’re going to eat for the next week. 2. Go grocery shopping. 3. Cull your gluten contaminated cookware. 4. Start learning about what [...]
On your weekly meal plans, I am wondering how prevalent other allergens are in the plans. I can’t eat gluten, eggs, nuts. Are your plans going to be useful to me?
How reliable is a GLUTEN FREE label on a product? Is this regulated like some other labelings are? I recently purchased an asian ginger vinaigrette salad dressing. It is labeled GLUTEN FREE under the list of ingredients so I picked it up without reading the individual ingredients. When I got home I was reading the ingredients and is says “soy sauce (water, wheat, soybeans, and salt).” Can this product really be gluten free?
Don’t know if I am posting in the right place. Hopefully I can get an answer here. I am just today trying to eat gluten free. My biginning question is, can I eat anything that has corn starch listed as an ingredient? Also, what about mayonnaise?
Thanks for any help, this is overwhelming.
Another question that I am not seeing an answer to in my research. What about about alcohol?
Thank you,
Susan
Susan
Anything that lists corn, potato, rice, tapioca starch is fine to eat. There are several types of starch, but you must be careful with them in order to not get one that might have a gluten-containing grain or gluten by-product in them. If the ingredients lists “food starch” or “modified food starch”, by law, the company should list which type starch in ( ) afterwards. If the ingredient is made in North America it is likely to be gluten-free.
I’ve had several people with way many more years experience than me (I’m only 3 mo. into this) tell me Hellmann’s Mayo is the best one to use. It does say gluten free under the ingredient list.
I also buy my all purpose gluten free flour mixture from a website called julesglutenfree.com (Jules Shepard) who is Celiac herself. There is very little I can’t use it for. I also get great recipes from her website. Give it a try. In addition to this website and the one we’re currently on, there are great websites to get gluten free recipes from and all ya gotta do is sign up.
I carry around a 3 pg. front/back (originally 9 pgs.) list of safe/unsafe/questionable ingredients. I don’t buy too many things w/o checking the ingredients against my list. I wish I could remember the website I got if from, but I’ve been on so many sites it’s hard to remember where I get stuff from. A couple of good sites to get good information on Celiac Disease (and food sources that are safe):
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/celiac-disease
http://www.celiacdisease.net (Univ. of Chicago Celiac Disease Center)
http://www.celiac.org
I hope you’ll find them useful.
kath
Kath, thanks so much for all your good information. What a great resorce this internet is! I have found so much more then I expected, and am finding this way of eating pretty easy. ( wait till I want a piece of pie and see what I say, lol ) I’m going to check out your new web sites and see what else I can learn.
Thanks again………..Susan
Susan (#15)
You will have to check to see how you feel on corn, and a number of other foods. A neighbor woman and I are both GI/nonceliac. I can eat corn, and limited spelt, but no millet. She can have millet, but no corn or spelt. We can both eat quinoa, rice, kasha (sorry, buckwheat) and amaranth. I only recently found some teff, and I’ll make sure to give her some so she can test it. Try to schedule your tests so that if the result of the test is unpleasant it doesn’t affect work or other obligations too much. (Yes, I know what I just said, and how lousy it is to schedule a time to feel lousy.)
Thank you so much for this info! I have been told to switch to gluten free/wheat free. It is so depressing trying to figure out what to eat! Thank you!!!!
Wow — where are weeks 2 – 5?