Question about cooking and allergies.

[kyrielle]

I know some of those reading this journal cook, and some have food issues, and I'm hoping you can help me. One of my relatives must now avoid both wheat gluten and dairy products. She's lived her whole life cooking for a normal diet without these restrictions, and she's trying to find alternatives and good recipes.

Anyone have any good recipes, especially ones that substitute for things like bread/pasta/etc.? I'm sure I could do a search and turn up tons of recipes, but I would have no clue whether they were good or not.

Comments

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

... continued from part 2.

I'm not sure what your reason for not eating dairy is, but if you are lactose intolerant, then there is a good chance that you may be able to eat dairy again someday. The enzyme, lactase, that digests the lactose in dairy products, is produced by the tips of the villi in the small intestine. And the villi are what is damaged by celiac disease. After 6 to 12 months or longer on a gluten-free diet, the villi may well heal enough to produce lactase again, making it possible to eat dairy products. Also, you don't need to wait for that to happen. Some varieties of Lactaid tablets are gluten-free (check their website to find which ones are). If you are lactose intolerant, you can take a couple of Lactaid tablets with a meal and eat dairy just fine. Note that you may need to experiment with the dosage; I found that I needed about twice the labeled dosage in order to be able to eat dairy at a meal.

Here's a website with a lot of good information about celiac disease:
http://brain.hastypastry.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=141
The "stickies" at the top include "the gluten file" -- which is an awesome collection of information about celiac disease and other gluten sensitivity, and one called something like "recipe links to existing threads," which has links to humongous numbers of gluten-free recipes, organized by category, that were posted by real people who liked them.

If your relative is located in Ann Arbor, she is welcome to join the celiac support group that I started. It's still small and new. You can find it on the web at:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/glutenfreeannarbor/

Here's a good web page about eating dairy-free. It's been updated since I last read through it, but it was an awesome resource then, so hopefully it is still good now:
http://web.mit.edu/kevles/www/nomilk.html

If she's not in Ann Arbor, I recommend that she look up her local celiac support group. Having real people to talk to, who've already been through this, is really a wonderful thing!


Anyway, please feel free to e-mail me if I can be of help. Oh, I'm very good at converting favorite old recipes (except for yeasted breads) to be gluten-free and dairy-free, so if there's anything you'd like converted, let me know and I'd be willing to make an attempt at it.

-Valerie