Finding gluten-free food that tastes good is still a challenge in many areas. That’s part of the reason why we came up with Custom Choice Cereal – providing a fun gluten-free experience! If you are interested in finding out more about how our custom gluten-free cereal came to life you are invited to read our story.
Now that the summer break is coming to an end, there are a few gluten-free food shows and and vendor fairs coming up over the next two months. These are great events to find out about anything gluten-free. While I like food events of any kinds (every rule has an exception, mine is fish), these fairs are super helpful if you have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity.
I am sure we have overlooked one or the other event, so please feel free to add to the list in the comment section. We at Custom Choice Cereal (and I am sure everyone else) appreciate your help!
Aaaand another week has passed, time at Custom Choice Cereal just flies by! To a large part that is because you keep us busy and entertained. Thank you for that!
Those of you who have not yet created their personal gluten-free online are probably wondering why I say that you keep us entertained. It’s because Custom Choice Cereal allows you to even name your ‘cerealization’! It is both fun and entertaining for us to read how create you can get, and that’s why we share a selection of creative gluten-free cereal names every Friday. This week’s top names are
5. Stones Special Blueberry Granola (Everything we have is special!)
4. Yum…mine (That’s right!)
3. Mmmmmmmmuseli (mmmmm – delicious…)
2. We have a tie! Stranana Nack Attack and wowzers!
1. And this week’s winner Giddy Up Darlin’ GF Grub (mix ID 352fc8)
Thank you for being such great customers and enjoy your weekend!
The gluten-free diet has many challenges – constant studying of ingredients labels and searching for words such as “barley malt” or “brewer’s yeast” that make you put the item in question right back on the shelf is just one of them. In order to make things a little bit easier for you, we at Custom Choice Cereal have therefore collected a few tips & tricks on how to master your gluten-free life.
Your safety is our highest priority! That’s why it has been our policy to test all of our naturally gluten-free ingredients for potential cross-contamination with gluten before they enter our facility. Our test is accurate to 10 parts per million (ppm) and thus twice as strict as the FDA’s proposed contamination threshold of 20ppm.
Almost a third (seven) products would have failed the FDA test
One product (soy flour) contained >3,000 ppm of gluten
Tricia Thompson, nutrition consultant and lead author of the study, admits that the sample was too small to make people with celiac disease especially wary. However, it shows that it is unfortunately not safe to assume that an item can be consumed safely just because no gluten-containing ingredient can be found on the label.
Have you ever wanted to see what Custom Choice Cereal’s dedicated gluten-free facility looks like? Do you want to know how your custom gluten-free cereal mixes are created? Here is a chance to watch me in action as seen on Fox8 Greensboro’s segment called Made in North Carolina. Enjoy!
Back in May Chris and I had the opportunity to meet Tony Cervati, a type 1 diabetic and avid cyclist. We wrote about the Type1Rider’s amazing story because his energy and motivation truly impressed us. Tony founded Type1Rider in order to raise awareness and educate about diabetes while at the same time providing support and encouragement to those who have diabetes.
Chris and I were so captivated by his drive and mission that we decided to sponsor Tony with his personal gluten-free Custom Choice Cereal. This was just the logical thing for us to do, especially after we had learned about the connection between celiac disease and type 1 diabetes in January.
Tony told us that he had a great time cerealizing his mixes and really liked that the automatically updating nutrition label provided great guidance for him. Stay tuned as we keep you posted about Tony’s feedback!
Since I have often been asked about the difference between celiac disease, gluten intolerance, and a ‘gluten allergy’. First of all the latter actually does not exist. The key difference is that allergies can be immediately fatal while celiac disease and intolerances are not (though research indicates a higher mortality rate for long-term untreated celiacs). But enough said, I let Cynthia explain the differences in much more detail in the video below. Enjoy!
If you have any further questions, our next Q&A with Dr. Stephen Wangen is coming up on July 7th. Don’t miss this great chance to ask a renown expert anything you’ve always wanted to know about celiac disease and living gluten-free!
