Hey guys! I want to remind you of something my mom always says to me. “Just because it’s Gluten- Free and Dairy- Free doesn’t mean it isn’t junk food.” Though these food allergies seriously limit our junk intake, we have to remember this can still be unhealthy without the right foods and lifestyles added in. I used to 100% rely on my food intake to be what made me lose weight and I would view food as the only factor in what made me healthy. But exercise (yes that dreaded word!) is very important to keep you healthy, and you need to keep a balanced food and a balanced life to really keep your body in tip top shape! That being said, I ate some French fries before my workout and bought two chocolate bars (next post I’ll let you know the BEST dairy free chocolate out there) so you could say that balanced out nicely.
Okay, the next order of important business: label reading. For whatever reason you’re going dairy-free or gluten-free you should probably go all out! It takes about 4 weeks to get all the gluten or dairy out of your system and another 2-4 weeks to heal your gut from all the trauma you caused it by ignoring the signs [ again stubborn me]. So when you decide to make this change here is what you need to look for on labels and what some phrases mean.
Gluten: wheat, flour [ unless otherwise specified], oat, barley, rye, and malt.
These are things I see often on labels there are many other ways gluten can be in items but these are the ones I see the most and I personally have to watch out for. Oat, barley, and rye are all different grains that are very similar to wheat and unless otherwise specified it can make you react.
Dairy: lactose, butter, casein, whey, and cheese again these are very common words that in other words means dairy or dairy protein.
Here are a few tips. When looking at labels look at the bold lettering which usually will be in the ingredient list. These bold words are common allergens and you can figure out at a glance if it has dairy or gluten. There is also a note at the bottom of a lot [but not all] products that will let you know if it contains dairy or gluten but saying again in bold letters Contains: with a list of ingredients that can be common allergens. This is not to be confused with May Contain: which is a cross-contamination warning that is letting you know other products with dairy and gluten are made in the same factory possibly in the same machinery. These machines are supposed to be [ and most likely are ] washed and sanitized between foods but this can still affect the very sensitive or allergic to dairy or gluten and should be headed as a warning. In my family cross-contamination means nothing and we can eat it with no issues but I would proceed with caution when first trying out foods with a May Contain: warning at the bottom.
Here’s the catch though. All these bold letterings Contains and May Contain warnings are just the company being nice, they are not expected or even forced to put this on all products which is why even though this is helpful you should always read all ingredients before consuming a product.
Other labels to make things easier. When you see the word Vegan you are safe from dairy. Vegan means there are no animal products in that item at all. Which means you don’t need to worry about dairy or beef being present in any form. But if you find something vegan you need to make sure it is gluten-free also because vegan-only pertains to animal products which gluten is not. It’s very common to have dairy products with gluten or gluten products with dairy so you need to again read the ingredients lists thoroughly before consuming. Another quick note is that Non-Dairy does not mean dairy-free. I know, confusing. They are allowed to put this because its, in short, not 100% dairy products. These non-dairy items can still contain whey, casein, and milk derivatives and should be avoided when going dairy-free. But yet another catch, some items labeled non-dairy CAN be dairy-free for reals! Why not make it simple you ask? I don’t know but I’ll sign the petition because this is ridiculous!
Anyways bottom line is. Check all labels and read all ingredients. It matters and it’s easy to slip up!
this non-dairy creamer contains a milk derivative.These Funyuns have a Contains warning at the bottom letting you know that it has milk in it.This item has a May Contains warning to let you know it could be cross contaminatedThis label does not have a Contains warning but does show the ingredients that are possible allergens by bolding the words. It also tell you about the cross contamination instead of writing May Contains.
This really comes down to preference for most people especially if they have nut allergies. In my house we use Oat milk and Almond milk but here is a list of dairy-free milks that we have tried: Almond milk [Silk], Hemp milk [ Pacific], oat milk [Pacific], pea milk [ Ripple], coconut milk [So Delicious], rice milk [Rice Dream], flax milk [ Good Karma]. Like I said we have tried all of these but there are even more varieties as they continue to make milk out of many different products[ walnut, cashew, soy,etc.]. Like I said before all of this comes down to preference, for my son he would not drink rice milk so we tried all milks listed above and found he enjoyed almond, coconut, pea, and flax milk to be his favorites. Considering how much he would drink and how much money each of these items where we decided to stick with unsweetened Silk brand Almond milk that goes for $2.02 at our local Winco and we buy 6- 32 oz cartons every time we go about every 2 weeks. This is enough as long as my kids don’t rediscover chocolate milk powder [ heads up Nesquick brand is dairy-free but does contain soy! It has a cross contamination warning at the bottom which is written as “may contain” we will get into that later.] or else we will need approximately 5 more boxes of milk because they won’t stop drinking it! So your probably wondering about nutritional value in these kinds of milk. I will post a couple of different nutritional facts I have found for you to look over this is all per cup. This information was found on many different sites I tried to find the most consistent facts before typing them up.
