124: Beginner tips for going Gluten-Free and Dairy-free

I'm your host, Dr. TJ, with me as always as Aaron. Hi. Today on the show, we are going to talk about what it's like to go gluten-free and dairy-free. Yeah, so it should be fun and exciting to you. Yeah, so I think we've done shows before we certainly talked about it before, the reasons why you may want to avoid gluten and dairy. So that isn't what we're doing today, but

For those who are interested in switching to a dairy-free and gluten-free diet, we want to give you some practical tips on where do you start? What are some of the first steps you can take to transition? And what are some places to look out for, just kind of very beginning steps and things that we've learned along the way in transitioning to a dairy-free and gluten-free diet?

So I'll let you, I'll let you start off. Pick a place where you want to start with this regarding like, if someone's wanting to be gluten free and dairy free, and they want to do both, is there one that they should do first? Is there one is either gluten free or dairy free easier? And if one is easier, which one would you recommend?

Well, from a health perspective, you're going to have to answer that, you know, which is... This is about ease of use. This is about ease of implementation. We already know that people need to be gluten-free and dairy-free. Period, cut and dried. Gluten's not really good for anyone. Dairy's not really that great for anyone. So with that being said, someone wants to go gluten-free, dairy-free, which if they're going to do both and they want to say, okay, I want to start with this slowly because it's overwhelming for me because that's, I think a lot of people are in that I'm overwhelmed boat.

Right. What do they, which one do they pick? Okay. Um, I will give what my opinion is, and that is if you're overhauling your diet for me personally, it's better to just knock them both out at once. And I guess. Oh, good answer. I mean, I know that that probably is going to seem a little bit overwhelming, but I'll be honest, it's going to seem overwhelming. If you're just cutting out gluten or just cutting out dairy because this is a complete diet change.

it really is. And so for me, I'd rather get through that overwhelmed part all at once instead of having to go through it twice. And I think that leads into, you know, one of my big points here is you can't expect to switch your, you know, gluten-containing products for gluten-free products and your dairy-containing products for dairy-free products and not see a difference in taste and texture.

I think that I hear a lot from people that make this transition and they're like, it just doesn't take the same. And my answer is, um, of course it doesn't. It's not going to. And you just have to get past that. If you're going to make the transition and not notice a difference, you are going to be disappointed because it is not going to taste the same. It's just not. So you're going to have to do a complete overhaul in my opinion.

Now there are some things that you will be able to switch out and you won't notice much of a difference or over time you will get used to. But for the most part, you're not going to be able to take the recipes you're used to making and switch out the products that are that are full of milk and cheese.

right well and okay so that's a good point uh... i i think in some respects you know both gluten and dairy are hard to eliminate from your diet but for me personally the dairy for alternatives were harder uh...

the two easiest things for me to switch with dairy is if I wanted any ice cream because they're great ice cream alternatives there's almond milk ice cream and cashew milk those are probably my two favorites but there's coconut and rice and soy I mean there are so many alternatives and they taste good I mean it's ice cream the other thing that was

Easy, in my opinion, was coffee creamer. If you use coffee creamer and you want to switch out a dairy creamer into a non-dairy, there are a lot of good alternatives. And so those were pretty simple. Cheese, not easy.

No. I mean, and there are a lot of people who are dairy free or are eating vegan and they will tell you there are a lot of good alternatives. In my personal opinion, you can get used to those new tastes and they don't taste bad, but they don't taste like cheese like that you're used to. The same with milk. I always say,

Plan on trying some different milk alternatives. Find one that has a taste that you're okay with or that you like, but don't expect the milk to taste like cow's milk. It won't taste like cow's milk. It's not cow's milk.

So I just think you have to make sure that your expectations are reasonable going into this. And with gluten, it's more of a texture issue than a taste issue, right? I mean, wouldn't you say DJ? I would agree. With gluten, it's definitely a texture issue. Gluten-free, a lot of gluten-free products are a little more grainy, a little more mealy. Right.

They don't stick together as well because that's what gluten does. Yeah. But once you once you figure out what your personal tastes are, you'll find things that work well for you. There's just going to be a trial and error period. You have to accept that, OK, I'm going to buy this. I don't know. Say you're trying to replace a loaf of bread and you're trying a gluten free bread.

