About glutenfree.jebas.us

    My story as a family cook did not really get started until I entered college. There I figured out it was much cheaper to cook than to eat out every meal. At that time, I started a process that I called, "Cooking for Leftovers"TM I am the oldest of five, so my Mom taught me how to cook for a large family. I used this to my advantage. Though I was the only one eating, I prepared a meal for a family of four. Then I would eat off the leftovers for the next three to four days. This had the advantage that I did not have to cook everyday, and I usually had something quick to serve if friends stopped by. This worked really well while my wife was still my girlfriend. (Yes folks, I fed her, and she followed me home.)
    Fast forward several years, but not quite to the present. The marriage is a few years old, and we now have two beautiful girls. It's been a relatively happy marriage, but not an easy one. The oldest daughter, Charlotte, was diagnosed autistic at the age of two and a half. The youngest daughter, Grace, had asthma at two. Amanda, my wife, was suffering two to three day long migraines once a week along with her asthma. We had gotten very use to going to doctors. Unfortunately we learned very quickly doctors don't have all of the answers, and you have to guide them to get what you want.
    In Amanda's case, we were trying to find a doctor that wasn't going to keep her doped up all of the time. Most of them were willing to provide some really strong narcotics for the pain, but few were willing try something that would stop the pain from coming. Of those few, most were prescribing additional medications that kept Amanda asleep all of the time, or made her head so fuzzy that watching television was a difficult task of concentration. We needed a better solution, so we kept trying. We eventually found a physicians group that was able to help.
    They showed us some research that linked some migraines to the foods that people were eating, and they purposed a simple experiment. Amanda would eliminate all but the safest foods from her diet for a period of about a month. At the end of that month, we would see if she was still having regularly migraines. If she wasn't, we would start reintroducing foods back into her diet, and see if the problem returned.
    To help her, I placed the entire family on a modified version of this diet. It meant getting rid of bread, cheese, and other items that she would find tempting. I thought it would really be mean to have the kids eating pizza and grilled cheese when she could not have either. Within two weeks of the experiment, her migraines were gone. We also noted that Charlotte was showing fewer autistic symptoms, and we hardly had any tantrums. As items were reintroduced to the family, we found that wheat gave Amanda a migraine the next day, and caused Charlotte to complain about head and joint pain, showed some lose of verbal and cognitive skills, and dramatically increased the number of tantrums. This was tested several times, both accidentally and on purpose. (For those interested in milk and casein, we did not see the same set of results as we did for wheat, so it was not removed from the family diet.)
    There I was, the family cook, who had just mastered good southern style biscuits and beignets, being told that I could no longer use wheat to feed the family. So I began to research. Fortunately, I am not the first to travel down this path, so we were able to find books and references to get started. Additionally I found several blogs and recipe databases about eating gluten free, but no communities or forums about raising children requiring gluten free meals. Therefore I decided to build my own.
    Fast forward to the present, and you can see the results of that work. I have tried to create a community of families that help each other try to keep their families healthy. It's a lot of work, but the results are worth it. In my families case, there have been many improvements. Amanda still has migraines, but they are never closer than a couple of months apart, and never as severe. Charlotte, our autistic child, was originally diagnosed as moderate to severe autism, and a few doctors warned us that she might not ever talk. Today with therapy, chelation, and a gluten free diet, she is attending regular kindergarten with kids her own age, and her diagnosis is closer to mild with language skills very close to those of her schoolmates.
    Now before you return to the rest of the site, please remember a few things. I am not a doctor nor a nutritionist. I have never attended any culinary school. My professional background is with computers and electronics. If you are looking for medical advise, you need to find a doctor. However, if your doctor says you need to drop wheat and gluten from your diet, this site is a great place to get and share tricks and traps about eating gluten free.
    I hope that we can help.