You might not be aware of it, but you are experts in many aspects, and that is the reason why we are asking you for your advice! Custom Choice Cereal is in the middle of preparations for several gluten-free food shows, and in this context we are debating the background colors for a banner that we would like to print and display at our table. After a couple of days of internal discussions and very diverse feedback from friends and family we have narrowed the selection down to three options.

It then dawned on us: you are the decision makers and the best source of information that we have to improve Custom Choice Cereal, so we ask your opinion! It would be absolutely outstanding if you could have a look at the three pictures below and comment on this blog which of these options – orange, blue or yellow – you like the best.

Thank you very much for your feedback, your input makes a big difference!

The team at Custom Choice Cereal is overwhelmed by the flood of daily news on celiac disease, new research findings, information about new drugs under development, and the wealth of tips and tricks for living a gluten-free life. It is part of our mission to filter this information to some degree and pass on the bits and pieces that we find particularly interesting and or helpful.

As you can probably tell from the title of this post we want to share a couple of our findings in no particular order.

• The Philadelphia 76ers will host their 3rd Celiac Awareness Night on March 26th.  Their opponent that night will be the Atlanta Hawks.  We say “Thank you!” for helping to raise awareness for celiac disease!  A special discount for the game is available on the 76ers website with the code “CELIAC”
• Researchers from Columbia University’s Celiac Disease Center studied the Body Mass Index (BMI) of 369 patients proven have celiac disease from 1981 until 2007.  “Classical” femal celiacs were all revealed as predictors for low BMI.  Once on a gluten-free diet, over 50% of the overweight and obese patients lost weight, and of the group who initially had a low BMI, 42.4% attained a normal weight
• Triumph Dining’s Essential Gluten-Free Grocery Shopping Guide is now available as an iPhone application

These are just a couple of items we came across, please feel free to share your findings by commenting on this post!

Of course Custom Choice Cereal is also on twitter.com where we can be found under the name @CustomCereal. Some of the people we follow are very active tweeters, and we actually learn quite a lot of interesting news on celiac disease, gluten-intolerances, living gluten-free, and most of all new gluten-free recipes from them.

Our twitter friend @eadibleASH writes the blog the edible perspective with tons of delicious recipes and product pictures that make you want to bite your computer screen! She does not follow a gluten-free diet, so we were very excited when Ashley reviewed our custom gluten-free cereal. She had her gluten-free cereal mix on Friday when she unfortunately woke up with a “crazy pain in her neck” – we can only hope our breakfast treat provided some relief and that she feels better soon!

The mix that Ashley cerealized contained Good Morning Flakes as a base and to which she added apricots, goji berries, almonds, coconut and walnuts. She was “really happy with the amount of fruit + nuts that was in the mix”.

Thanks Ashley, we’re glad you enjoyed your custom gluten-free cereal!

It’s time again for Custom Choice Cereal’s monthly Q&A session with Dr. Stephen Wangen. Dr. Wangen co-founded the IBS Treatment Center in Seattle and also blogs under the name of The Gluten Free Doctor. You are invited to ask anything you’ve always wanted to know about celiac disease, gluten intolerance, wheat allergy, or the gluten-free diet.

We are very thankful that Dr. Wangen has agreed to provide this outstanding service to you. Out of respect for his busy schedule and because Dr. Wangen informed us that he is traveling this week, we decided to limit the number of questions to a total of 4. Questions will be accepted on a first come, first serve basis.  Since he has only limited access to his emails, it will also take Dr. Wangen a little bit longer to provides his answers. Otherwise everything will work as before in three easy steps:

1. Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
2. Dr. Wangen will answer your question and post it as a reply
3. You read the answer. Simple enough

We hope for your understanding and encourage you to post additional questions at any time to Custom Choice Cereal’s facebook page. We aren’t doctors but will do our best to answer your questions as soon and as best as we can. Please join us in thanking Dr. Wangen for taking the time to answer your questions!

Custom Choice Cereal is very excited to be featured in a review on Foodcents’ Blog. But there is also excitement in it for you because if you create a gluten-free cereal mix on our website leave a comment on the blog entry about our custom gluten-free cereal by March 6, then you’ll have a chance to win a custom gluten-free cereal mix of your choice! There are a couple of further actions listed to increase your chance of winning, so go ahead and check it out!

Foodcents writes that “Custom Choice Cereal is the only 100% gluten-free cereal site on the internet which also operates a 100% gluten free facility.” She also states about the two gluten-free cereal creations she had: “I loved the abundance of nuts, seeds and fruit which are included. These are nice and fresh tasting ingredients, which are plentiful throughout the mix.”