You may have to try four or five different types of gluten-free bread before you actually find one that you personally like. Right. We've gone through that ourselves. We'll try one. We'll be on a vacation or something and they don't have what we're used to. And so we're like, OK, well, let's try this one. Well, a lot of times we'll buy two or three different types of loaves because I don't want to run the risk of it not being right. And I have to go back.

Again, I'll just buy a couple of loaves and we'll try a couple of them and just see what happens. And we always find something.

Right. And I think, you know, I really want to be able to give practical advice here. Like, what do you look at for at the store? Currently, we tend to purchase char bread, which is SCH AR. Isn't that right? I think that's right. Something like that. Because it's easy for us to find. It's always at our local grocery store. And it's in a lot of places that we've traveled to. Right. And so it's one that we tend to pick up. They also have different roles and buns. I don't like their hamburger buns, though.

Yeah, I mean, they're, you know, it's it's hit or miss on some of this. But they're their Chabata roles are great. They're hamburger buns to me are very, very grainy. I just don't I just don't like that personally. Aaron likes them. I don't care. They're fine. But I think there was one. Was it better today?

better way better way that we used to like and we can't find our grocery store that was another one that we really liked it was my favorite and we know that it sold well because they had their own private little stand in this in our grocery store and it was always empty I actually ran into the guy that that filled it and he was like I can't keep him in this store and then all of a sudden they just quit carrying it right and I don't know that was pre pandemic that wasn't a pandemic inspired yeah

stopping caring there um isn't it connect connect bread that we've tried we've never been able to find that at our local grocery store but we've traveled to other places and we've had that um and we've been able to get it and it's really good too so those are just a few options because we have gone through so many different brands that to us just don't taste normal now i will say

We have, we were never huge bread eaters, but we have, we eat even less bread now. It's fairly rare that we always have it just in case, you know, we, you know, run into a bind and we, you know, need to make a sandwich or something. We don't have something else available. And I probably eat it more than you do. Yeah. I don't, I, kids definitely don't eat it. Yeah. And I, I read very rarely, but it's, I, like I said, I want to give you,

very practical things if you're going to the store and you're making a list. Okay, here's, you know, these are some brands you can look for that are not too much of a transition from gluten containing bread. As far as dairy, I know I mentioned that cheese is difficult. It is. We use dia. Is it dia? Is that how you pronounce it? I don't know.

It's a D-A-I-Y-A. I have been told by numerous people who eat dairy-free that it is by far the best. I'll be honest. I have not tried a lot of cheese alternatives. I just don't eat it because I have not been a fan of the cheese alternatives I've tried.

I eat it. I don't mind it. Yeah, you don't. And we do at times feed our kids the dia cheese. There's sometimes when I'll make something for them that I just need it to stick together. And so we will we usually have the shredded cheese at home in case I want to put that in something and they love it. They've never had real cheese. So they

They don't know what they're missing. But it's not bad. And it melts well. And I think a big problem with some of the cheese alternatives is that it doesn't really melt. So there's another thing you can look for if you're... There's also, and I don't remember the brand, but I think we got it at Trader Joe's. That is a cashew cheese dip. Do you know what I'm talking about? That's not too bad.

And I don't remember what the brand name is, but I know I've talked to a lot of people who use that also. So there are a couple of things that you can use if you're really missing dairy. The key takeaway, though, is just remembering that it's not going to be the same. It's going to be different. You may have to get used to or you will have to get used to things not being quite the same consistency, not tasting quite the same. It's just different.

Well, and yeah, if you're wanting to eat the same foods, and that kind of leads me to my next point, which is it's better to focus on whole foods. A lot of people come to us and say, okay, what do I need to look for in the label? Like, what are the triggers? And we're like, try not to have things with labels. That's the easiest thing for me. I'm just like, eat meat and vegetables. Right.

You know, you can have potatoes. A lot of people question oats with gluten, and the answer is oats do not have gluten in them, but the vast majority of oats are processed in facilities that also process wheat. So do not eat oats unless it says gluten-free on it. That's something to watch. But oats are another thing that is a good switch if you're missing. I mean, it's filling kind of like gluten-containing products are.

