Tag Archives: Food safety

Sniffing out the gluten

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Gluten-detection service dog EliasWe at Custom Choice Cereal came across one of the most amazing stories we heard in the gluten-free community in quite some time and have to share it with you. Knowing what can happen if a celiac gets “glutened” we are very diligent about our food safety controls (souring only naturally gluten-free ingredients, conducting additional testing for potential cross-contamination, maintaining a dedicated gluten-free facility, etc). Though not practical for us, here is another way to ensure your food is guaranteed gluten-free and safe to consume:

USA Today featured a story about Hollie Scott and her dog Elias, an award winning Beauceron. You see, Hollie has celiac disease, and even the slightest trace of gluten gets her ill for weeks. That’s why Elias has been trained as a – hold your breath – gluten-detection service dog! He accompanies here everywhere, even on the campus of the University of Missouri, where Hollie is a first-year student in the College of Veterinary Medicine.

“When it’s time for him to do the sniff test for Scott, she places a cover with holes over the item, and Elias does his thing. She practices with him every day with known gluten-containing foods to augment the products she hopes are gluten-free so he doesn’t lose his edge. When there’s gluten, Elias tries to pull it away from her; if it’s safe, he simply looks away.”

This is the first time we’ve heard of this unique gluten detection mechanism. As the article points out, gluten is not only found in the obvious products containing wheat, rye or barley but is often used “as a filler, binder or thickener, hidden in all manner of food, including, for example, soy sauce, many salad dressings and even some toothpaste”.

We wonder if we will hear more about dogs sniffing out the gluten for their owners. What are your thoughts – would you consider a gluten-detection service dog for yourself? And would you trust a dog to find those tiny traces of gluten that could get you sick?

Gluten-free cookbook from Betty Crocker

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Gluten-free Betty Crocker CookbookAnother piece of great news for anyone with celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or just enjoying a gluten-free life: Betty Crocker released a new cookbook with over 280 fast and foolproof (especially important for me) recipes that will “make the gluten-free diet a delight”.

Together with gluten-free expert, Jean Duane, Alternative Cook and the Betty Crocker test kitchen developed recipes such as the “Best-Ever Banana Bread, Dinner Rolls, Homemade Pizza (featured on the cover), Apple Pie, Apricot Muffins with Almond Streusel Topping, Cornbread, Sugar Cookies, Waffles, Cinnamon Scones, Gravy and Sandwich Bread”. The book also contains a special section on nutrition and recipe testing guidelines to ensure food safety.

Of course many of the recipes use the new Gluten Free Bisquick or Betty Crocker Gluten Free Cakes Mixes as the base. This makes sense because at the end of the day it’s a company out to make money. However, this helps tremendously in making the recipes really easy to follow and ensures results that taste great. The cookbook has been available on newsstands across the country since December 29, 2010.

We at Custom Choice Cereal are pretty excited about this, and after our delicious gluten-free granola bars this is defintiely another motivator to get in the kitchen and try some of the recipes.

Read the press release from Betty Crocker here.

Expert answers your gluten-free & celiac questions

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Dr. Stephen WangenGood morning! It’s the first Wednesday of the month (and of 2011), and we at Custom Choice Cereal are super excited to offer you a very special service (in addition to delicious cereal with exactly the ingredients YOU love): gluten-free expert Dr. Stephen Wangen answers anything you want to know about living without gluten!

Stephen suffers from celiac disease himself, understands the challenges of a gluten-free diet, and is very passionate about providing help to people effected by digestive issues. As a result of this passion, he co-founded The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogs as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serves on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.

Since Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, we’d like you to join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen. We appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis.

Asking your question is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:

  1. Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
  2. Subscribe to our blog (or check back in 2 days) so you’ll know when then answer is up
  3. We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
  4. Dr. Wangen’s answers will be published in reply to your comments

We are looking forward to finding out what you would like to know because it’s a great way for us to learn something new as well!

