Hope y’all had a wonderful, relaxing, healthy Labor Day Weekend! Guess that officially means that the summer is over… Looking at the bright side of things – which we at Custom Choice Cereal always prefer – football season is back on. And that’s always a great thing But back to the “really” important things in life…
Today is once again the first Wednesday of of the month aka Dr. Wangen Wednesday! This means that our friend and advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen answers any question you might have about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and living gluten-free!
Suffering from celiac disease himself, Stephen understands the challenges of a gluten-free diet from both a personal and professional experience. Most importantly, he is very passionate about helping others like you. This passion was a call that he answered by co-founding The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogging as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serving on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.
Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, and we appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen for taking the time off his busy schedule to address your questions.
Asking what YOU want to know is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:
Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
Dr. Wangen answers and we publish what he says in reply to your comments
Don’t be shy – there are no “dumb questions” except for those you don’t ask Besides, we learn a whole lot from what you want to know every month and are curious to see your questions!
We hope all of you enjoyed the long 4th of July weekend with the four “F”: family, friends, fun and some great gluten-free food!
Having entered the second half of 2011, we at Custom Choice Cereal continue the good tradition of making the first Wednesday of each month known as Dr. Wangen Wednesday. On this special day, our good friend and outstanding advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen answers any question you might have about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and happily living gluten-free!
Stephen has an amazing understanding of the challenges that a gluten-free diet brings with it from personal experience since he suffers from celiac himself. More importantly, he is very passionate about helping others. This passion was a call that he answered by making it his professional career, co-founding The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogging as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serving on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.
Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, and we appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis. We therefore kindly ask you to check how many comments have already been posted before adding yours. For now, please join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen for taking the time off his busy schedule to address your questions!
Asking what YOU want to know is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:
Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
Dr. Wangen answers and we publish what he says in reply to your comments
We are looking forward to another informative and insightful gluten-free Q&A session and can’t wait to read your questions. There is so much we learn from you, so we are extremely excited about this rare but wonderful occasion where everybody wins!
Today is not only the first day of a new month (can you believe it’s JUNE already??) but also the first Wednesday of of the month! As some of you already know – and more of you hopefully find out – we at Custom Choice Cereal do our best to make this day also known as Dr. Wangen Wednesday because our friend and advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen answers any question you might have about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and living gluten-free!
Suffering from celiac disease himself, Stephen understands the challenges of a gluten-free diet from both a personal and professional experience. Most importantly, he is very passionate about helping others like you. This passion was a call that he answered by co-founding The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogging as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serving on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.
Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, and we appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen for taking the time off his busy schedule to address your questions.
Asking what YOU want to know is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:
Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
Dr. Wangen answers and we publish what he says in reply to your comments
Don’t be shy – there are no “dumb questions” except for those you don’t ask Besides, we learn a whole lot from what you want to know every month and are curious to see your questions!
If you’ve come to our blog you most likely know that we want to make living gluten-free a fun and enjoyable experience. Besides offering you the largest variety of custom gluten-free cereal (over 2.5 billion combination possibilities anyone?!), we at Custom Choice Cereal also see it as part of our mission to raise awareness for celiac disease and gluten intolerance. And since it’s Celiac Awareness Month, we figured we highlight one of the great resources for the gluten-free community (this and more can be found in the left sidebar).
Suffering for many years and unsuccessfully consulting 22 physicians until number 23 (!) finally diagnosed her with a rare autoimmune disease called celiac disease, Alice Bast founded the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) in 2003 out of “the desire to spare other families from needless heartache and suffering” that she went through. As a national 501(c)(3) not-for-profit, it is the organization’s goal to raise awareness for celiac disease among the general public and the healthcare community. In addition, the NFCA aims to facilitates research to better understand the causes, mechanisms, and treatment of celiac disease. After all she has accomplished with her organization, Hajo was understandably thrilled to personally meet Alice at the Gluten-Free Labeling Summit in Washington, DC, last week.
Not only is everyone on the the NFCA’s team a great advocate for increased gluten-free food safety, the organization and its website are also outstanding resources for the newly diagnosed as well as support group leaders and celiac “veterans”. What we consider some of the most useful features are the printable guides, including a celiac disease symptoms checklist, celiac disease and women’s health, several great documents on restoring health after diagnosis and helpful advice to manage everyday gluten-free living. We frequently check their website for updates on the gluten-free industry and new research and highly recommend you join the NFCA’s mailing list.
Have you visited the NFCA’s website before? Maybe you let us know what you found most helpful or interesting? We can’t mention everything on this awesome website but we certainly are always eager to learn!
Puuuh. Now this was a week of intense travel for me representing Custom Choice Cereal! It all started with the Charlotte Gluten-Free Expo last Saturday, which was truly awesome and great fun.
