|
|
When we told Zach from Gluten Free Raleigh earlier this week that his blog was featured on the website of the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) he told us that bigger things will be announced today. Obviously this raised Custom Choice Cereal’s curiosity, and the first thing this morning was to see what those “big news” are!
North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue Proclaims May 2010 Celiac Disease Awareness Month and Commends Its Observance to NC Citizens
 This is SO AWESOME! To the knowledge of everyone at Custom Choice Cereal, North Carolina is the first State to recognize May officially as celiac awareness month and thereby raises the celiac community’s efforts to an entirely new level. These are absolutely great news, and we are proud to live in such a progressive State!
The official proclamation complements the privately organized efforts to raise awareness for celiac disease that we wrote about earlier this month. Zach worked hard over the past months to develop a poster that features all major food allergens (“Big 8″ plus Gluten!). Restaurant owners are encouraged to download and display the poster. Please check out Zach’s blog Gluten Free Raleigh for various gluten-free happenings in North Carolina during May!
One of the most active gluten-free bloggers we are aware of is Tiffany Janes. Yesterday she wrote about Gluten-free Restaurant Etiquette, and her comment resonated very well with us at Custom Choice Cereal. In fact it resonated so well that we have to add our own little comment here.
 Tiffany expresses her sympathy for everyone ranting on various celiac online forums about a bad gluten-free dining experience they recently had, how sick it made them, and how they strongly advice anyone to stay away from the restaurant in question. She then goes on to make a great point: while the gluten-free community certainly appreciates these warnings Tiffany suggests that it is much more important to tell the people who can actually correct the situation, i.e. the chefs and restaurant managers. She goes on
“With so many well meaning chefs jumping on the gluten-free bandwagon, without taking the time to learn what that even means, it’s up to us to help them when they mess up. If we don’t, then we can’t complain when they all jump onto the next dining fad and forget about us. We know we’re not part of a fad, but more people eating gluten-free today are part of a fad that will soon fade away, than those that will know if someone serves them gluten by mistake. We might not like admitting that fact, but it’s true none the less.”
Thank you, Tiffany! We’ve written about restaurants with gluten-free menus before, and it seems that chains are more aware of the issue (or at least act faster). However, at the end of the day it is up to everyone in the gluten-free community to make the change happen. A lot can be accomplished when we work together. Finally, we at Custom Choice Cereal were able to show in our most recent poll results that even the medical profession isn’t fully aware of celiac disease. Don’t give up, but please understand that change sometimes takes a little while.
First of all we at Custom Choice Cereal have to thank all of you who participated in our last poll. We asked you
“How many doctors did it take until you were diagnosed with celiac disease?”
While of course more is (almost) always better, 33 of you answered our 3-second poll. In the hopes that this will encourage more people to participate in our polls, we show the results below. They confirm that celiac disease ranks still low on the radar screen of most doctors:
- 30.3% (or 10 out of the total 33) said that road to diagnosis was long and took between 5 and 10 doctors
- Not surprisingly, many of you (24.2%) choose a gluten-free diet, felt better, and consequently are self-diagnosed
- 18.2% were either diagnosed after 2-5 visits to different doctors or – and this is the big shocker – after having seen upward of 10 doctors!!
- Only a mere 9.1% said that their doctor is awesome and immediately diagnosed their condition
Please see the full result in the graphic below.
Once again this confirms the importance of the work so many great organizations such as the CSA, the GIG, the NFCA, and all your devoted gluten-free bloggers and authors out there do on a daily basis. Custom Choice Cereal therefore thanks you and can only encourage you to keep up your work!
 You know that we at Custom Choice Cereal are a big fan of Zach and his blog Gluten Free Raleigh. He provides outstanding information on how to master a gluten-free life as a celiac in the Triangle and truly is “The All-Inclusive Information Source for Living Gluten Free in Raleigh, NC”. The first part of his tagline always causes a little chuckle because it sounds like a promotion from a European travel agency  His site is truly awesome though and provides very helpful information even if you do not live in our wonderful area!
Consequently Custom Choice Cereal was excited when we saw that the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) mentions Gluten Free Raleigh as one of their featured blogs of the month. This is what they have to say:
“Gluten Free Raleigh covers celiac and gluten free news and current events. A founding member of the Gluten Free Raleigh health blog network, Zach and his team of North Carolina bloggers aim to stimulate and encourage memebrs of the celiac and gluten free community in their state and beyond!”