Yeah, all right, we got to take a break when we come back we are going to continue talking about some practical tips for someone going gluten-free and very and welcome back everyone if you're just tuning in today we are talking about practical tips for someone who is going gluten-free and dairy-free and Yeah, the first segment was just loaded with info

We just blasted people with it. It was great. Go back, listen to it. If you missed, if you're just turning in, be sure to be sure to check the podcast. I don't know. We've got a lot more information to get to because I feel like all I said was there's not a lot of. Yeah, but we gave brands of things that we like personally. Well, okay. So let's continue on doing that. I think that hopefully that will be helpful to people who are looking to transition.

So I think where we left off, we were talking about, you know, it's easiest to focus on whole foods. And that's what I tell people in the office. When they come in, they're like, well, what do I eat? I'm like, you eat meat and you eat vegetables. It's simple. It doesn't come from a package. You want to transition and be all in. That's how you eat. Stop eating stuff out of a package. That's because you have there's so much label reading and looking for not everyone. The gluten free logo on packaged foods isn't universal.

Some places it's just gluten-free written in text down in a corner somewhere. Other places you have the little circle with the GF in it. Sometimes you have a little, a little symbol, wheat symbol with a line, a circle and a line through it. Like how things are marked gluten-free on packaging. If you're new, it's difficult to learn because you're going to spend two hours in a grocery store just looking at packaging and being like, well, I can't figure out if this is gluten-free or not.

Well, yeah, and that being said, I think if we're able to get to it today, if not, we will do another show on this about some packaged foods that you can reach for. Because again, it's you need to have some things that you know you can eat if times come when you just aren't prepared, right? Because you're going to have to eat.

But I do think the easiest thing is to try to focus on whole foods, try to get foods without labels, and not just because it's difficult to tell if they're gluten-free, but also because while there are plenty of good gluten and dairy alternatives out there, plenty of them are full of even more sugar and chemicals than we're in the gluten and dairy products, and they can wreak even more havoc on your system than dairy and gluten-containing products.

So it doesn't, dairy free and gluten free does not equal healthy. That is so true. I'm on a sidebar here and talk about, we've had some patients in the office that are like, oh no, I'm gluten free, dairy free. And I'm like, okay, that's great. And then,

you know they're they're they're not getting better or they have a question and I'm like well that's a that's a nutritionist question I don't really I don't really handle a lot of those questions I I let Kate our nurse that in our office is our nutritionist answer a lot of these questions and then she'll come back to me and she has on more than one occasion came back and like yeah they're so-and-so is eating gluten-free but

they're only eating gluten-free cookies and cakes and candies and things and they're not actually eating it's all gluten-free packaged foods that are aren't really that good for them and i'm like oh my gosh why didn't i know this and so then we have to have a whole other consultation with the person saying hey look this is we've got to change this no wonder you're not feeling as good as you could be yeah you've switched to gluten-free but you're eating gluten-free processed packaged stuff which

also isn't healthy, just like Aaron said. Right. Well, and I've seen that to people who go through making home cooked meals and then they have to switch to gluten free and dairy free. So they start looking for ways to shorten their time because they don't have recipes.

that they know of that are gluten free and dairy free so they start going to package foods because they're not sure what to make and they're not going to feel better at all they may actually feel worse because going from a home cook meal that contains gluten and dairy to packaged foods that don't contain gluten and dairy

It's kind of a wash, to be honest. I mean, it's good to not have the gluten and dairy, but as we mentioned, there are all sorts of other additives in packaged products, period. So if you were saying away from packaged products and you're using packaged products, you just need to be careful with what you're switching to in terms of

eliminated the gluten and the dairy and especially patients that we have in our office are usually coming to us for other health issues so they need the nutrients more than ever and you probably do to anyone who's listening if you've been eating gluten and dairy you're probably not getting the nutrients you need your body is probably hungry for nutrients you need to be eating whole foods because that's the only way to fix any problems that you have your body can't function if it doesn't have the nutrients that it needs

And then, and then there's the list, let us not forget the added cost of packaged gluten free. Oh, exactly. I mean, everybody, you know, has probably heard if you've looked, you know, packaged gluten free and dairy free products are expensive.