This week then continued with the long anticipated Gluten-Free Labeling Summit in Washington, DC, where the world’s largest gluten-free cake was assembled to raise awareness for the lack of clear standards in gluten-free product labeling. The FDA was also there, and I think the mission to make them aware how important food safety is for people who suffer from celiac disease or gluten intolerance was accomplished. We at Custom Choice Cereal are so proud to have donated to this much needed and wonderful event!
It was awesome to see friends from the community such as Jules Shepard, Nancy Ginter from the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA), and Tinsley Meloy from Celiebo again. On top of that, I finally also had the chance to meet 1in133.org co-initiator John Forberger, Jill Brack from Glow Gluten Free, Dr. Alessio Fasano from the Maryland University’s Center for Celiac Research, the NFCA’s founder Alice Bast, and many more. Everyone was excited to be there, and watching the cake grow to 11 feet and 2 inches (!!) throughout the day was great fun!
You can watch a video of the cake being built on the Custom Choice Cereal facebook page. And I am just wondering: when was the last time you needed ladders to build a cake?!?
Yesterday, I finished my travel-intense week with a sweet “little” 586 mile trip from DC to Wilmington, NC, to speak to a local celiac disease support group. I always love meeting people in those groups! This one was a particular joy though because it was local for us in North Carolina. Not so local was the 9.5 hour drive DC-Wilmington-Chapel Hill… But at least it was a gorgeous day, and meeting others in the celiac community is what I love most about my job. Hope all of you have a wonderful weekend!
It’s a big day for the gluten-free community: the gluten-free labeling summit will take place in DC today AND it’s the first Wednesday of Celiac Awareness Month! For this reason we are particularly thrilled let you know that first monthly Wednesdays are (at least here) also known as Dr. Wangen Wednesdays because Custom Choice Cereal’s friend and advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen answers your questions about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and living gluten-free.
Suffering from celiac disease himself, Stephen understands the challenges of a gluten-free diet from both a personal and professional experience. Most importantly, he is very passionate about helping others like you. This passion was a call that he answered by co-founding The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogging as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serving on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.
Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, and we appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen for taking the time off his busy schedule to address your questions.
Asking what YOU want to know is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:
Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
Dr. Wangen answers and we publish what he says in reply to your comments
Don’t be shy – there are no “dumb questions” except for those you don’t ask Besides, we learn a whole lot from what you want to know every month and are curious to see your questions!
The Custom Choice Cereal team had the luxury to tour the Whole Foods Gluten-Free Bakehouse yesterday evening. Fortunately for us it is located right around the corner just 15 miles from our own office here in in North Carolina. It was pretty awesome to see the operation that is producing so many great gluten-free goodies for us. Organized by the Raleigh CSA support group (Thank you Patricia!), roughly 30 people took advantage of the opportunity to catch a glimpse behind the scenes of how Whole Foods makes its gluten-free baked goods.
After all of us had been equipped with very fashionable hair nets we were admitted to the actual warehouse – and welcomed by Lee Tobin who had prepared two sampling tables with about 30 gluten-free goodies to try. Everything was really good but favorites were the Light White Bread that was even un-toasted not distinguishable from regular bread and the almond cookies. Lee also shared a pretty funny story about the bread: the size of the bread increased over time (that’s a good thing!) so the original bag they used to package it in became too small. The solution? They now package it in a larger bag first, then cool it down, and only after that fit it into the original bag. You’ll see that it packaged in two bags if you buy it. We also caught a pretty lucky time to visit because crew was busy baking the world’s largest gluten-free cake for the Gluten-Free Food Labeling Summit. You can see that Lee is wearing the t-shirt – the first pink t-shirt he wore since the 1980s – for the event on May 4th in Washington, DC.
During the tour, we learned that the bakehouse is a dedicated gluten-free and thus also wheat-free facility. Whole Foods does have a couple of baked goods containing nuts, soy, eggs and milk. They do however have a very strict policy and clean all utensils, bowls and machines between baking batches of goods with a certain allergen and those without or with different allergens. It was very re-assuring to see and hear! At the same time, they test a sample of every batch of incoming ingredients as well as a sample of every batch of outgoing product for potential gluten contamination. In the cold storage room, Whole Foods also keeps all allergen-free ingredients on one side and any ingredient containing eggs, milks, nuts or soy on the other side. It’s those little differences that really count!
We also learned that being a batter mixer is physically quite a demanding job. Imagine mixing 20-24 huge bowls of around 200lb of batter per day – and lifting two 50lb bags of ingredients per batch. Do the math and you’ll see that you would lift at least 2,000lb of ingredients! All of the great baked gluten-free goods that you buy at Whole Foods across the country have been baked in one of their four industrial ovens. They keep them running around the clock, and it was pretty impressive to see those machines in action. Since the facility tour followed the path of production, we also saw the packaging area, the huge freezer they are so proud of, and the really really big warehouse. Fortunately for us is, we passed by the sampling table one more time on our way out ☺
Is there any gluten-free baked good that you would like Whole Foods to create? As we learned it takes an impressive average of around 100 test runs (of 200lb of batter) until a new product can be produced for the market, so don’t wait any longer and leave a comment now!