Gluten-free food on campus. How it CAN be done

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Once again: Happy New Year to all of you! We hope all of you had a great start into 2011! We’re pretty excited about our plans for this year and think you will be as well. The first Monday of the 2011 has us back full speed at work, “cerealzing” your perfect gluten-free breakfast mixes.

UConnWe came across an article entitled “UConn’s Gluten-Free Food Program a National Model”. It describes how offering gluten-free food on campus can be done and we thought it’s worth sharing. The folks at UConn Dining Services deserve all the credit they can get because they realized that “eating a diet free of conventional bread, pasta and other wheat products can be challenging medically and socially for anyone”. While most of what they do can (and definitely should!) also be transferred to high school cafeterias, work cafeterias, and hospitals, to name just a few, there is indeed a “complicating fact of college life: gluten is found in two staple foods – pizza and beer”.

We are therefore truly impressed that UConn offers gluten-free selections in all the dining halls and provides prospective students with celiac disease or food allergies with personalized attention. That’s a form of customer service that pretty rare, and we at Custom Choice Cereal hope that in time more schools and universities follow this role model! What’s your experience at work or school? We would love to hear about more positive examples!

As a little inspiration we recommend watching the video with chef Robert Landolphi on how you can whip up some awesome gluten-free onion rings and biscuits. He mentions the importance of cross-contamination (that’s why we maintain a dedicated gluten-free facility) and advises to get the manager involved when going out to eat. He also says that – and we know that some of you will jump with joy – celiac disease is not an allergy but an autoimmune disorder :-)

Gluten-free highlight in NYC

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This past weekend I had the chance to explore the gluten-free food scene in New York City for a little bit. The sheer size of “The City” results in tons of gluten-free options so I unfortunately only had the chance to see a very limited selection of hot spots. Despite it being such a huge city, there is no place like Custom Choice Cereal :-) Good that we ship your gluten-free cereal creations all over the US!

Baby Cakes Bakery New YorkIt was an amazing trip, and above all I wanted to share my personal gluten-free highlight with you. Of course I had already planned a trip to Babycakes Bakery in Manhattan but was reminded by Jennifer on our facebook page that I absolutely have to check them out. And that’s exactly what I did!
Gluten-free donuts & brownies
Seriously, that place is a heaven for the lover of gluten-free sweet (with agave nectar) treats! But I’m getting ahead of myself. The bakery itself is a fairly small store with the last third being occupied by the baking operations. It was pretty cool that you can actually see the action, which always gives me confidence because it shows that there is nothing to hide. The actual counter with all the goodies takes up roughly two thirds of the remaining left half of the store so that a small table fits right in front of it. On the right hand there is space for another 2-3 people to sit along the wall.
Gluten-free caramel donut
Following the recommendation from a few people in the store I bought a couple of their caramel donuts and brownies. The lady packed them into a nice little cardboard box for me so I could bring them with me to a friend who has a serious sweet tooth. We both agreed: the brownies were absolutely outstanding and packed with chocolate chips! While the donuts had a great texture and were very soft we thought that they were a little bit too sweet. But obviously that has nothing to do with them being outstanding gluten-free treats look and taste delicious!

Conclusion: ff you are in New York City I highly recommend that you pay Babycakes a visit! In the meantime you can (and should) do what I do: get creative and personally design the best gluten-free cereal there is. It’s fun, and you will enjoy the great taste!

Gluten-free diet makes you feel better

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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).
3-sec-poll results. How fast did you start feeling better?

Taste is subjective…

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Another way to say it that you can’t argue about taste. It’s just one of the reasons for Custom Choice Cereal’s existence. Equally important, it is our mission to make living gluten-free an enjoyable and fun experience for everyone but especially those of you with celiac disease or gluten intolerance. We know how tough it can be finding a variety of tasty gluten-free breakfast options – but fortunately you don’t have to search any longer!

NorthJersey.comSachi Fujimore published an article on NorthJersey.com about custom food businesses in the US on Monday. Besides our custom gluten-free cereal, she also mentions the following custom food companies:

These are some great ideas and young businesses that we really like and support. Remember that Christmas is approaching fast and that surprising your foodie friends with their personal food makes for a super unique gift that will definitely be appreciated!

