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Celiac awareness month May 2010 has pretty much come to an end. We at Custom Choice Cereal think that the month was very successful, and lots of people contributed to raising awareness for celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and the implications. A big THANK YOU to all of you devoted advocates! It’ll be difficult to top this joint effort next year but we are confident that it is possible!
Since it is the end of the week, it means that Custom Choice Cereal recognizes the most creative and fun names that you gave your gluten-free cereal creations in the past three weeks. Seeing your names really never gets old, and here are our (subjectively selected) top 5:
5. EllaBoBanna (that’s right. Just be creative.)
4. just for mom cereal (read: ‘hands off!’)
3. Mango berry munch (taking advantage of the new ingredient…)
2. Copacabana (have it at least at the breakfast table!)
1. This ‘ingredient-word’ is just unbeatable: Strapumpnut Morning Juju
There is not much left to say but “Let it be an inspiration to you” when you create your next gluten-free cereal!
And of course the entire Custom Choice Cereal crew wishes you all a happy, relaxing, sun-filled Memorial Day weekend!
 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!
 It’s not called the Gluten-Free Challenge for nothing! Despite several close calls and unfortunately sleeping through breakfast Saturday morning (which you should never do because it is the most important meal of the day!), I managed to complete the first-ever Gluten-Free Challenge. Thanks to “the gloriously gluten-free cookbook“, a few Internet recipes, and my personal cereal mix, I put together the following delicious meal plan:
- Saturday afternoon: Fajitas with corn tortillas
- Saturday evening: Chicken Tikka Masala over jasmine rice (sadly without the naan)
- Sunday morning: “A Shot of Burnettes” – my blend of cinnamon granola, apples, strawberries, and organic coconut chips. Mix Id: 134CD1
- Sunday afternoon: Leftover fajitas with rice and black beans
- Sunday evening: Pineapple chicken fried rice
Sure, I went a little heavy on the rice dishes but it’s such a versatile base. My Italian side however was in shock at being denied pasta for so long! It took more effort than I thought to stay gluten-free simply because I could have gone for bagels, pasta, ice cream, etc. at any time. While I’m fortunate enough to enjoy that luxury, I can now confirm that living gluten-free does not mean that you have to live taste free! I’m looking forward to taking on more gluten-free challenges throughout the summer and finding out how I can better serve you, the loyal Custom Choice Cereal fans out there. Until next time, keep cerealizing my friends.
Leslie Loves Veggies and after creating and sampling her own mix she now also loves our gluten-free cereal. It was a absolute pleasure to work with Leslie, and we are delighted about her review of our custom gluten-free cereal.
In an email to us at Custom Choice Cereal, Leslie wrote about her mix that “It arrived in record time and it was just wonderful! Hubby and I are really enjoying it!”. We thought that it does not get much better than that. And then we read her review:
- “First of all, y’all know I’m a cereal-a-holic!
- Second, I love to find Gluten Free products for my Readers that really need them! My older daughter had a gluten intolerance as a child. I know first hand what a drag living a Gluten Free existence can be without great tasting foods.
- Third, I love healthy “good for ya” products that taste great too!
BINGO! We hit the Jackpot!!!!“
You can ‘hit the jackpot’ as well because her review is combined with a giveaway! Don’t miss out on yet another chance for you to win your perfect gluten-free breakfast treat! In case you need any more motivation that our cereal is truly awesome and that a gluten-free diet does absolutely not have to be taste-free, here is some more feedback from Leslie:
“I received a nice big 12 oz bag of this wonderful, crunchy, flavorful cereal! The flakes are nice and big and the nuts are big whole pieces! I love that the bag has a zip top for resealing! That means no messy spills in the pantry and I get fresh cereal down to the last flake! Woot!”
What are you waiting for? Go ahead and create your gluten-free cereal mix!
You sent us at Custom Choice Cereal tons of emails over the past few months. Thanks for being so outspoken because your feedback is the best input we can get to improve what we do!
Earlier today, we reflected on the core values that govern our daily work. In line with the first two values, we work hard with various suppliers to find the highest quality gluten-free ingredients for you. Since we know how difficult it is for those of you with celiac disease or gluten intolerance to find a tasty cereal that is safe to eat, it is Custom Choice Cereal’s mission to alleviate this difficulty!
You asked for more ingredients in general, and you asked for organic ingredients in particular. It is therefore our pleasure to announce the introduction of Organic Mango and Organic Raisins as new ingredients for you to add to your personal cerealizations!
As always, we have carefully selected the highest quality ingredients that we could find and tested them for potential gluten-contamination with EZ Gluten before accepting the delivery. As stated in our values, we at Custom Choice Cereal truly are concerned about your personal safety and well-being!
We continue to work on broadening our offering, and if you have any suggestions for a particular ingredients, please do not hesitate to contact us at any time! You are also invited to read our newest press release about the broadened product portfolio.
We at Custom Choice Cereal take pride in living according to our core values:
- Dedication to each individual customer and their desire for tasty gluten-free cereal that can be enjoyed safely is our top priority
- Improvement based on customer feedback is our commitment
- Communication with our customers is our pleasure
- Opportunity, respect, and equality for each employee are our promise
As you can see, we always put you first! And these values are absolutely not just a couple of lines on the Custom Choice Cereal website! We conduct our daily work according to these principles.
I’d like to take a few minutes to reflect on these values. Both personally and professionally, I think that it is simply a sign of respect for the individual to communicate diligently and to reply quickly to each email. For us at Custom Choice Cereal, quickly means ideally within an hour, and at the very most within the same day. With very few exceptions, I find it very hard to believe that someone is so incredibly busy that he or she cannot reply to an email (or text, for that matter) at least on the same day, even if it is just a “Call you later”.
