Friday Favorites: Favorite Gluten Free Products

Well, 2 weeks ago I did a Friday Favorites post on my FAVORITE lactose free products. And seeing as I can’t have lactose or gluten, I knew it was only right to do one for gluten free products.

Gluten free products are becoming SO POPULAR now days. I mean there’s a gluten free section in just about every grocery store that you go into. I guarantee you that I have tried every brand of every product. I’ve been on the hunt for gluten free products for about 4 years now (back when it wasn’t as popular). But the ones I have listed below are my FAVORITES. Trust me, you’ll want to listen. Don’t waste your time and money like I have 😉

*Now all of these items are when i’m not doing my sugar detox just FYI*

Tips for gluten free eating:

1. Read labels because gluten is in the most random of things…think: soy sauce, spices, “cream of” soups. (More to come on that.)
2. No flour or wheat. However, rice flour and corn flour are okay. This can get tricky.
3. No fried foods as it’s usually fried in flour.
4. Don’t eat gluten free unless you have to and want to give up gluten for good!! There’s no going back and forth…I learned the hard way.
5. You’ll hear me say it 3095325 times, always go popular name brands. They’re usually the best.

Bread

Bread was BY FAR the hardest thing when it came to gluten free eating. Gluten is the protein found in flour and wheat, so it basically the elastic that holds it together. Without gluten you have bread that falls apart. I cannot tell you how many times I have made some bread and it’s fallen apart in my hands or it’s been too dry to even eat. This loaf of bread below will change your life.

This bread is everything. I get the whole grain, but they are both delicious.

A turkey melt, a grilled cheese, with peanut butter and banana, or with egg and avocado in the morning…it doesn’t matter. You will love this bread and I would place my life on that one 😉

Cornbread

Truly I haven’t found a cornbread mix that I haven’t liked, but right now we only get Aldi’s (you’ll see this as a running theme during this post).

And we eat it like it’s dessert. Seriously, I have to hide it or i’ll eat half in one sitting.

This is my second option (and Glutino is good too).

Pasta

I haven’t purchased any boxed pasta that is bad, so really I would just say to go with your favorite pasta brand. We get this one and Barilla a lot. Luckily, most brands are making their own gluten free!

I honestly don’t buy boxed pasta, I usually just eat whatever we are having minus the pasta. When I want the feel of pasta I usually get these tofu noodles, spaghetti squash, or some zucchini and make zoodles.

Crusts/Baking

There are a lot of restaurants that are now making gluten free pizza crusts. My three FAVORITES are from:

Happy Joes
Papa Murphy’s
Pie Five

If I ever want to make some of my own gluten free crust, Pillsbury’s thin crust is so delicious. And crispy. And when I want pizza crust, I don’t want it soft!

Another frozen crust I like to keep in my freezer if i’m wanting pizza is from unrefined bakery. It’s super simple, too!

They also make muffins (that my mom got me for my birthday a couple years ago) and I really liked it.

Betty Crocker makes some amazing mixes. And Pillsbury, too. Stay with those name brands people (i’ll keep repeating that!).

Snacks

Now I don’t buy packaged goods, but on occasion I do and when I do…these are the ones I get.

Larabars are awesome. They’re made from natural ingredients and are therefore very healthy for you. This is one packaged good that I always have on hand.

Nuts, raisins, trailmix, etc. is all naturally gluten free. This is why I don’t understand why people always ask me what I can eat. There’s so many foods that are naturally gluten free that I can always find something. It’s just usually not the processed and fried foods most are used to.

Walmart’s brand is our FAVORITE pretzels. My mom eats these over regular pretzels just because she liked them better. They’re so much more crunchy!! (YAY G-FREE). We’re also a fan of Aldi’s brand and Glutino.

These are without a doubt the best gluten free crackers. There are so many kinds that you can purchase, but honestly just stick with these!

And as a kid I would put away peanut butter crackers like no other. Well, when I found out the company who makes them finally came out with a gluten free brand I was all about it.

They’re crunchy too. One thing i’ve really noticed with gluten free products that are packaged is that they’re way more crunchy than normal products. I don’t even remember what normal tastes like anymore.

Breakfast

I mean…eggo makes waffles. Don’t try anything else, just get these!

Rice and corn are your best friends, gluten-freers. And now Chex (and Cheerios) are gluten free! Woohoo!

Many mornings I love an english muffin. And when I do, it’s got to be Glutino’s. And burnt…because who eats their bread and english muffins not burned??? #gimmeallthecrunch

Randoms…

I use oats in many of my recipes and I always go with Bob’s.

