It is both fun and interesting for us at Custom Choice Cereal – and hopefully for you as well – to see the results of our 3-second-polls here on our blog. A big thanks to the 69 of you who answered our last question
What’s your main reason for being gluten-free?
We are pretty thrilled about this best participation rate in any of our 3-second-polls so far because it helps all of us get more representative results. So please help us promote our newest poll (How long after going gluten-free did you feel/see first results?) to get even more answers. Here are the detailed results of what you said:
52.9% (36 out of 69) responded that they have celiac disease
27.9% (19 people) of you said that you are intolerant to gluten
10.3% (7 out of 69) of you just feel better on a gluten-free diet
7.4% (5 of you) are gluten-free because of a family member
1.5% (one person) replied that they have a wheat allergy and want to be on the safe side
The results make sense, but the Custom Choice Cereal team was still impressed that more than 3/4 of all respondents had either celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity. This show that eating gluten-free might after all not be the fad diet that many make it out to be. Or our readers are the people who understand why they should be gluten-free.
Since Hajo insists on a graphical depiction of our 3-second-poll results you can find an easy-to-read chart below:
What would you like our next 3-second-poll to be? Let us know in the comment section!
I must admit that I had no idea that watching a video about celiac disease could be so entertaining and educating at the same time! It starts great and only gets better
Dr. Mike at MyFox News in Philadelphia educates about celiac but also shares his thoughts on the gluten-free diet as a weight-loss diet:“You need to eat less and exercise more.” Makes sense, doesn’t it? He continues to say “It’s a matter of caloric accounting!” Watch the entire highly entertaining video below, you will learn (and laugh) quite a bit!
Despite author Melinda Beck’s thorough research, the article incorrectly listed envelope adhesives, distilled alcoholic beverages and vinegars, ketchup, ice creams, and lipsticks as products that celiacs should avoid. It speaks for the integrity of the Journal that they printed the following statement of corrections in Saturday’s paper:
“Envelope adhesives do not contain gluten, and the distillation process removes the gluten from alcoholic beverages and distilled vinegars that are made from gluten-containing grains, according to registered dietitian Shelley Case, member of the Celiac Disease Foundation Medical Advisory Board. Ketchup and most ice creams are also gluten-free, and the amount of gluten in some lipsticks is too small to pose health problems. A Tuesday Health Journal incorrectly included all these products among those that people with celiac disease should avoid.”
The Wall Street Journal’s Health Journal columnist Melinda Beck wrote a great article on who has to stick to a gluten-free diet (celiacs, people with a wheat allergy, and those with a sensitivity to gluten). I was pretty impressed by the thoroughness of the research that was done and wanted to share it with you as part of our customer service. It particularly struck me that
Melinda described many of the most common symptoms that ‘glutened’ celiacs experience
it is not well understood how gluten can cause psychiatric and behavioral changes (keyword: leaky-gut)
7% of the population has anti-gliadin antibodies (‘AGA’), as do 18% of people with autism, and 20% of those with schizophrenia
The article also points out that much more research is needed to understand why the various conditions that benefit from a gluten-free diet are so much more prevalent today than several decades ago. While celiac disease was initially believed to begin only during childhood, it is now know that it can start at any time during the life of a person with the genetic predisposition.
In a little video, Melinda Beck also explains that the gluten-free diet is not a weight-loss diet, and that one should not embark lightly on a gluten-free diet.
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!
We at Custom Choice Cereal just closed another one of our gluten-free 3-second-polls, and the new survey is already up (hint: top left corner of this blog). A big Thank You! goes to all of you who answered our last question
Are you completely gluten-free or do you “cheat” sometimes?
Thanks to 61 answers total the results are becoming more representative. The results below also show that the vast majority of you are entirely gluten-free and don’t eat a food if you are not sure about the ingredients. That’s a very smart decision given research indicating that not switching to a gluten-free diet significantly increases the mortality rate for celiacs. Here are the detailed results of our 3-second-poll:
54.1% (33 out of 61) of you said that you are 100% gluten-free and don’t eat the food if you don’t know every ingredient
26.2% (16 people) said that accidents (unfortunately) happen
11.5% (7 out of 61) cheated once but will never cheat again
8.2% (5 of you) admitted to sometimes giving in to a “gluten craving”
For those of you who like graphs as much as I do and prefer them to text I have displayed the results in the chart below.
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.
This is an extremely important distinction that needs to be understood because not understanding it can result in serious (and very unpleasant) responses from the autoimmune system if a person suffers from celiac disease or gluten intolerance. In order to avoid this misunderstanding, education about and raising awareness for celiac disease are essentials components of the Custom Choice Cereal mission.
“Wheat free and gluten free is not the same thing. While all wheat free food is gluten free, a gluten free diet also requires the celiac to refrain from eating rye, barley, and contaminated oats. This needs to be clearly understood by the individual with celiac disease, or gluten intolerance, so that adequate questions can be placed to company representatives regarding their definition of gluten free foods and cross contamination practices.”
Thank you, Vickie! We would only like to add that everyone also needs to be aware that these different ‘in-house interpretations’ for the terms ‘gluten-free’ and ‘wheat-free’ exist. Or has Hajo’s Dad would say: “Every gluten-free food is wheat-free but not every wheat-free food is gluten-free”.
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!
The entrepreneurial spirit in the Triangle is very alive, and rarely does a week pass since having started Custom Choice Cereal where I don’t meet at least one other local entrepreneur. Being located in the Research Triangle Park, many of these entrepreneurs operate in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, or IT.
That’s why I am very excited to have met the people behind Local Yogurt, “Durham’s first independently owned frozen yogurt shop!” They offer delicious frozen yogurt in four flavors and plenty of toppings. The best part: the yogurt is gluten-free! How awesome is that??
With the heat hitting North Carolina and the 4th of July weekend ahead, this is the perfect treat for anyone, but especially for those with celiac disease and everyone on a gluten-free or wheat-free diet. Go ahead and visit LoYo this weekend at one of their three locations in Durham, Raleigh or Greenville!
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