5. Cheraple Chomps (Now that’s what we call creativity!)
4. Tropical Monkey Mix (Sometimes I feel like a monkey, too…)
3. GF Yum Yum Mix (Because gluten-free should be yum yum!)
2. Wookie Wonder Food (Love this name!)
1. And the winner THIS IS AMERICA, SON!
Above all, I’d like to thank those of you who participated in the last Custom Choice Cereal 3-second-poll. The newest 3-second-poll is already up in the top left corner of this blog (that’s a hint)! Last time we asked
What is your primary source of information for gluten-free food options?
A total of 30 people participated in our 3-second-poll, and we are very thankful for your input. Hopefully we can increase the participation rate as we continue our polls because it is interesting for all of us. You can see from the results below that most of you rely on the internet and blogs to stay up to date on gluten-free foods and recipes that work for celiacs:
A whopping 73.3% (or 22 out of the total 30) said that blogs and the internet are the primary source of gluten-free information
10.0% (3 of you) rely on industry or food magazines
6.7% (2 each) look to either the GIG or the CSA or have some other source for their gluten-free updates
The academic route seems not to be preferred since no votes were casted for research institutions as a source of information
I like graphics and tables simply because I think they are easier to read than an bunch of text. So for those of you who are like me (and for myself), the results are also shown in the graph below:
Chris and I would like to thank all you gluten-free bloggers, celiac organizations, and many gluten-free product manufacturers out there for doing a great job. This poll confirms your work is appreciated, so please keep it up!
Over and over again I read about the two terms “gluten-free” and “wheat-free” being used synonymously. Not only is this wrong, it can also be fairly dangerous because – to draw a true analogy – a person with celiac disease consuming food containing gluten will suffer form severe symptoms, similar to an otherwise healthy person being poisoned.
Education about and raising awareness for celiac disease is an essential aspect of our mission at Custom Choice Cereal. Repetition is one means to achieve our goal. Â Despite having addressed this issue before, I’d therefore like to and apparently need to reiterate an important distinction:
Every gluten-free product is also wheat-free, but not every wheat-free product is also gluten-free!
So people with a wheat allergy are safe on a gluten-free diet, a person with celiac disease however is not safe on a wheat-free diet! “How come?” you might ask. Here is why: rye, barley, and most oats (oats are usually processed in the same facility as wheat, rye, and barley and thus cross-contaminated) are the “tricky” sources of gluten because unlike wheat, they are not part of the “Big 8″ allergens. Fortunately, some great people are taking the initiative and work towards including gluten to this list at least on a local level!
For further information on celiac disease and gluten-free diet, I and the Custom Choice Cereal team recommend you take a look at the CDF, GIG, or CSA, all of which are great organizations!
Ha! I can’t recall having used the phrase “kicking off” ever in a more literal sense. Since this is the first time the FIFA has selected an African country to host the soccer World Cup, all of us here at Custom Choice Cereal really hope that at least one African team advances to the semi-finals. It would be a dream if this team would be South Africa, but first we’ll have to see how they play in the first game in – what a coincidence – 90 minutes from now!
Like every soccer fan, I truly enjoy to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of individual teams, to speculate about who is most likely to take home the trophy, to discover the underdogs. Let’s be honest, it’s almost as much fun as watching the games themselves! Here are some of my personal and obviously biased thoughts about teams with the potential to win the 2010 Soccer World Cup:
Argentina – At the top of my list, not only alphabetically
Brazil – Great soccer nation but don’t think they can do it this year
Germany – Playing without Ballack can be a curse or a blessing
Italy – Not again. My guess is they’ll lose in the semi-finals
Netherlands – An outstanding team, need to watch them
Spain – I’m really not sure about them but definitely can win
Let’s hope for a great event with lots of fun for everyone. Most of all I hope that the African continent and South Africa in particular can benefit from the attention they get over the next four weeks even after July 11 when we know who won the 2010 Soccer World Cup!
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