And so yeah, TJ and I've talked about this before, the fact that we get frustrated when people are like, I would love to eat dairy free and gluten free, but it's so expensive. And I'm like, potatoes are the same cost for everyone. I mean, you know, so if you are concerned about the cost, you're probably looking at packaged foods, which shouldn't be anyway, right? I mean, you can eat green beans and broccoli and cauliflower.

And, you know, a steak. Yeah, and potatoes. I mean... Now you're speaking my language. Steak.

Well, if you're eating whole foods, the cost isn't going to change at all. It's just not. You know, yes, packaged foods that are gluten free or dairy free are going to be more expensive. And that's one of the reasons why we want to do this show, because I think it's really frustrating when you first start to transition. If you're going after those packaged foods and trying to eliminate gluten and dairy, you're going to find a lot of them don't taste right. So we are going to talk about some brands that are

that we found that we like, but in general, just try to stay away from it is our advice. And I know that's probably not what a lot of you want to hear, but that's what's going to be the easiest in the long run. And your taste buds will accommodate that. But that leads us right into another point.

If you're used to cooking with gluten and dairy, like Aaron said, and now all of a sudden you're shifting away from that and you're using more whole foods and you're keeping your food bill and your food costs down, the key to that is thinking ahead, preparing, planning, and knowing when I go to the grocery store, I'm going to buy these things. I need these ingredients for these meals that I'm going to fix.

Get it out of your brain that you need to make some big complicated multi-ingredient recipe like we may I make two and three ingredient things all the time for the kids and For us and it's perfectly fine. You can saute some vegetables throw some meat together and boom you've got your own

your own meal that will last you three or four, can last you three to four meals doing it that way. You can have some for, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Really? Cause I thought, you know, this is not to show for that, but, you know, changing what you eat for breakfast to look more like dinner. Like preparing and thinking about these things and knowing when I go to the store, this is what I'm going to buy because this is what I need is just another step and another piece of the puzzle in the transition to gluten free and dairy free.

right i think that's a good point when you're transitioning you have to think ahead you have to start thinking about meal planning now there are a few things i want to say about that um of course it's best if you're able to kind of plan your meal your weekend advance right like what are you going to eat for each

meal, and then you know what ingredients you need. But life happens, right? I mean, we certainly have had situations where we're like, what are we going to eat for dinner tonight? Here's my tip for that. And something that we started a long time ago. I mean, I don't know if it was, you know, when we first transitioned, but we learned pretty quick, you have to have a backup because you can't just like go through fast food. You shouldn't be doing that anyway. But it's not that easy to just order from a restaurant.

because you have a much greater chance of cross contamination. So what we do is we have a number of things that we always have in the freezer that we've made. So one of them is vegetable soup, always have it in the freezer or the fridge. It's super basic, just, you know, vegetables and some diced tomatoes and ground beef is pretty much all it is and spices or turkey or turkey, ground turkey. And actually, yeah, we probably use ground turkey even more often.

But they make some things ahead to have in your freezer so that you're never staring at your pantry hungry about to cry because you don't know what you're going to eat because that will happen if you haven't planned. And that's also good. I mean, we do that for the kids. If they don't like what we've prepared, we always have vegetable soup available.

You know, we have something available that they can eat that is an alternative that is healthy. So if they'd rather have that, they can have that. But that is, I think, a big tip and something that has saved us so many times. I really want to stress that you need to have some backup plans.

Backpack up plans are huge like We kind of laugh at our house and kind of joke about the fact that the weekends are really I pick one day either Saturday or Sunday typically and all I do is cook for the vast majority of the day and

I'll get groceries on on Saturday and cook on Sunday or I go on Friday and get groceries and cook on Saturday Just kind of depends on what the rest of our weekend has but I will literally spend five hours cooking and I'm preparing as Many meals as I possibly can to get us through the week and sometimes we figure out halfway through the week. Uh-oh

I didn't cook enough food or we ate a whole lot more this week than normal and I have an evening where I'm like up until who knows when making sure that we have plenty of food for to get us through the rest of the week. Right, but we also always have those things in the freezer. Yes, you can throw chicken breasts in a crock pot. We've done that many times or instant pot.

