Gluten-Free for the Whole Family?
I marveled as I took another bite into the soft but firm yellow bundt cake. I had forgotten that cake could taste like this. It was spongy, light, and it had a definite form. Every once in a while a blueberry would appear and for me each time was like a tiny surprise party in a bundt cake. I was at a friend’s house and I hadn’t enjoyed a cake like this in months. It was definitely not my blueberry gluten-free cake.
When my daughter was first diagnosed with celiac disease I made the conscious decision that we would all go gluten-free. I knew I would have to drag the rest of my family along kicking and screaming, but there were so many reasons to do it this way. Firstly, she was all of three years old. How difficult would it be for a three year old to watch everyone else eating yellow bundt cake with hidden blueberry surprises while she was stuck with my gluten-free science experiments? There was also the issue of cross-contamination to consider. When you bake with flour it gets everywhere! And of course there is the work load. Who wants to prepare multiple meals every time they set out to make dinner?
So I went to the health food store determined to buy enough products to feed the whole family. When I got there I was a bit taken aback. A bag of pasta was about $5! I couldn’t afford to buy enough bags to feed the entire family for a week (at the time they ate noodles daily). The gluten-free bread was also way out of my price range if I had to buy enough to make sandwiches for the whole family for a week. Not to mention my son’s soy allergy. He couldn’t eat the bread even if I wanted to buy it for him. Gluten-free cake was also out of the question – it had eggs and my son is anaphylactic to it. It was becoming abundantly clear that I would need to come up with a more nuanced plan.
There were so many different considerations. I had other food allergies in the family, gluten-free food was expensive, and I found out later that day that one of my children refused to eat the gluten-free rice noodles. Even with the melted cheese on it she could tell the difference. So what was an exhausted but devoted mother to do?
I didn’t develop a clear plan right a way. I simply attempted to make the whole gluten-free enterprise more appealing to my kids. I dressed up the noodles with ketchup (lots of ketchup!), and we just ate it fewer times a week to address the cost issue. I never forced gluten-free bread on them because of their soy and egg allergies, but I tried to make sure they ate their bread mostly in school. And I baked exclusively gluten-free cake and cookies – but that’s where my not-so-developed plan fell apart. I wasn’t very good at it.
In all fairness to myself, I wasn’t just challenged with gluten-free ingredients. I had to deal with the allergies as well. I had to develop a way to bake gluten, egg, and soy free. I would work for hours on gluten-free desserts – chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cakes, vanillas cookies, white cakes…but it was all inedible. Even my gluten-free three year old wouldn’t touch it. I needed a more practical solution.
I decided that I would have to allow some gluten in my kitchen, but I would limit it as much as physically possible. And the food that I cook with gluten (like noodles for example), would have to have a similar counterpart to its gluten-free version. So when I make shell shaped noodles with gluten, I tried to make the shell shaped gluten-free noodles too. When I bake chocolate cake with gluten, I have some gluten-free chocolate cupcakes to offer my celiac child (she likes the store bought ones better than mine. Go figure!) It is generally more work for me but at least my daughter wouldn’t have to feel different all the time.
To be honest we are still dealing with the contamination issue. I almost cried one day (okay, I did cry) as I had been working for hours on some gluten-free desserts and I spotted my daughter innocently open the pantry and shove a gluten laden cookie in her mouth. My husband and I both agreed that a cabinet exclusively devoted to gluten-free snacks would be our next step. I suppose that as a family dealing with a child with celiac disease, we are still a work in progress. But I strongly believe that there is no right formula when it comes to this crucial question. Every family needs to work these issues out based on their own limitations and considerations.
3 Responsesto “Gluten-Free for the Whole Family?”
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Hi Jenn,
Oh haven’t we all been through this! My daughter was a little older when diagnosed (9 years old) and very aware of what everyone else was eating. So we all went GF and have stayed that way. The only exception is school lunches – I will make a gluten bagel or sandwich for the kids for their lunches. We have a gluten toaster and one gluten shelf in our butlers pantry but everything else in the kitchen is GF. And of course, they can eat anything they want at parties etc. It took some work to convert the entire family, but it is so much easier for me and they are all used to it now. Luckily we do not have the other allergies that you are also dealing with. I can’t imagine eliminating gluten, egg and soy.
Many blessings to you,
Jamie
You have my sympathies. Though the allergies in my house aren’t critical, nobody feels good when they eat a lot of what their body is rejecting. No egg whites (cooked into something is ok), wheat (spelt and sprouted wheat are ok), citrus or refined sugar (any sweetener that significantly impacts blood sugar). That last part makes desserts particularly frustrating. Now that things like agave and stevia are more available, I get better results, but we’ve just gotten used to different textures.