Category Archives: Holidays

Feedback from gluten-free week at camp

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Gluten-free week at Camp KanataWe at Custom Choice Cereal want to help everyone to enjoy a variety of tasty gluten-free cereal. Despite recent improvements, limited choice and often mediocre taste are still true for many gluten-free food choices. Especially celiac or gluten-intolerant children suffer from diet anxiety because they constantly hear the same “Sorry, you can’t have that, it has gluten in it” while watching their friends enjoy their pizza or burger…

That’s why we absolutely had to support the gluten-free week at Camp Kanata. It allows gluten-free campers to enjoy a worry-free week. What’s more, other campers often envy the great gluten-free food that the celiac children are being served, a feeling unknown to many of them (they know all too well how the other children feel though…).

Custom Choice Cereal provided Camp Kanata with two special mixes:

  • Crazy Camp Kanata Granola with Cranberries and Organic Coconut Chips, mix ID 3e0299
  • Camp Kanata Fruity Flakes with Organic Corn Flakes, Apricots and Organic Raisins, mix ID 4de9f9

We had asked for campers’ feedback, and here is what we were told:

“Your contribution of Custom Choice Cereal was a great hit, and much appreciated.  the feedback really came down to an age distribution. The younger campers almost uniformly voted for flakes, whereas those 11+ voted for granola.”

While we expected a close race between the two cereal creations, we did not think it would be so heavily influenced by age. But we are learning every day! So depending on how old your child is you might go for either one of these mixes or cerealize your own gluten-free mix!

Frozen yogurt. Local. Gluten-free!

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The entrepreneurial spirit in the Triangle is very alive, and rarely does a week pass since having started Custom Choice Cereal where I don’t meet at least one other local entrepreneur. Being located in the Research Triangle Park, many of these entrepreneurs operate in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, or IT.

Local YogurtThat’s why I am very excited to have met the people behind Local Yogurt, “Durham’s first independently owned frozen yogurt shop!” They offer delicious frozen yogurt in four flavors and plenty of toppings.  The best part: the yogurt is gluten-free! How awesome is that??

With the heat hitting North Carolina and the 4th of July weekend ahead, this is the perfect treat for anyone, but especially for those with celiac disease and everyone on a gluten-free or wheat-free diet. Go ahead and visit LoYo this weekend at one of their three locations in Durham, Raleigh or Greenville!

Gluten-free week at Camp Kanata is here!

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Boom! The gluten-free week at Camp Kanata in Wake Forest has finally begun! As you can tell I am pretty excited about this! Chris and I have been hand-mixing gluten-free cereal for the past couple of days since Custom Choice Cereal will support the campers with delicious breakfast concoctions. And here is a little fun for you:

Do you know how many bags of gluten-free cereal are in the picture?
Gluten-free cereal for Camp KanataComment on this blog entry by July 5th, and the closest guess will get a chance to create his or her own gluten-free breakfast treat!

From my days at summer camp I remember the full schedules. We at Custom Choice Cereal therefore want to make sure that the campers start their days with a tasty gluten-free breakfast that prepares them ideally for their activity-filled days at camp. Campers will be able to crown the cereal they like the best, which we will then add to our list of Favorite Mixes. Stay tuned for this slightly different review of our gluten-free cereal!

Gluten-free week at Camp Kanata sponsored by Custom Choice Cereal

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Today is a great day! Let’s hope it stays that way with the “right” results in the soccer match between Germany and Ghana after the US team showed how it’s done! The Soccer World Cup in South Africa has already brought quite a few surprises – Switzerland upset Spain, Italy only tied against New Zealand, and the whole France disaster…
Gluten-free week at Camp Kanata
After the official beginning of summer it is now time to have your child(ren) enjoy summer camp. However, this can be quite a challenge for a kid with celiac disease as daily meals with other campers serve as a constant (and quite annoying) reminder that the gluten-free diet makes them “special”. The good news: there are solutions!

We at Custom Choice Cereal have previously written about how gluten-free summer camps benefit children, namely by providing relief from diet anxiety and improving overall well-being. That’s why I am so excited to have Camp Kanata right around the corner in Wake Forest, NC. They offer a gluten-free week from June 27 to July 3, and Custom Choice Cereal will support this great cause with special Camp Kanata cereal mixes that they can safely enjoy! Since all our cereals are hand-mixed in a dedicated gluten-free facility there is absolutely no risk of cross-contamination.