The awful case of Paul Seelig, the man who bought regular baked goods, re-labeled them and sold them as “gluten-free” specialty products, has come to a final end in court today. Even though it quite honestly infuriates me that this undeniably “bad guy” gets such extensive press coverage while the many hard-working good people in the gluten-free community don’t – this trial and the precedent it sets are too important to ignore. As a result, I join in on the news coverage.
I have followed this case closely since it happened right here in Custom Choice Cereal’s front yard in Durham, NC. For those of you who don’t know the background, here is a (quick) recap:
In fall 2009, Paul Seelig sells supposedly gluten-free bread at the State Fair and online. After several people suffering from celiac disease consume his products develop rashes, have stomach cramps, diarrhea, and in once case even give birth to the local gluten-free community tests his bread for gluten. Result: the gluten content was literally off the cart (>5,000ppm)!
Several Raleigh CSA Support Group including our friend Zach Becker from Gluten Free Raleigh alert the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services (NCDA&CS). When the NCDA&CS wants to inspect Mr. Seelig’s bakery (aka his house), a shirtless man claiming to be an employee named Jeff Gleason answers the door and says that Mr. Seelig “had had a heart attack, had cancer and the flu and was in a hospital in California”. As it later turned out, the representatives of the NCDA&CS faced Mr. Seelig, who invented the character of Jeff Gleason…
The criminal trial against Paul Seelig begins on March 28, 2011. The State of North Carolina has charged Mr. Seelig on at least 25 (!) felony counts of Obtaining Property via False Pretenses arising from his fraudulent sales of fake gluten-free baked
On April 8, 2011, Paul Seelig takes the stand and acknowledges that he had lied about his identity to investigators. However, he sticks to his story that he “had been buying gluten-free bread from a mysterious Amish bakery in Ohio that – being Amish – had no telephone, email or address. There were no payment records because he paid in cash”. The video below shows Paul Seelig testifying in court:
On Monday, April 11, 2011, a jury finds Paul Evan Seelig, 48, owner of Great Specialty Bread Co., guilty of 21 counts of fraud. He faces a maximum sentence of more than 17 years in prison.
Today, justice is served and Paul Seelig is sentenced to 110-132 months in prison without probation!!
The bottom line is that Paul Seelig lied to his customers and to prosecutors. I can only try to explain such awful behavior, and the single somewhat “plausible” answer to me is greed. Mr. Seelig has been convicted of wire fraud and grand theft before, serving 2 years in prison in the 1990s. This case sets a precedent on gluten-free claims manufacturers can make. It also shows how important it is to finally pass gluten-free labeling standards!
Which area of your life has changed most since you/your child went gluten-free?
Before going into the details we’d like to thank the 83 of you who took our 3-second-poll. You helped us achieve the best participation rate so far, and as you know the accuracy of the survey increases with the sample size. It’d be great if we could reach even more people with our latest poll (see left sidebar), so please help us spread the word by tweeting and posting this blog on facebook!
The graph below sums up the results better than our words ever could. The high level result is going out remains the toughest part of living gluten-free as indicated by over 43% of you. On the bright side, family life at home (selected by 14.5% of all participants) seems manageable thanks to a constantly improving market for gluten-free foods.
Suffering from celiac disease himself, Stephen understands the challenges of a gluten-free diet from both a personal and professional experience. Most importantly, he is very passionate about helping others like you. This passion was a call that he answered by co-founding The IBS Treatment Center in Seattle, WA, blogging as The Gluten Free Doctor, and serving on the Board of Trustees for the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America. We invite you to read more about Stephen and his books in our introduction to our advisors.
Dr. Wangen is going out of his way to provide this wonderful service, and we appreciate your understanding that out of respect for Dr. Wangen and his time we have to limit each session to 5 questions on a first-come, first-served basis. Please join us at Custom Choice Cereal in thanking Stephen for taking the time off his busy schedule to address your questions.
Asking what YOU want to know is easy and can be done in just 4 simple steps:
Post your question as a comment to this blog entry
We send all questions to Dr. Wangen
Dr. Wangen answers and we publish what he says in reply to your comments
Don’t be shy – there are no “dumb questions” except for those you don’t ask Besides, we learn a whole lot from what you want to know every month and are curious to see your questions!
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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But back to the “really” important things in life…
Today is once again the first Wednesday of of the month aka Dr. Wangen Wednesday! This means that our friend and advisor Dr. Stephen Wangen answers any question you might have about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and living gluten-free!
Besides, we learn a whole lot from what you want to know every month and are curious to see your questions!