Interesting day for anyone gluten-free

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Every single day at Custom Choice Cereal is fun because of the great people I meet and what I learn from them. This being said I must admit that yesterday was a particularly interesting day.

First I learned from very well informed sources that General Mills apparently pulled its gluten-free Strawberry Rice Chex. I’ve only seen it once before so maybe they never really rolled it out nationwide? In any case, it triggered a discussion on our facebook page, so if you have something to add please don’t be shy!
UK's Gluten-free Chefs of the Year
A litte later in the day Jules Shepard told me via twitter that Gluten-free Chefs of the Year were crowned in the UK. Professional chefs could compete for the title of “Gluten-free Chef of the Year” while catering students and chefs under the age of 23 could become the “Up and Coming Gluten-free Chef of the Year”. Winners Michael McCamley and Shanice Parris win one-week placements at restaurants where they can work with Michelin star chefs. The entire event was organized by Coeliac UK, an organization founded in 1968 (!!!) to provide support for people who have celiac disease.

Now the big question is why something like this does not exist in the US? Or have I just not heard of it? In either case, I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions. I think this could be a very exciting and publicity-effective way to educate about and raise awareness for celiac disease.

Gluten-free Thanksgiving tips from the pros

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A couple of days ago we at Custom Choice Cereal wrote about tips for a safe gluten-free Thanksgiving. However, besides the cereal bowl, our cooking skills are rather amateurish, so we are super excited to share with you five gluten-free Thanksgiving tips from professional chefs.

Vanessa Phillips & Tryg SiversonVanessa Phillips is the co-owner of Friedman’s Lunch in New York City and happens to be gluten intolerant. Together with her partner Tryg Siverson, she is featured on CNN’s eatocracy where they give five easy tips to make gluten-free Thanksgiving a success:

  1. Plan ahead
  2. Think about all the ingredients
  3. Delicious gluten-free desserts are easy
  4. Time to get cooking
  5. What to do with leftovers

The best part: the article incudes recipes for orange-apricot turkey breast, a gluten-free stuffing that sounds absolutely amazing, and a pumpkin pie. Finish the feast by serving some gluten-free granola with a few dried fruits sprinkled over ice cream or frozen yogurt (see tip 3 above, delicious gluten-free desert is SO easy), and you and your family will definitely have a wonderful Holiday!

Gluten-free Thanksgiving tips

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Thanksgiving is coming up, and the conversation in the celiac and gluten-free community around this topic intensifies. Thanksgiving TurkeyOf course we want all of you to enjoy a great-tasting and safe holiday with your families and friends! There is so much stuff to consider, and every household has a slightly different Thanksgiving procedure. That’s why we at Custom Choice Cereal decided to focus on the most important aspects only. Please share your tips, tricks & recipes – it helps us all!

First things first – the turkey or ham. Usually these centerpieces of the traditional Thanksgiving meal are gluten-free. However, you must make sure that

  • the glaze they used is gluten-free
  • no non-gluten-free broth has been injected to keep it juicy

If in doubt you should always make sure and call the manufacturer! That’s exactly what we did, and Honey Baked Ham assured us that their turkeys and hams are safe for celiacs and other gluten-free consumers.

On to the stuffing. Most gluten-free folks suggest recipes based on corn bread. Check out how the Celiac Sprue Association makes it, watch the video from Gluten-free Girl and the Chef and their stuffing, or have a look at this site with gluten-free recipes for a few of the most typical Thanksgiving dishes! Also check out this recent article on gluten-free Thanksgiving in The New York Times. It includes a recipe for delicious-looking pumpkin dumplings with radicchio.

For those of you who prefer a step-by-step guide we highly recommend Jules’ gluten-free Thanksgiving e-book! It’s a great one-stop resource. And since there is a tendency to overheat the dining and living rooms over Thanksgiving – ice cream sprinkled with a gluten-free cereal that you created is an amazing treat and the perfect way to finish the meal!