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.
It’s not that we at Custom Choice Cereal disagree. Trying to look at the bright side of life however, we think that there are pretty good reasons why everyone should be happy about this trend. Even if some of the information provided through mass media turns out not to be very accurate, here are our top 3 reasons to appreciate the buzz on eating gluten-free:
More consumers realize that they might benefit from a gluten-free diet. As one reader of the Toronto Star – who by the way stresses that it is not a fad diet – writes: “For years I suffered with debilitating eczema and spent thousands of dollars seeking treatment. It wasn’t until I tried going gluten-free that I got relief from the eczema, along with several other health issues I never considered being related to gluten. And I am not a celiac. One doesn’t need to be a celiac to notice positive health changes when gluten is eliminated from the diet.”
As more people hear about eating gluten-free, it will very likely increase the rate of diagnosis of celiac disease and gluten sensitivities. Considering that 97% of celiacs remain undiagnosed, that’s a great thing, at the very least for the folks who suffer (often for years) without knowing the reason
As you can already tell, increased awareness for gluten-free foods results in positive reactions from the food industry, bringing everyone more choices and making living gluten-free much easier
We fully sympathize with those of you who are infuriated by inaccurate reporting on celiac disease and know that it can be tough to see the positive in some of the media coverage. Give seeing the positive a try though, it’s just not worth your energy being mad!
Did you find another reason why everyone benefits from the buzz about the gluten-free diet? Don’t be shy about it, let us at Custom Choice Cereal and everyone else know about it and leave us a comment!
It is a great start into the new week as celiac disease and gluten intolerance are getting more and more attention from main stream media!
Last week Custom Choice Cereal shared a video from the Today Show on the gluten-free diet. It mostly covered celebrities and had some inaccuracies but hopefully also drew some attention to celiac disease and the reasons why some people have to go on a gluten-free diet.
In Saturday’s “Living Well” segment of NBC Chicago, we are “straightened out a little” by Dr. Mary Ann Malloy. You can watch the entire video below, but this is hands down the best mainstream media coverage of celiac disease I’ve seen so far. Here are just a few of the highlights:
Celiac disease described as a greatly under-diagnosed condition
Great definition of celiac disease (autoimmune reaction damaging of small intestines)
Explains what happens to a celiac consuming gluten: damage of small intestines, preventing absorption of nutrients from food
Gives common symptoms, including long-term implications such as cancer
Explains how diagnosis works through blood test AND biopsy
Highlights that treatment is simple: a complete gluten-free diet!
Stresses the importance of constant education on celiac disease, i.e. working with a dietitian and reading labels
Clearly distinguishes between gluten intolerance and celiac disease!
Say what you want, but Chelsea Clinton’s by now famous gluten-free wedding cake has further increased awareness for celiac disease.
Though some regard it as a “fad diet”, a higher demand for gluten-free foods results in more choices for celiacs and those who have a gluten intolerance. That’s exactly our mission at Custom Choice Cereal, making the gluten-free life an enjoyable experience by bringing taste and variety to the gluten-free cereal bowl!
Though they define ‘celiac disease’ somewhat loosely we still highly recommend that you watch this video from yesterday’s Today Show! Great job to the Today Show for covering this important topic in such depth!
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.
At Custom Choice Cereal, we enable everyone to create tasty cereal mixes with exactly the ingredients they love! Inspired by a friend who is gluten intolerant and struggled finding a variety of tasty gluten-free breakfast foods, we decided to tackle this issue with our exclusively gluten-free cereal concoctions. Many reviews and comments on our facebook page have proven that gluten-free (cereal) does absolutely NOT have to be taste-free!
One thing always amazes us: there are tons of controversies about living gluten-free out there, especially in the context of autism. Families with an autistic family members are in the same boat. However, that doesn’t prevent often times heated discussions and even insults over the argument whether or not a gluten-free (and casein-free) diet can result in improvements of behavior or the leaky gut for their child.
Reading these discussions drives us crazy! WHY FIGHT EACH OTHER?? Seriously! None of us at Custom Choice Cereal are qualified to give medical advice but a healthy dose of common sense makes the decision pretty easy: try a gluten-free diet for at least a month, and if your child’s behavior and well-being improves we think it is (or should be) a no-brainer!
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