Stay tuned for feedback from the campers! They will have a chance to vote for their favorite cerealization, and we will add this mix to our list of recommended gluten-free cereal mixes!

Gluten-free camps benefit celiac children

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Custom Choice Cereal pointed out less than a month ago that one of the few gluten-free summer camps in the US is located in our beautiful State of North Carolina. Camp Kanata’s gluten-free week this year will be from June 27 to July 3. If you are interested in this for your child(ren) you should act quickly since the camp is usually booked by late February!

Summer camp counselorsThis being said we feel the need to share some very interesting research findings from the University of California San Francisco’s Department of Pediatrics. These might serve as an encouragement to (re-)enroll your child(ren) in a gluten-free summer camp this summer. A brief summary of the research report was printed in the online version of Pediatrics, The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The research team asked 104 children with celiac disease aged 7 to 17 to answer a survey consisting of 14 questions, and 77 of them completed the questionnaire at the beginning and at the end of a week at a gluten-free summer camp. The results were astonishing:

  • All children felt improvement in well-being, self-perception, and emotional outlook
  • None felt different from other kids or frustrated by their diet
  • Campers on a gluten-free diet for less than 4 years reported improvements in 11 of the 14 questions
  • The positive effects were more pronounced in children who had been on a gluten-free diet for less than 4 years versus those who had been gluten-free for longer

While the long-term effects need further investigation, the study concludes that “stress and anxiety around food and social interactions” can at least temporarily be alleviated by the safe environment of a gluten-free summer camp.

Gluten-free summer camp

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Gluten-free summer campYou know how it is: you here about something once and within the next couple of days or weeks, the same thing gets mentioned again and again. This is what happened to Custom Choice Cereal about a summer camp that has a gluten-free week every year. Having been a counselor in a YMCA summer camp in Massachusetts himself in 2001, Hajo had to write about this.

Camp Kanata is located here in North Carolina and is run by the YMCA of the Triangle. Their gluten-free week this year is from June 27 to July 3, and we’ve been told that this week is usually fully booked by the end of February, so you should act quickly.

All meals during gluten-free week are safe to eat for kids with celiac disease or gluten intolerance, which allows them to feel normal and lets them enjoy daily camp life with other campers without worries about their diet. We believe it is a great opportunity that you should definitely consider if your child eats gluten-free.

Writing on celiac-friendly destination, skipping gluten-free cereal names

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It’s Friday, which usually means that Custom Choice Cereal publishes the funniest/most creative mix names that you came up with for your gluten-free cereal. But there is no rule without exceptions…

Instead we wanted to share with you another website that allows your to publish your reviews on gluten-free restaurants, hotels, resorts, cruise ships, and grocery stores. Since it focuses on preparing you for your travels, the site is called GlutenFreeTravelSite.com.

What we found especially interesting is that the site recognized Florida as the “World’s Most Celiac-Friendly Destination“. We did the check, and the site is actually operated out of Virginia, which lends this award even more credibility. What struck us was the reason for this result. The large number of (apparently good) reviews for Disney properties made Florida the winner because they take special diets very seriously. Maybe we should plan our next vacation in sunny Florida??

Healthy gluten-free New Year to you!

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CUSTOM CHOICE CEREAL WISHES ALL OF YOU A HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND GLUTEN-FREE NEW YEAR! Fireworks

We would also like to Thank all of You who have been so supportive and continue to help us spread the word about our gluten-free customized cereal mixes! The months since our launch in October have been very exciting, and we cannot believe that only three months have passed.

How better to end the year than sharing great gluten-free recipes with you? Thanks to Lauren from Canada who writes the blog Celiac Teen we only have to post a link because she posted a great summary of her favorite gluten-free muffins, cupcakes, waffles, biscuits, and cakes. Thank you, Lauren!

Gluten-free holiday tips on My FOX DC

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Gluten-free cooking expert Jules Shepard – also know as Jules Gluten Free – was here in Raleigh in November to teach one of her classes. Custom Choice Cereal met with her then and wrote about her on this blog. She is now featured with a video on My FOX DC, and we thought that this is worth sharing.

Jules points out some of her holiday dishes in this short video but the best part is the recipe for peanut-free, tree nut-free, dairy-free, soy-free, egg-free, gluten-free, and wheat-free Buckeye Candies that is published on the website. They look delicious in the video and according to host Tony Perkins also smelled great! Click on the picture below to watch the video with Jules and read the recipe.
Jules Shepard on My FOX DC