Getting Started: Top 10 Tips
Hello and welcome to a gluten free (and sometimes other-food-free) lifestyle!
Take heart! If a new, perhaps unconventional diet, can be implemented to suit your own personal needs more accurately than a conventional diet, your quality of life has enormous potential for improvement! And in the case of a family situation, the quality of life for one individual affects the whole family! So, it pays for everyone to be supportive and have a 'can-do' attitude!
Here are a few lifestyle issues that came, not so much by reading lists of "what to do" but from living the life, making mistakes with the diet, getting sick, and needing to find a solution. So here are our top ten things and thinks to consider implementing:
1. Keep your list of 'illegal' foods with you at the beginning. It can be kept in your backpack, purse, wallet, wherever is most convenient. After several months, you might not need it anymore. However, at the beginning if you get hungry and start looking at packaged food, you will be ruing the day you left your list behind thinking that you wouldn't be looking for something to eat. If you have forgotten, stick to washed, uncut fruits and vegetables until you can get to your list and a better food source.
Please note that Aria Life does not have any view on the efficacy or accuracy of any of the food lists of the linked sites listed below. These sites have been listed for informational purposes only. Remember, all people are individual and have their own specific set of needs.
2. When mistakes happen, and they do, forgive yourself and move on. Yes, you may have become ill, you may have to be more careful than you thought you had to be, but that just means that you have just accertained one more way to be a healthier you!
3. Each person is an individual and some people need to be more careful than others! Be respectful and expect respect.
Here are only a couple of many choices that need to be made:
Home living: Should the home be mixed or purely gluten free?
Visiting: Do kitchen tables need tablecloths on them? Do couches need sheets over them? (esp. re: children)
4. Keep to the most basic foods, especially in those first couple of weeks.
In the case of a gluten free diet, this means meat, fruit and veggies (no packaged foods).
5. For the first couple of weeks, cook all food extremely well and keep grain/course (high fibre) foods to a minimum. Soup broth is an amazing healer and is very gentle on a damaged intestinal system. It also can be a fabulous breakfast for those who have digestive systems that don't 'wake up' until about ten o'clock in the morning.
Here is a link to a basic soup broth recipe there that will serve for any soup recipe you choose. The recipe contains a link to a blog article explaining the science behind soup broth, may be an interesting read as it addresses not only soup, but increasing calcium in the diet and how magnesium affects bones, confined individuals and the elderly:
For those who simply cannot go without some kind of bread, here is a recipe that will help to curb those cravings without consuming grain which seems to be hard on a damaged gut. I have only received positive feedback when it comes to this recipe and urge you to try it just once, even if you don't like squash.
6. After the first couple of weeks, add in one new food at a time. Many people find that there are other foods that are not well tolerated at the beginning (dairy, soy, corn, whole nuts, raw food, lilies, nightshades, etc.). This helps to isolate those foods. It is possible that the gut may heal well enough to add them back in later.
7. If possible, before adding in packaged foods (like waffles) make homemade. (I do carry almost every type of gluten free flour on the planet.) If time does not permit for this, I do also carry yeast free, dairy free waffles, etc.
8. Contamination matters!! I cannot express this strongly enough. No, generally speaking, one cannot pick the croutons out of a salad to render it safe for the most gluten sensitive individuals! Besides, it just makes sense to always err on the side of caution in this respect.
Please do make sure to get rid of all wooden spoons and cutting boards, non-stick pans and plastic containers. Wide mouthed large glass canning jars make for excellent left-over food storage.
Old cast iron pans have continued to be used successfully by several people I know if they have been sanded out completely and re-seasoned. If this is not possible, then new cast iron pans are also required. A mixed environment requires more 'procedural changes' than a strictly gluten free environment.
One necessary warning about cast iron pans before you go to the trouble of sanding one out or buying a new one: Some food sensitive people may, with time, experience increased absorption of nutrients, medications, etcetera. This means that it is necessary to have some medical guidance. It also means that people need to be aware of over-storage issues like hemochromatosis.
9. What kills gluten? 500 degrees Celsius and 99% alcohol (not the 43% dollar store variety). This is not useful for plastics since it will break down the plastic and those toxins may enter the food, and it will ruin wood. It is good, however, for wiping down countertops, door handles, the backs of chairs, etc. (for the more sensitive people).
Here is a group that is a stopping place for new people. It contains start-up notes that are automatically e-mailed out to new people. Old but still fairly applicable: http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/cancelthatglutenorder/
Lastly, if you just don't want to re-organize/clean out your kitchen by yourself, e-mail our housekeeping division to hire someone in. For many, it's worth the initial headstart so that they can move on to working on the small refinements that inevitably follow the initial 'kitchen cleanup'.
For those who wish to have someone come in and do initial kitchen setup or for those who are busy enough to require a regular weekly, biweekly or monthly cleaning service that is gluten free (and caters to other sensitivities), please do be welcome to also contact our cleaning division.
10. Last, but certainly not least. The gut seems to heal most quickly when as many offenders as possible are removed at once. The more quickly the gut heals, the more quickly some foods may be added back into the diet. In our experience, it is easier to be most strict and then work up to adding new foods and gauging reactions.
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Aria Life product access consists of over 400 items at the moment. Everything from shampoo (yes, hair care items have gluten) to frozen yeast bread. It is understood how overwhelming this can be for a person who is new to the diet. So please do ask for guidance about what might suit your family best.
Here are a few other things to consider because gluten sensitivity is often accompanied by additional conditions that may prevail (thyroid, diabetes, Sjogren's, etc.): Before trying new foods, one must consult a medical practitioner, especially if there are other issues at hand.
For example: Aria Life does carry sea vegetables (the great lakes region is known for iodine deficiency) but these are not always adviseable for people on thyroid meds. without prior approval by a medical practitioner. Also, some noodles (quinoa noodles have a different sugar/protein ratio than rice noodles) and some diabetics find them to be a more effective food, while other diabetics don't.
One specific note of warning about shopping in the regular world: People may try to say that spelt and kamut (common health cereal grains) are okay for those practising a gluten free lifestyle. Emphatically, they are NOT! Also, oats remain questionable for many gluten sensitive people for many different reasons.
If Aria Life can be of any help whatsoever, please contact orders@arialife.com. Don't forget to ask to have our product list e-mailed to you! (This list is under constant construction: endless types of frozen bread are not listed but are available.)
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