Gluten-free cereal. Mix it, name it. Enjoy!

Posted on June 25, 2010 by customchoicecereal

I could devote an entire blog to the Soccer World Cup and its many surprises, the latest of which being current champion Italy not advancing to the next round after its 2:3 loss against Slovakia. A good Italian friend of mine summarized his disappointment by saying “It was the worse team in Italian soccer history, and we deserved to go home. Nothing more than that, we will start rebuilding and will come back…now I will sit down and hope to watch better games.” Well said. Don’t forget that the US are playing Ghana on Saturday at 2:30pm EST…

On to happier things for everyone: your gluten-free cereal creations! You mix them virtually and name them, we at Custom Choice Cereal hand-mix them in our dedicated gluten-free facility so that you can enjoy a worry-free start into your day! As a tribute to your creativity, here are some of the (subjectively) best names you came up with:

5. Cynthia Crunchies (An evergreen among the cereal names)
4. Jungie YumYum (Exactly!)
3. Booberry Blend (Nice word play…)
2. Celiac Man Granola (Guess someone found his perfect breakfast!)
1. And this week’s winner is Andrea’s New Wedding Diet

Chris and I hope you have a great fun- and soccer-filled weekend!

Gluten-free cereal names & World Cup

Posted on June 14, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Oooops! As evident from our blog post about the World Cup in South Africa, the Custom Choice Cereal team was very excited about a the beginning of a month filled with great soccer. Saturday brought a big surprise as the favored English team couldn’t get past a 1:1 tied game against the US. The American team scored with what seemed a rather desperate long-distance shot – which England’s goalie Green let slip through his fingers.

However, keeping up with a good tradition, we now recognize the some of the names that you gave your gluten-free cereal creations in the past week. Once again you were pretty creative, so thanks for that!

5. BP Granola (these were the customer’s initials, so no oil here!)
4. Mama’s Miracle Mix (perfect for the young mom)
3. Cereal and Fruit Monster (a truly monstrous mix!)
2. What exactly is a Goji? (2 words for you: super fruit)
1. And this week’s winner is Father’s Day Special

Don’t forget that Father’s Day is coming up! A gluten-free cereal creations with his favorite ingredients makes a great gift and June 20th is pretty close, so make sure to surprise Dad with his personal cereal mix!

World Cup in South Africa kicking off

Posted on June 11, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Ha! I can’t recall having used the phrase “kicking off” ever in a more literal sense. Since this is the first time the FIFA has selected an African country to host the soccer World Cup, all of us here at Custom Choice Cereal really hope that at least one African team advances to the semi-finals. It would be a dream if this team would be South Africa, but first we’ll have to see how they play in the first game in – what a coincidence – 90 minutes from now!

Like every soccer fan, I truly enjoy to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of individual teams, to speculate about who is most likely to take home the trophy, to discover the underdogs. Let’s be honest, it’s almost as much fun as watching the games themselves! Here are some of my personal and obviously biased thoughts about teams with the potential to win the 2010 Soccer World Cup:

Argentina – At the top of my list, not only alphabetically
Brazil – Great soccer nation but don’t think they can do it this year
Germany – Playing without Ballack can be a curse or a blessing
Italy – Not again. My guess is they’ll lose in the semi-finals
Netherlands – An outstanding team, need to watch them
Spain – I’m really not sure about them but definitely can win

Let’s hope for a great event with lots of fun for everyone. Most of all I hope that the African continent and South Africa in particular can benefit from the attention they get over the next four weeks even after July 11 when we know who won the 2010 Soccer World Cup!

Celiac disease, diabetes, and sports

Posted on May 27, 2010 by customchoicecereal

The Custom Choice Cereal crew had the pleasure to meet with Tony Cervati earlier this week. Tony was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes – that’s the form of diabetes where the body does not produce any insulin – 32 years ago. Only 5-10% of all diabetics are Type 1.

Despite having tested his blood glucose over 75,000 times and have taken almost 52,000 injections, Tony does not let his condition slow him down. Quite the contrary! An avid mountain biker, Tony started Type1Rider.org to promote awareness and education of diabetes, and to “provide support and encouragement for all diabetic cyclists”. He competes in various races and is as energetic a person as one can possible imagine!

It was just great fun for us at Custom Choice Cereal to meet and talk with Tony. We wrote about the link between Type 1 Diabetes and celiac disease before (in our 100th blog post, yay!). The American Diabetes Association states on its website that

“about 1 in 20 people with type 1 diabetes has celiac disease”.

Since we just met Tony and were (and still are!) so impressed by what he does, we took the opportunity to refresh our own and our readers’ memory. The connection between celiac disease and Type 1 Diabetes is why Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center tests all of their Type 1 diabetics for celiac disease.

Interesting enough for Tony, we could tell him that the Garmin-Transitions professional cycling team went on a gluten-free diet and saw significant improvements in their digestion, sleep, recovery and, ultimately, in their performance. What a great coincidence that we offer a great solution to start your gluten-free day on the right foot!

Gluten-free diet great for athletes

Posted on May 10, 2010 by customchoicecereal

We at Custom Choice Cereal love our new Saturdays at the Hillsborough Farmers Market. It is not only an outstanding incentive to get up early and enjoy the beauty of the waking day, it also provides us with a great opportunity to hear your concerns and feedback. During one of these conversations we learned about a very interesting article that we wanted to share with you.