I’m not a big alcohol drinker, so this one isn’t a big deal for me. If you’re gluten intolerant and you like beer, this is the best brand that I have had so far.

You can find cookies in any gluten free section grocery stores. Kylie sent me these cookies and they were super crunchy and chocolatey…what more could you want? 😉

Before I started making my own chicken tenders I found out that Tyson started on gluten free too. If I could have one meal for the rest of my life it would be chicken tenders and sweet potato fries. SO THIS IS BY FAR MY FAVORITE.

Watch out for…

Cream of Mushroom has gluten in it. Why? I do not know. I haven’t been able to try this because I can’t have the cream, but it’s the only one on the market, so I would suggest it to  those who can have the cream.

Seasonings! What?! Yes, make sure these read gluten free too!

If you didn’t already gather, my favorite brand right now is Aldi’s. Mainly because it’s cheap but they’ve also got good product. If you have to eat gluten free you know that it is expensive. Any money you can save is such a help.

If you’re new to gluten free…go straight to the gluten free aisle while you’re still learning to read labels. And then, if you need any help, be sure to ask me! I’ve become an expert by now 😉

OKAY FELLOW G-FREERS….how’d I do. You agree or disagree with my finds?!

“Healthy” & Happy

So, the reason I decided to write this is because last Friday afternoon I went to one of my last doctor appointments for what I hope will be a loooooong time. Oh, happy happy day!

Here’s the lowdown…My junior year of high school I started having some gastrointestinal issues. It seemed like whatever I ate would make me nauseous or the opposite of that…you know. I told my mom and for a while we never did anything about it.  We thought maybe I had eaten something that was upsetting my stomach or drinking too much caffeine. I was on acutane for my face so we believed that could be upsetting my stomach. My mom is lactose sensitive, so at one point we did test me for that. We drove to a hospital an hour away for me to drink a liquid (which was disgusting) and blow into a machine thing that the nurse had for three hours during different intervals. Yes, it was as fun as it sounds. The test came back negative. Strike out. (Even though I am not lactose intolerant I have always been lactose sensitive and because I was giving up lactose to see if it made me feel any better I am basically lactose intolerant because I have tried to re-introduce lactose to my diet and my body does not handle it. Joy.)

Senior year comes around and while I was at a high school event in the cafeteria I was getting sharp stomach pains. A couple minutes later there goes Molly running out to the bathroom. Okay, embarrassing when you’re with a bunch of guys! Once it started controlling my life we decided that something needed to be done. We started to take matters into our own hands (mom grew up thinking doctor’s weren’t necessary—wait ’til she gets two more years down my life timeline). We decided we would try to eliminate gluten from my diet. My aunt is gluten intolerant and we knew this was beginning to become more common because they were finding gluten sickness in pigs and so on, so what the hay, right? (pun intended) While it helped for the most part I was still having episodes of nausea and the you know. Strike out.

Keep in mind these past two years I am still going to the doctor for my acutane and blood work as well as whatever other health issues strike up. I lived at doctor’s offices.

It’s now my freshman year of college and I am moving out on my own. Here I am in a new, unfamiliar town with my health okay on most days, but iffy on others. I was still on acutane up until November of my first semester so I had to go back frequently to get blood drawn and have my dermatologist check my skin. I even had to go home the day after this day:

Bid day. Which stunk because while all of the other girls were getting to know each other I wasn’t. The acutane caused my hair to get really dry with broken ends. So one weekend I went from this length:

To this length:

Not too much of a change I know, but me liked my long hair. Anyways, so while I was going back and forth with that freshman year I was still getting very sick. I vividly remember going to my big’s room in the sorority house to hang out with her. Her boyfriend called and asked her to pick him up and she was going to, so I decided I would go with her. I got out to the car and had to run back up to the restroom because of how sick I suddenly got. There were times that I had to lay in bed in my dorm room because I had no energy to do anything. I went to a minute clinic in Norman just to have them trying to give me a shot for allergies. Strike out.

We decided it was time to see a gastroenterologist. I shouldn’t be excited, but I was excited! Hoping that she could help save me from some of my embarrassment. The summer I came home after my first year of college I was put on a medicine called Linzess. This medicine is for IBS (Irritible Bowel Syndrome). The only thing she could come up with from constipation and episodes of diharrea was Linzess. For this medicine you are required to take it 30 minutes prior to eating and drinking every day and it helps to regulate your gastrointestinal tract. If you eat within the 30 minutes you will likely get bouts of diharrea. I would give you a little story time segment but you wouldn’t want to hear that. Needless to say, you don’t tempt this medicine no matter how hungry you are. My gastro also decided to have me get a colonoscopy to make sure I didn’t have a blockage or something of that sort. 19 years old and getting a colonoscopy…not very normal, but obviously i’m not very normal.