So, this gluten-free and dairy-free thing. Most think it sucks and a lot think it is impossible. Well, I’m here to tell you I still eat junk food and fast food, I still enjoy dinner time, and I still eat as much as I used to. That’s not to say it wasn’t hard to figure all of this out because let me tell you…it was a LEARNING CURVE. But let’s start into why I even have to be this way. I was not born this way [ unlike lady gaga] and I was eating whatever my little heart desired, granted I had the money for it. Well here’s the problem I started having some weird things happen to my body and we started looking into some tests I should get done. Namely, a good old blood test to check my allergies. WELL, it came back with results that I was allergic to gluten and lobster. Lucky for me I hate seafood [ it all tastes fishy to me] but unlucky for me gluten was a LARGE part of my diet. So what does any 16 year old do when faced with something like this ? I ignored it. Yup, that’s right. No way was I going to take my beloved French bread, sweet and sour chicken from panda express, and all the pizza and cakes I love out of my diet because my body was angry with me, it can be as angry as it wants ill just ignore it, and it worked! For about a year. Do you know how you’re in the middle of class and your stomach sounds like a whale doing a mating call? Yup, that’s how it was EVERY DAY after lunch in a very serious class that had a reading time for 10 minutes right when you got there. Dear Lord help me now! but I still ignored it, stubborn? I know. So fast forward a couple of months my parents went out of town and an older lady that worked for my mom was watching us for the week and she is gluten-free! She made all gluten-free meals and they where good! * Que sounds of disbelief* well I felt so much better and I knew that it was possible so I stayed gluten-free and I have been for 5.5 years now also as an added bonus I went from size 9 pants down to size 5. Let me just say five years ago till now the gluten-free foods have become AMAZING! I was in the stone age where the bread tasted like cement and it broke your teeth to bite into it. Now in 2019, we have this amazing bread brand called Canyon Bakehouse bread and they make SOFT bread of many varieties deli, white, 7 grain, Hawaiian sweet rolls, and even bagels! https://canyonglutenfree.com/ check it out seriously. Thank me later.
Well if you have gotten this far your wondering when I went dairy-free aren’t you [ just say yes it makes it easier] WELL let me tell you about my beautiful second born! A boy with the sweetest face, except when you picked him up a certain way, changed his numerous blow out diapers, changed your fourth outfit from all the spit up, and stayed up until 2 o’clock every morning because he was crying in pain and we couldn’t figure out why. Yup, the sweetest face! Well after my son’s 6th projectile vomit within two hours I decided to take him into his pediatrician she offered to prescribe him some reflux medication and though I figured it would help it didn’t sit well with me to put my 1.5 months old on a medication. Let me just stop you real quick. Reflux. Yes, I did keep him upright after feeding, burped him often, never let him lay flat, and all that stuff that’s supposed to help. I even took him to a chiropractor and even tried some gentle ease formula in hopes that he would just sleep or stop crying! But nothing worked. I did some research and found that a lot of reflux comes from dairy intake [ I’m not a doctor this is just what I found] and I decided you know what I went gluten-free I can go dairy-free too! Well, that was a lot harder than gluten-free let me tell you what. There’s dairy hidden in many things and It seemed impossible! I lived off of chicken strips cut up and put on a salad with follow your heart ranch dressing https://followyourheart.com/product_category/salad-dressings/ for a long time. But slowly and with the help of some groups on Facebook I figured out what foods I could eat and about 6-8 weeks later my boy was so much happier! He did still cry about half the time which I went on to take out soy sauce and all red meats and that did fix all the crying in pain and eventually I figured out that it was just beef that needed to be taken out along with dairy but I did get a sweet little man and I have enjoyed him for almost two years now! Along with me being dairy-free myself! So there’s my story!
Keep all the Flavor 