Having had some bad experiences with customer service in the past ourselves, we at Custom Choice Cereal strive to provide outstanding service to our customers and answer any questions within an hour. It was therefore very pleasing to read the following recognition of our efforts: “I cannot finish this up without mentioning the FANTASTIC customer service that Custom Choice Cereal provides. These guys are on top of the products and there to help consumers with any questions they might have along the way. I can think of more than a few companies that could you a little customer service training for these guys!!!”

Thank you, receiving such positive feedback always feels great, and it encourages us to continue what we are doing!

The team at Custom Choice Cereal has its moments, and in one of them we started to think about where and when we first heard about the concept of customizing a product. What interested us even more was how the concept has evolved since then.

It must have been around 2001/2002 (in a class in College) that we first heard about NIKEiD, a service that lets you design you own line of clothing. This service was initially launched in 1999 and was considered modular customization. The same is true for the automobile industry where customers can specify the color, engine, interior material, rims, sound system and more of their car with a so-called configurator. All major car manufacturers nowadays offer this service as a quick google search reveals.

A newer phenomenon however is customization in the food industry. Besides our custom gluten-free cereal there is another start-up that we particularly like: Chocomize lets you customize your chocolate through an easy process similar to ours: start with dark, milk or white chocolate and add up to five ingredients from the categories nuts&seeds, fruits, herbs&spices, candy, decorations and other. It’s a creative idea and definitely makes a great gift. And let’s be honest, who doesn’t like chocolate?!

Custom Choice Cereal is very very excited to introduce a Gift Certificate option on its website! Now you don’t have to worry about the selection of dried fruits, nuts and seeds that you want to add to a customized gluten-free cereal mix for someone else. Instead let them choose for themselves. It’s the perfect gift for anyone suffering from celiac disease!

Just click on the “Give a Gift” button in the left sidebar on our gluten-free cereal homepage as illustrated in the picture below. You will then be automatically directed to a page where you can enter all the information, including a message to the recipient of your gluten-free cereal gift certificate. It’s pretty intuitive, but please contact us in case you should experience any difficulties!

Erin Elberson writes the blog gluten free fitness, focusing on “eating well to be well” and “nutrition, fitness, and fun with a celiac spin”. When Custom Choice Cereal came across her blog we immediately said to ourselves that we have to try anything to be featured on it.

In addition to writing a stellar review of our custom gluten-free cereal, Erin mentioned that we are an “advocate for awareness of celiac disease and the gluten-free lifestyle”. She is also the first blogger EVER to mention our Quest for The Hoff, something that is very dear to my heart (Germans loooove David Hasselhoff in case you did not know this). Erin thought this to be “absolutely hysterical and made me almost fall of my chair and spit my coffee onto my keyboard. I love the humor. Points for that!”

Thank you Erin, we definitely like to look at the humorous side of life and appreciate your encouraging words! But honestly, how cool would it be if we could really personally hand a bag of our customized gluten-free cereal to The Hoff??

They say that there is a first time for everything, and it is so true! This “first timer” is related to a review of Custom Choice Cereal’s tasty gluten-free cereal. Our friend Kati started the page GF Milwaukee – Gluten Free in and around Milwaukee, WI on facebook and posted a great review of our customized gluten-free cereal on it. You can also become a fan of Custom Choice Cereal on facebook!

As many celiacs she had a craving for Raisin Bran because she has not been able to have it since she found out that she had celiac disease. Kati therefore creating a simple blend by combining our Good Morning Flakes with raisins. She writes that “the raisins are some of the biggest I’ve ever seen! I had to watch myself that I didn’t eat the entire bag in one sitting!”

If you are missing a specific kind of cereal from before your gluten-free days you can re-create it at Custom Choice Cereal. Please contact us if you are missing a certain ingredient that you would like us to offer!

Custom Choice Cereal had a day packed with meetings yesterday. While we usually rather spend time talking with our customers (about new gluten-free ingredients) and cerealizing your gluten-free creations, it is helpful to learn other’s people perspectives on our business. And trust us, it is too early to reveal, but we have some tricks up our sleeves…

Most of you have probably heard of professional road racing cyclist Lance Armstrong who won the Tour de France seven consecutive years from 1999 to 2005 after an amazing story of successfully battling cancer. Most of you probably also know that he subsequently founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation to fight cancer. He also started LIVESTRONG.COM as the “the definitive daily health, fitness and lifestyle destination”.

LIVESTRONG.COM actually has a very informative section on celiac disease that is worth browsing through. While we feel that some of the background information on celiac disease is better presented for example by the Celiac Sprue Association, we really like the many articles on celiac disease that are listed there. Check it out and let us know what you think!