Custom Choice Cereal congratulates Zach to this great coverage. Please keep up the great work you are doing! If they could have spelled ‘members’ correctly it would have been the perfect promotion 
 Two lucky ladies won $15.00 gift certificates for customized gluten-free cereal today. At Custom Choice Cereal, it is our goal to make all of you happy! That’s why we came up with a great idea for you to win a free bag of your personal gluten-free cereal, and it does not even require a lot of work. How cool is that? Here is how you can do it:
- Create your personal cereal
- Give it a cool name and place your order
- Tell your friends about your cereal (hint: mention the mix ID)
- Win a free bag for every 5 friends who re-order your mix
Sounds easy? It is pretty easy! Don’t wait and start mixing now!
Custom Choice Cereal wants to thank all of you who stopped by our table at the gluten-free food fair and gave us such positive feedback on our customizable gluten-free cereal. The fair was great fun, and we learned a lot from your comments and input.
Congratulations to the winners of $15.00 gift certificates for customizable gluten-free cereal Kathryn F. and Amanda J.!! You will receive your gift certificates via email today.
For those of you who did not win one of the gift certificates – there are still several giveaways that you can enter for a chance to win your personal gluten-free cereal: check out FabFindFoodie, My Life with Rats, and Freckled Foodie. You need to act fast though because these giveaways will end soon!
 Custom Choice Cereal is very excited about having received another taste approval of our custom cereal mixes from both children and adults! We know that writers for the Examiner are very critical in their product assessments, so this outcome pleases us very much! What’s special about this particular review of our custom cereal mixes is that it was not only consumed the traditional way with milk for breakfast but also utilized in various other cooking exercises.
Gluten-free food examiner Jen Cafferty writes
“During a recent taste test, the cereal was delicious served traditionally with milk. We also used it as a topping for an apple crisp and crushed as a coating for chicken. Both children and adults really liked it!”
We must admit that we’ve heard about Custom Choice Cereal’s mixes being consumed as a cereal (duh!), as snacks, and as topping on ice cream, but the coating for chicken is new to us. Please let us know if you have any ideas what else could be done with a customized cereal. We are curious about your ideas!
 It’s a great question that we at Custom Choice Cereal hear every once in a while. It is also a question that inspires us because it reminds us of the motivation behind our daily work. Of course you can read our story and understand the concept. Nonetheless, the question is not totally arbitrary, and that’s why we’ll try to answer it here.
First and foremost, it is Custom Choice Cereal’s goal to provide you with great tasting cereal. Nobody knows better than you what satisfies your taste buds, so we put you in control and let you cerealize what you want.
 Having worked very very long hours in an office environment before, I was frustrated that the vending machines were stuffed only with sugar-coated candies and ridiculously sweet soft drinks. Being a self-proclaimed cereal-addict and avid runner, everything came together when my best friend (who is intolerant to gluten) told me about his frustration of not being able to find a good gluten-free breakfast.
We wanted to create a healthy breakfast option that also makes for a great snack on the go. Since not everyone has the time to go grocery shopping (long office hours are just one example) or the benefit of a local health food store, Custom Choice Cereal ships your cerealizations directly to your door. It’s extremely convenient, and the gluten-free aspect provided a solution to my friend’s difficulty while at the same time benefiting anyone who is conscious about their health.
This is why we at Custom Choice Cereal do what we do the way we do it. It’s all about you!
Custom Choice Cereal just keeps the good things coming for you these days! It’s another review and giveaway of our customized gluten-free cereal.
 This time Amanda who writes the blog My Life With Rats and More… sampled a simple gluten-free cereal mix with Organic Good Morning Flakes and Goji Berries. It proves once more that simple is often beautiful because she writes “don’t let the simplicity fool you, it was so delicious!” Amanda also thought that the mixing process was really simple and continues that we offer “an excellent price considering that their options to choose from are Gluten Free and Organic”.
Go to Amanda’s review of Custom Choice Cereal’s gluten-free cereal and learn to enter the giveaway. It ends on Cinco de Mayo (that’s May 5th). Good luck!
There are tons of gluten-free websites and blogs out there, but as you have probably experienced there is a big difference between quantity and quality… At Custom Choice Cereal we try to take some of the work off your shoulders by pointing out the blogs and websites that we like, and a selection of them can be found in our blogroll.
Since May is celiac awareness month and less than 2 weeks away we wanted to share a pretty cool effort to raise awareness for celiac disease. A very good resource and great website called Triumph Dining and the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) have teamed up: the former will give $5.00 (and up to $5,000 total) to the latter for every website and blog that adds the Celiac Awareness badge (above).
Please help and join this great cause because it will benefit everyone! As an incentive Triumph Dining will enter you into a drawing for one of several Triumph Dining Gluten Free Survival Kits.
|
Gluten-free Cereal Cerealize your Gluten Freedom! Our blog serves to share all things gluten-free and give you the occasional update on what's happening at Custom Choice Cereal.
|
Loading ...