Family member with celiac - need help navigating
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
Oh wait— it is just the weekend??
You can handle that. It’s probably SIls way of having control over the food situation. Let her host. Offer money towards meals. Take your kids out for lunch one day. |
Anonymous
I mean, I kind of agree with you, but I'm just the SIL, who am I to say? And plus, this was SIL's idea (maybe pushed by her husband). It's just a weekend, not a week. We will survive. They have not said they don't believe she has celiac to her face. My husband didn't even remember that she got the diagnosis until I reminded him. I think they are all a bit jaded and skeptical as she has had a very long history of extremely restricted eating and anxiety around eating, and anorexia. But previously, she did not avoid gluten, but instead she cut out anything with fat in it, like dairy, eggs, meats, butter, and oils. She also cut out sugar and used sugar substitutes like splenda. But it kind of makes sense to me that maybe there were a lot of foods that she did not react well to physically, and so it may have been a bit of a vicious cycle of avoidance and anxiety around the foods she ate. |
Anonymous
|
My kids and DH love this crumb cake and didn't realize that it was GF.
https://www.krusteaz.com/products/baking-mixes/gluten-free-cinnamon-crumb-cake/ Will they eat any cereals? If not Cheerios or Chex (almost all varieties), maybe Lucky Charms or Cocoa Pebbles? Eggs and bacon and breakfast potatoes? Almost all Ore-Ida products are GF if you don't feel like making them from scratch. |
Anonymous
|
Oatmeal? You have to confirm on the packaging that it's actually GF and not processed on common equipment, but Quaker Valley has GF oatmeal.
Also the GF pastas have gotten a lot better. My kids used to reject GF pasta and now don't even notice that they're eating my GF Barilla instead of regular pasta sometimes. |
Anonymous
|
Canyon Bakehouse bread is the only one (IMO) that is indistinguishable from gluten-y bread.
Pamela's pancake/waffle mix is so good that nobody ever notices it's GF. Had a sleepover and one of my kid's 12 year old friends went nuts over how good the waffles were! Muffins can be good but can be hit or miss. Udi's are tasty but very sugary. If you find Katz stuff it's usually reliable -- Katz even sells "snack cakes" that are 100% Twinkie. |
Anonymous
|
Parent of two kids with celiac here.
My heart goes out to your SIL with her sabotaging family - that is *awful*. It's entirely possible that some or all of her history of anorexia, depression, etc. is due to longterm undiagnosed celiac (https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/anorexia-celiac-disease). Yes, she tested negative, but it's also possible the doctors ran the wrong tests, or that she was testing false-negative. (You would not believe the amazingly wrong things I have heard about doctors saying to people with celiac - glutendude has a number of stories on his website if you'd like examples.) It recently came out that the TTG-IGA test that was thought to be very sensitive to celiac might actually be missing a lot of people. (https://www.celiac.com/articles.html/study-shows-iga-ttg-testing-for-celiac-disease-is-less-sensitive-than-believed-r5525/) The GF diet is a pain, but the emotional hassle of dealing with other people's skepticism, eyerolling, etc. is by FAR more difficult. I co-sign the poster upthread who noted that basically what looks like anxiety and paranoia are *exactly* the right level of vigilance for a celiac maintaining a GF diet. It's not really possible to understand unless you've either lived with it, or have exceptionally high EQ/empathy/ability to project yourself into someone else's situation. We don't find it worth the trouble to eat out - the risk of cross contamination is too high, and it's just easier to eat at home, unless it's a dedicated GF restaurant. If this is her house, then yes, it should be kept GF. Every celiac deserves a safe haven where they can let their guard down for a moment and know that they can eat anything in the house, without having to be scrupulously vigilant for dustings of flour, stealth soy sauce, double-dipped knives, etc. etc., so we have kept our house GF since the kids were diagnosed and I am basically GF myself, so I don't have to worry about accidentally glutening them if they, say, ask for a sip of my drink while we're out. You sound like a wonderful and thoughtful person, so i'm sure you won't' do this, but as a general PSA: don't do any baking projects involving wheat flour (whether whole wheat or white - yes, there are people who think that whole wheat is the flour with wheat in it, and the other kind doesn't have wheat (no idea what they think it is made of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Flour is very light and can stay airborne for 24 hours, slowly settling on surfaces as it drifts down, and yes a dusting of flour can be enough to make a celiac sick. They might not start vomiting immediately - symptoms are all over the board, so for one person it could spark a rash, another person GI troubles, another person migraines, and another anxiety and panic attacks. A few practical points: - breakfast options: King Arthur GF pancake mix is great - just make sure you let the batter sit for 10 min once it's mixed up, before cooking. This is in the instructions but not called out as a separate step so it's easy to miss. Other breakfast options: eggs (scrambled, fried, frittata ...), bacon, sausage etc. etc. - meals: start with the produce section and the meat/fish section, and build your meal from that. Steak, broccoli, potatoes. Chicken, green beans, sweet potatoes. Sheet pan sausage with cauliflower and other veg. Coleslaw and BBQ (read the sauce label of course). It's healthier and easier to do that than to try to recreate meals built on a gluten foundation like pasta or pizza. BTW, some readers are no doubt rolling their eyes at me and thinking I'm a "karen" or a helicopter parent or a drama queen. I too was skeptical about all this stuff -- before my kids were diagnosed, and I observed first hand what it did to them and how easy it is to inadvertently get them sick. |
Anonymous
| 12:04 PP is exactly right. |
Anonymous
This gave me a lump in my throat. Thank you for understanding. |
Anonymous
|
I didn't realize at first that this was Sister In Law's house.
i would just go with whatever she wants. Call her up and ask her how she wants to handle meals. Your kids can deal for the weekend with whatever she wants. if your SIL ASKS you to cook a meal or something -- when my niece with celiac comes for a visit, we always have something like: salmon or chicken or steak roasted sweet potatoes or root vegetables or corn on the cob green beans all cooked in foil packets (because I do not have a gluten free kitchen). This eliminates the need for separate pans, pots, strainers etc. |
Anonymous
Canyon Bakehouse is the best—I love the Honey Oat and actually think it’s the best bread I’ve ever had of any kind. They also make English Muffins that are really good on their own merits as long as you don’t try to compare them to the typical Thomas’s. They have a great flavor and crisp up really well but have a denser texture. |