Slide into my sophomore year. I’m moving into the sorority house, living with about 100 girls. Within the first week i’m pretty sure about 30 of us got sick. During recruitment I had to go to the doctor for a sore throat and I came back with a double ear infection. After recruitment was over…again I had to go home. But this time to my OB-GYN for my absence of a menstrual cycle and I knew it wasn’t because I was pregnant. She did some blood work and found my thyroid levels were off. Strike out and I had a doctor appointment after this day, bid day:

Here we go to the Endocrinologist. First one I go to tells me I have a Hyperthyroid. Mom doesn’t really trust Endocrinologist for some reason so we go to a second one and he tells me that I have a Hyperthyroid that will be changing to Hypothyroid. What?? This one also had me do a radioactive iodine uptake. I had to swallow an iodine pill and they watched how my thyroid reacted to it which actually showed my thyroid was acting up. Mom and I weren’t really a fan of this guy so we decided to go to another Endocrinologist. This third one told me that I had a Hypothyroid. WHAT?! How do three different doctors tell you three different things?! Can you see how this can be very frustrating and we are only this far in the process? Now we go to yet another endocrinologist. This guy tells me that my thyroid is normal. A couple weeks later they test another round of blood (note: all of these thyroid tests are blood tests). It’s normal again. Mom says she’s done with these doctors. So we stop going. Strike out.

A couple months later and my hair is getting thinner and thinner. Most of the time I kept it in a ponytail or something. My mom was going to a hematologist for her low vitamin D. She asked him if it could be related to that and he said yes. So I came in for a doctor’s visit and guess what? More blood work. Because a hematologist specializes in diseases in the blood, he did just about every test known to man. I mean lyme’s disease, everything. Stool samples and blood. He also decided to do ultra-sounds of the thyroid, pelvis, abdomen, and heart.

All this later and we finally found that I am anemic (low iron), I have a bacteria in my stomach that eats away at my stomach lining, and my thyroid blood work is normal, but get this: My thyroid had an interesting shape in the ultra-sound and the doctor found a growth on my thyroid. To determine if the growth is benign or malignant I had to get a biopsy of my thyroid. HA. HA. HA. The biopsy showed I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. The doctor tells me there’s a 1% chance in females my age getting this. But guess what???? The hematologist sends us back to an endocrinologist. Not really a strike out this time.

I started thinking a while ago “God, why do you hate me???” Truth is, I think that all of this was just part of God’s plan for me honestly. And i’ll tell you why. The main reason being that it got me to admit some things to myself. I don’t think that I was truly happy at OU but I would never admit it. Somehow through all of this I was able to admit to myself that it wasn’t where I should be. I also say that I found who my real friends are. During all this, I can count on half of a hand the friends that I had who stayed my friends. There were numerous times I would be asked to do something with friends and never could or never felt up to it. People stopped asking me to do things and would get angry with me for always turning them down. Honestly though, how do you explain all of this to people? It’s kind of impossible, not believable, and to go through this story every time you talk to someone is a lot.

This last Friday I went to ANOTHER endocrinologist, but don’t worry, we like him! He decided to draw my blood again. What the heck right, my poor veins haven’t been poked enough as it is. He reiterated everything the other doctor told me about Hashimoto Thyroidits and has decided to put me on medication for it. I may be taking a lot of medication for stomach, iron, thyroid, etc. but the Lord is faithful and finally has given me an answer. I would really say that this whole 3-4 year experience taught me obedience. You’re frustration will be temporary because in the Lord’s timing you will have the answers you need. And if somehow we would not have caught this my thyroid would have destroyed itself. I was also told when I eat gluten my thyroid attacks it because of the Hashimoto’s, so that’s why I can’t eat gluten. Lucky me!

So all those hours spent at the doctor, paperwork filled out, frustration, prescriptions, blood drawn, etc. FINALLY paid off. July of 2014 is going down in my books.

I only went into so much detail to help those who have had similar issues. I have been there. I have done that. I feel for you. I just want whoever to know that if you have ever experienced anything of this nature, I genuinely feel for you and know that I am thinking of you. Don’t let your strike-outs stop you. Keep hittin’, you’ll get there.

Life’s Color today is Red.
(I say this because what I always think of is the blood-work done)
Be obedient to the Lord. Keep pushing through. Listen to your body. Lean on your family. You won’t always know why things happen. Praise Jesus through the storm.