Helen's wheat free blog

The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread Book Review

Not another gluten free recipe book you groan... well hold that thought because you might be pleasantly surprised by The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread: Gluten-free, Dairy-free, Egg-free by Laurie Sadowski.

The book contains useful information that, while it might seem obvious to experienced coeliacs, will be useful to those people new to gluten free. And although the recipes are vegan, as well as gluten free, we think it would be easy to substitute butter or milk for vegan buttery spread or non-dairy milk if you don't have vegan versions available, the book gives tips.

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The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread

How many of you miss bread since going wheat or gluten free? And if you've read our previous blogs you'll no doubt agree that decent gluten free breads are few and far between.

So can you imagine our excitement when we were asked to review a new book called "The Allergy-Free Cook Bakes Bread" written by Laurie Sadowski? It's a whole book dedicated to gluten free, dairy free and egg free sweet and savoury breads.

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Why is it so difficult to make good gluten free bread?

There doesn't seem to be any consistency in the various gluten free breads on the market. Why? If some gluten free bakeries can do it why can't others? There are still gluten free breads being sold that are just the same hard, crumbly brick they have been for the last 10 years.

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Pricey and cheating

Although I try to steer away from too many sweet things I do find that granola bars are a useful "get you out of hunger" standby, especially if you're out and about and there's no wheat free or gluten free foods available.

Anyway I got really keen on the JK Gourmet gluten free granola bars, my favourite being the Nuts & Cranberries. At $2.99 each they are a little steep in price, but very tasty.

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All good things come to an end

If you read my previous blog on the GF Patisserie then you'll know how impressed I was with their great bread. Really good tasting bread that didn't crumble or need toasting.

An impromptu visit to Calgary saw me heading home via Cochrane today to pick up a supply of their yummy bread and burger buns.

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Chef believes that coeliacs are attention seekers

Chef Damian Cardone admitted on his Facebook profile on March 10, 2011 that he thinks coeliacs on gluten free diets, who request gluten free meals at the restaurant he works in, are timewasters and its all in their "disturbed little heads". He freely admits to serving high gluten pasta to anyone asking for gluten free.

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Book Review: The Gluten Effect

There are a lot of books on the market that are dedicated to gluten free living, wheat allergies or intolerances and how to potentially live a healthier life by removing grains from the diet. The problem comes from trying to decide which books to buy and whether they will answer the questions that you have.

HealthNOW sent us a copy for review of The Gluten Effect: How Innocent Wheat Is Ruining Your Health by Drs. Vikki & Richard Petersen DC, CCN and Founders of the HealthNOW Method .

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Why hasn't anyone produced a wheat free version of Twix yet?

If theres one chocolate bar that I do miss its Twix. Thick rippled chocolate coating a crunchy biscuit topped with thick caramel, ummmmmm lovely. I can remember back to those days when I used to be able to eat them, too many of course as my waistline would have attested at the time, but whos counting now.

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GF goodies at the GF Patisserie

As you walk into the GF Patisserie in Cochrane, Alberta the first thing that assails your senses is the amazing smell of freshly baked bread. With (non-coeliac) bakery needs catered to by the supermarkets and far too few real bakers, the homely and very appetising smell of baking is a lost experience for most of us, and especially for those who cant eat normal bread.

So what makes the GF Patisserie special? Well it must be the fact that its owned and run by a coeliac who is passionate about baking good, healthy, preservative free foods.

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Gluten free at the dentist

I was at the dentist today for my bi-annual cleaning and polishing and an interesting issue arose with the polishing compound.

Because of my severe wheat reaction the hygienist always uses toothpaste for the polishing rather than the standard polishing compound. The reason is because although the ingredients dont list wheat we just dont really know, so better safe than sorry.

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Why arent there any wheat allergic or coeliac TV or film heroes?

Seriously though, do you ever see someone sitting down to a meal in any of the soap operas, sit coms, reality TV etc saying they cant eat wheat, or checking the meal is gluten free?

In Stargate SG1 did anyone have to risk offending the hospitality of an alien species by asking if it was gluten free?

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Gluten free pizza at Boston Pizza et al

I was interested to see that Boston Pizza now offer gluten free pizza in all their restaurants. However, how do you really know that the prep of the pizza is still going to be gluten free?

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Time to reminisce

Its funny how some things jog your memory and get you reminiscing. My husband is keen to get rid of our Subaru because its a money pit. It wouldnt be so bad if every time we paid for repairs at the local garage they actually fixed the problem, but they take our money, do half the job, and we have to pay again later on to get the repair repaired.

So Im seriously thinking about getting another motorbike if we go down to just having the truck for motorised transport. Not having ridden for 6 years, and in the meantime having left the UK and settled in Canada I dont have a bike licence anymore so Ill have to do training and a re-test.

Anyway bear with me Ill be getting to the point soon.

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Nutritional info

Why do some food manufacturers make it so difficult to find out nutritional info?

I wanted to buy some chocolate the other day and the wrapper had no nutritional info on it, it simply read for nutritional information visit our website.

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