Gluten-free diet makes you feel better

Posted on November 30, 2010 by customchoicecereal

The gluten-free diet is sometimes dubbed as the latest “fad” diet (we say thank you Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, and certainly Chelsea Clinton and a gluten-free wedding cake).

This being said, we at Custom Choice Cereal would like to reiterate that those with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or a wheat allergy don’t have a choice but to cut wheat, rye, and barley from their diet. Plenty of anecdotal evidence suggests that going gluten-free often times also eases digestive issues and results in improved behavior for people with autism. Regardless of the condition, we wanted to find out and asked you

How long after going gluten-free did you feel/see first results?

72 of you participated in this most recent of our 3-second-polls, and a whopping 72.2% saw improvements within the first month! An additional 16.7% felt better within 4 months after switching to a gluten-free diet. The remaining 11.1% don’t feel any different yet. You can easily see the complete survey results in the graph below. Please leave us a comment how your well-being improved! It’d be great if you could also participate in our latest poll (on the left).

Why you are living gluten-free

Posted on September 7, 2010 by customchoicecereal

It is both fun and interesting for us at Custom Choice Cereal – and hopefully for you as well – to see the results of our 3-second-polls here on our blog. A big thanks to the 69 of you who answered our last question

What’s your main reason for being gluten-free?

We are pretty thrilled about this best participation rate in any of our 3-second-polls so far because it helps all of us get more representative results. So please help us promote our newest poll (How long after going gluten-free did you feel/see first results?) to get even more answers. Here are the detailed results of what you said:

52.9% (36 out of 69) responded that they have celiac disease
27.9% (19 people) of you said that you are intolerant to gluten
10.3% (7 out of 69) of you just feel better on a gluten-free diet
7.4% (5 of you) are gluten-free because of a family member
1.5% (one person) replied that they have a wheat allergy and want to be on the safe side
No participant was an athlete following a gluten-free diet

The results make sense, but the Custom Choice Cereal team was still impressed that more than 3/4 of all respondents had either celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity. This show that eating gluten-free might after all not be the fad diet that many make it out to be. Or our readers are the people who understand why they should be gluten-free.

Since Hajo insists on a graphical depiction of our 3-second-poll results you can find an easy-to-read chart below:

What would you like our next 3-second-poll to be? Let us know in the comment section!

Gluten-free diet & cheating. You spoke

Posted on July 27, 2010 by customchoicecereal

We at Custom Choice Cereal just closed another one of our gluten-free 3-second-polls, and the new survey is already up (hint: top left corner of this blog). A big Thank You! goes to all of you who answered our last question

Are you completely gluten-free or do you “cheat” sometimes?

Thanks to 61 answers total the results are becoming more representative. The results below also show that the vast majority of you are entirely gluten-free and don’t eat a food if you are not sure about the ingredients. That’s a very smart decision given research indicating that not switching to a gluten-free diet significantly increases the mortality rate for celiacs. Here are the detailed results of our 3-second-poll:

54.1% (33 out of 61) of you said that you are 100% gluten-free and don’t eat the food if you don’t know every ingredient
26.2% (16 people) said that accidents (unfortunately) happen
11.5% (7 out of 61) cheated once but will never cheat again
8.2% (5 of you) admitted to sometimes giving in to a “gluten craving”

For those of you who like graphs as much as I do and prefer them to text I have displayed the results in the chart below.

Gluten-free info and "self-diagnosis"

Posted on June 30, 2010 by customchoicecereal

We have said it before and will say it again: a big part of our mission at Custom Choice Cereal is to raise awareness for celiac disease and gluten intolerance. This requires that we also never stop learning, and you are actually our greatest resource!

We asked you about your road to diagnosis with celiac or gluten intolerance, and 24.2% said that you are self-diagnosed. In another one of our 3-second-polls, 73.3% of you primarily rely on the internet and blogs for gluten-free information. We must admit that we do the same but focus on the pages that we have identified as reliable resources, which we share with you in the right sidebar.

A recent British study warns about the dangers of self-diagnosis of celiac disease and gluten intolerance. Results of the surveyed parents show that

<50% correctly identified all gluten-containing foods

45% wrongly thought that maize contained gluten

98% correctly identified that gluten was in wheat

only 38% could identify all gluten-containing foods

This can make life for the doctors who are aware of celiac disease much more difficult. Why? Well, a diagnosis cannot be made on a gluten-free diet, and it is literally very painful to be forced back to a gluten-containing diet for a correct diagnosis.

As Dr. Nadeem Afzal of the Southampton General Hospital points out “correct treatment and education about it becomes crucial in getting the child back to 100%”. He also admits though that online searches and self-education “reflect the age in which we live – we should embrace new technology as a useful starting point.”

By the way, you also need an official diagnosis to be able to deduct higher expenses for gluten-free food from your taxes!

Gluten-free info: Your sources of choice

Posted on June 17, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Above all, I’d like to thank those of you who participated in the last Custom Choice Cereal 3-second-poll. The newest 3-second-poll is already up in the top left corner of this blog (that’s a hint)! Last time we asked

What is your primary source of information for gluten-free food options?

A total of 30 people participated in our 3-second-poll, and we are very thankful for your input. Hopefully we can increase the participation rate as we continue our polls because it is interesting for all of us. You can see from the results below that most of you rely on the internet and blogs to stay up to date on gluten-free foods and recipes that work for celiacs:

A whopping 73.3% (or 22 out of the total 30) said that blogs and the internet are the primary source of gluten-free information
10.0% (3 of you) rely on industry or food magazines
6.7% (2 each) look to either the GIG or the CSA or have some other source for their gluten-free updates
The academic route seems not to be preferred since no votes were casted for research institutions as a source of information

I like graphics and tables simply because I think they are easier to read than an bunch of text. So for those of you who are like me (and for myself), the results are also shown in the graph below:
Chris and I would like to thank all you gluten-free bloggers, celiac organizations, and many gluten-free product manufacturers out there for doing a great job. This poll confirms your work is appreciated, so please keep it up!

Celiac Disease: Your road to diagnosis

Posted on April 28, 2010 by customchoicecereal

First of all we at Custom Choice Cereal have to thank all of you who participated in our last poll. We asked you

“How many doctors did it take until you were diagnosed with celiac disease?”

While of course more is (almost) always better, 33 of you answered our 3-second poll. In the hopes that this will encourage more people to participate in our polls, we show the results below. They confirm that celiac disease ranks still low on the radar screen of most doctors:

30.3% (or 10 out of the total 33) said that road to diagnosis was long and took between 5 and 10 doctors
Not surprisingly, many of you (24.2%) choose a gluten-free diet, felt better, and consequently are self-diagnosed
18.2% were either diagnosed after 2-5 visits to different doctors or – and this is the big shocker – after having seen upward of 10 doctors!!
Only a mere 9.1% said that their doctor is awesome and immediately diagnosed their condition

Please see the full result in the graphic below.

Once again this confirms the importance of the work so many great organizations such as the CSA, the GIG, the NFCA, and all your devoted gluten-free bloggers and authors out there do on a daily basis. Custom Choice Cereal therefore thanks you and can only encourage you to keep up your work!

Hearing about custom gluten-free cereal

Posted on January 19, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Custom Choice Cereal is really interested in where and how you first heard about the option to customize your gluten-free cereal mix through our online platform. Since we are aware that all of you have time constraints and cannot spend minutes on a lengthy survey we ask that you please give us literally seconds of your time and answer the survey at the top of the left sidebar!

Of course you can always comment on this blog entry. Thank you very much!

Custom Choice Cereal

Your Gluten Freedom

Category Archives: Surveys