Unfortunately, all of us at Custom Choice Cereal have made some very disappointing experiences in this context. But we don’t let that put us down! On the contrary, despite the initial disappointment, it is motivation for us to work even harder and to lead by example.
At the end of the day I firmly believe that we forgo the right to expect a certain behavior if we don’t live up to the standard ourselves.
“I just thought I would let you know that I tried out my Custom Choice Cereal today, and it was absolutely fabulous! Thank you so much!”
 While this is “just” an email that reached us on Friday, we at Custom Choice Cereal absolutely love it to hear from you in the first place and especially appreciate such great feedback! Please keep it coming because it’s the simple things in life that make a difference. A great way to tell us and everybody else about your cerealization is our facebook page!
This email was sent to us by Erica who writes the blog Fashion Meets Food and says about herself that she is “on a mission to indulge myself in a healthier, and happier lifestyle”. Aren’t we all – at least to some degree – on this mission to live healthier?!? We think that Custom Choice Cereal can help you achieve your health goals while at the same time not giving up on taste. Erica enjoyed her mix as a snack and writes on her blog:
“I absolutely loved the fact that it came in a clear bag. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just like to see what’s inside of packaging. My mix was delicious… I just ate it out of a bowl as a snack… no milk product needed just some fingers!”
We know that quite a few of you are intolerant to dairy as well, so this is a great way to enjoy your personal gluten-free treat. We also highly recommend it for travelling or hiking, so start mixing now!
 Laura DeLuca aka New Age Mama recently created her personal gluten-free cereal. While she has always loved cereal, she used to be torn between the different pre-packaged choices she faced when strolling along the cereal aisle. It therefore made us a Custom Custom Choice Cereal happy to provide a solution to her ‘problem’. Or as Laura put it
“Well, with Custom Choice Cereal, I can have it all. I can choose as many ingredients as I want and create the perfect mix for me!”
We pride ourselves in the simplicity and intuitiveness of the ‘mixing process’ of custom gluten-free cereal blends. It was therefore a delight for us to read that Laura completely agreed.
“The first step to trying out Custom Choice Cereal was to create my blend. The website is really simple to use. You don’t have to be internet savvy to figure it out. Your choose either a granola or corn flake as the base, then you can pick from dozens of fruits, nuts or seeds, many of which are organic. Then you check out and you’re done. Its that simple. Even more impressive than the simplicity of the process was the price.”
Even better for you: Laura teamed up with us to give you yet another chance to benefit from a giveaway. Check out what she has to say about her custom gluten-free cereal blend, let her know which ingredients you would add to your personal cereal, and maybe you win your perfect breakfast treat!
Custom Choice Cereal’s gluten-free cerealizations have been reviewed by Sweeps4Bloggers! We are extremely excited about this because it is a blog that reviews tons of products, and the feedback we received could not have been better. Here are just a few sentences from the detailed review:
“We are not on a gluten-free diet,  but we have sampled many gluten-free foods. Quite often, the taste is not appealing to my kids – at all. It’s gotten to the point that when I serve new foods to them they usually ask me if there is gluten in it. And then they tell me that they want an extra serving of gluten. But neither of them asked about the gluten in our Custom Choice Cereal blend. They didn’t even notice that the gluten was missing. The whole bag is gone. And I’m not going to tell them that it was gluten-free.”
This is the best proof there is that we succeed in our mission to bring tasty cereal to the gluten-free breakfast table! It also encourages us to continue serving the celiac community. Sweeps4Bloggers goes on by saying
“Custom Choice Cereal is a nutritious gluten-free option that is delicious even for my picky gluten-loving children. [...] I loved being able to add in the ingredients and get the nutrition facts as I was choosing. Custom Choice Cereal would be fabulous for people who need Gluten-Free, but it can definitely be enjoyed by others as well. It’s just good cereal!“
We appreciate that you apparently read our blog post all the way to here. As a little reward we saved the best until the end: the site is not called “sweeps for bloggers” without reason! Check out the review, complete some of the actions you are asked for, comment about it, and you have a chance to create your personal gluten-free cereal. What are you waiting for?
 Various emails to Custom Choice Cereal, conversations at gluten-free food shows, and talks during other gluten-free dining events tell me over and over again that living on a gluten-free is constantly improving but still far from being ‘easy’. That’s why I’d like to encourage all you non-gluten-free eaters out there to participate in the Gluten-free Challenge this weekend! You can see how much ‘fun’ it is to live gluten-free, and maybe it even helps you improve your well-being, who knows?
Given recent experiences I wanted to share a few tricks to safely enjoy a gluten-free dinner. Some people might call this kind of behavior paranoid, but they have most likely not been ‘glutened’ and thus have no idea what it can do to you if you have celiac disease or an intolerance to gluten. Those of you who understand will hopefully appreciate and maybe use these tricks in the future:
- If you go out to eat, go as early as possible. It minimizes the risk of cross-contamination in the kitchen
- Don’t tell the waiter that you have to eat gluten-free. Instead, ask them if they know what a gluten-free diet means. Only then will you truly find out if they understand your challenge
- In case a meal does contain gluten (e.g. breaded chicken) and you return the plate to the kitchen, mark the plate. You can hide a toothpick or a piece of your napkin underneath the side and check if they simply removed the gluten-containing food and brought you back the same plate…
These tricks and many more can also be found on our page with gluten-free advice, tips & tricks. Hope you all have a wonderful gluten-free weekend, and please feel free to share any tips you have that make living the gluten-free life easier!
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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.
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