Men’s Journal wrote about how the gluten-free diet powers one of the best cycling teams in the world and how it can help anyone perform better and recover faster. The athletes of the Garmin-Transitions pro cycling team were at first highly opposed to changing their diet away from pasta just because it’s been such a habit to load up on carbs this way. But team leader Christian Vande Velde and his teammate Tom Danielson embarked on a gluten-free diet, and both were pleasantly surprised. Tom said:

“My performance really improved a lot — there was definitely a correlation. I think that my digestion is better, and because of that my sleep is better and my recovery is better.”

We at Custom Choice Cereal learned once again that humans are very different from cows, definitely when it comes to our digestive system That’s because we have only a single stomach and lack the enzymes in our saliva and stomach to fully break down and absorb gluten for nutritional use. As a result, parts of the gluten just get smashed up before exiting to the small bowel in large pieces. And here comes the crucial part. According to Michelle M. Pietzak from the University of Southern California Keck’s School of Medicine

“More than 50 different types of those fragments have been shown to cause adverse reactions. So depending on your genetic makeup, you can have an allergy, you can have celiac disease, or it could be that you’re just not digesting it well.“

Point proven. Gluten-free diet is great for everyone! Start with a delicious custom gluten-free cereal now!

NCAA Championship & a tough decision

Posted on April 5, 2010 by customchoicecereal

We are torn! Those of you that have read our story know that Custom Choice Cereal’s logo includes Carolina Blue as a tribute to our beloved Tar Heels.

Watching them only play in the “Not-In-Tournament” tournament (but what we think playing some of the best basketball of the 2009/2010 season) was not what we had hoped for. This season has been really tough on us, and the picture below says it all:

The team from the school down the road from us aka The Duke Blue Devils are not only playing in the NCAA but have made it to the finals where they are facing the Butler Bulldogs today. Should we be cheering for Butler (read “against Dook”), be neutral, or cheer for Duke (at least the trophy will stay in North Carolina, and it will be even sweeter if Carolina beats Duke next year)??

Intense discussion with friends and family over the last couple of days resulted in the last of the three options – we never thought this would happen but Custom Choice Cereal has to admit it: we will root for Duke tonight…

Tonight: 76ers Celiac Awareness Night

Posted on March 26, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Custom Choice Cereal talked about it before in our random findings on celiac disease but we think this event a worth a reminder: the Philadelphia 76ers will take on the Atlanta Hawks tonight. This is not just another basketball game but the 3rd Celiac Awareness Night hosted by the 76ers.

It is pretty significant that an NBA team recognizes celiac disease on this level, and Custom Choice Cereal was even more impressed that it is already their 3rd event. In a time where 97% of people with celiac disease remain undiagnosed and suffer needlessly, this quite an accomplishment and a great help in raising awareness for celiac disease! A plus: enter the promo code CELIAC and you get your tickets for a discount.

Random findings on celiac disease

Posted on March 10, 2010 by customchoicecereal

The team at Custom Choice Cereal is overwhelmed by the flood of daily news on celiac disease, new research findings, information about new drugs under development, and the wealth of tips and tricks for living a gluten-free life. It is part of our mission to filter this information to some degree and pass on the bits and pieces that we find particularly interesting and or helpful.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post we want to share a couple of our findings in no particular order.

The Philadelphia 76ers will host their 3rd Celiac Awareness Night on March 26th. Their opponent that night will be the Atlanta Hawks. We say “Thank you!” for helping to raise awareness for celiac disease! A special discount for the game is available on the 76ers website with the code “CELIAC”
Researchers from Columbia University’s Celiac Disease Center studied the Body Mass Index (BMI) of 369 patients proven have celiac disease from 1981 until 2007. “Classical” femal celiacs were all revealed as predictors for low BMI. Once on a gluten-free diet, over 50% of the overweight and obese patients lost weight, and of the group who initially had a low BMI, 42.4% attained a normal weight
Triumph Dining’s Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Shopping Guide is now available as an iPhone application

These are just a couple of items we came across, please feel free to share your findings by commenting on this post!

College basketball rivalry recap

Posted on February 11, 2010 by customchoicecereal

We said it before and we say it again – besides providing a variety of tasty gluten-free cereal with exactly the ingredients you like to you, everyone at Custom Choice Cereal is really passionate about sports and especially College sports. Of course UNC is our favorite, and last night saw the game of the biggest rivalry in College sports: UNC played Duke at the Dean Dome, and as we said at least in the Triangle area it is one of the few sporting events that is more important than the Super Bowl.

There were a couple of impressive runs from both teams, and it was a close game until the last 10 minutes. Unfortunately the outcome was not as we had hoped because the Blue Devils took home a win by 10 points (64:54). Though UNC’s free throw shooting and rebounding were (again) not very encouraging (Duke on the other hand had 23 offensive rebounds!), we still thought that this was probably the most impressive performance thus far in the 2009/2010 season. Our defensive game improved significantly, and maybe they can still make it to the tournament…

More important than the Super Bowl…

Posted on February 10, 2010 by customchoicecereal

Those of you who have been following Custom Choice Cereal know that there are two things that we are passionate about: providing delicious, customizable gluten-free cereal as a great alternative to the gluten-free “cardboard options” that are out there – and Carolina. As a matter of fact, one of the criteria in designing our logo was that it had to have Carolina Blue in it .

As every Tar Heel knows today is the biggest day of the academic year since our basketball team is playing the “school down the road” aka the Duke Blue Devils in the Dean Dome tonight.

Anything is possible in the ACC, and certainly when it comes to our Tar Heels playing Duke, the biggest rivalry in College sports. Given this year’s Conference records (Duke 7-2, UNC 2-6) we are ready for the worst, but as they say – hope dies last…

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