Yeah, or use it in some pot, but have some things, you know, keep chicken breasts, you know, we'll have frozen chicken breasts in the freezer. We can throw those in the crackpot and figure out what we're going to do with it at the end of the day. You know, we can do that in the morning. It's ready by dinner. So there are some things that you can do and then figure out what you're going to do with it later. You don't have to have a recipe. So those are just some easy tips of things that you can do to help be prepared. And welcome back to the show, everyone.

If you're just tuning in today, we are talking about some practical tips for someone choosing to go gluten-free and dairy-free. And before the break, we were talking about planning ahead and meal planning and thinking about what it is and knowing what you're getting when you go to the grocery store. But another key part is when you're just out running errands, making sure that you have snacks, gluten-free snacks that are with you,

If you get hungry while you're out and about, it's going to happen. You need to, you know, make sure that you have some sort of snack with you because you can't just go through a fast food joint and expect to not get blasted with at least gluten and probably gluten and dairy. It's just a, it's just a critical piece to this puzzle. So we tend to get Lara bars or Lara bars. I don't really know how you say it, but either or

Those have like three to six ingredients. And so there's much less of a chance that you're going to have some sort of reaction. There are a lot of good options. And we also sometimes give those to our kids. We always have them in the diaper bag in case we're out somewhere and they get hungry. That's a good, easy thing for us to pull out that is somewhat filling.

RX bars are an option. They don't have a lot of ingredients either. They kind of have a weird texture, but try them. The flavor is usually pretty good. And the other thing I tell people is kind bars are sometimes good options. There are based a lot of nuts.

Um, I do believe they have real chocolate on them, which would some of them have chocolate. I don't know if they have milk chocolate or not. I don't. You got to look at whether there's dark or milk chocolate on. Yeah, there are a lot of completely dairy free options, but do, you know, check out to make sure that you're not getting ones that have dairy in them if you're going dairy free, but they, if you know, if you like nuts, those are good options also. I like, I like macro bars. Um, and I also like, um, some of the epic.

bars, they're like the meat stick things or chomps. Those are those are good options that you could that you can lean on if you if you're in a pinch as well. And like I keep, you know, number of these things in my purse, I keep them in the diaper bag, I have them in the glove compartment of our vehicles just

In case you get stuck somewhere, well, and I'm someone who I don't do well if I haven't eaten in a number of hours, like some of you this may not apply to because you're totally fine. If you've got to go all day, TJ is one of those people. Aaron is not. I am not. I need to eat every few hours or I have an issue. So, um, so that's just something to be aware of that you've got to think about because it's not always easy to find something to eat really quick.

Yeah. And I want to go back and I want to talk about one thing because what you talked about having stuff on hand and keeping things in the freezer. One of the one of the key pieces of this we have, you know, we make chicken noodle soup for the kids. Well, I say for the kids, I really like chicken noodle soup too. But one of the things to remember about this or a key tip is don't put noodles in it until you're ready to eat it. It's not like

how you used to make chicken noodle soup and then you put the noodles in the whole thing and you can store all that. If you put gluten-free noodles into a soup, they're going to continually suck up the water.

until there's no water left. They're going to swell and swell and swell and swell and swell. So there'll be no liquid left in the soup. So we add, we'll make noodles as needed if we're putting noodles into chicken noodle soup or something like that. And then that also allows us for us and for the kids, we can then really dictate how many noodles they're getting in that soup. Yeah, we don't use a lot of noodles for the kids, and I don't like a lot of noodles. TJ's a little different, but we

Yeah, can add it however much we want personally In our house we tend to get and I don't know how you pronounce this is a Tinkyata. It's T-I-N-K-Y-A-D-A Noodles there are a number of different bags there either spiral noodles or like macaroni noodles. I personally have not found

a lot of spaghetti, you know, like long noodles that I care for. And I'm super picky about noodles because I think the texture gets really weird. And a lot of them have a weird aftertaste to me. And see, if if texture doesn't bother you too bad, because for some, for noodles and things like that, for me, texture doesn't bother me. There's also lentil noodles out there that I don't mind. The kids don't care for them. Aaron's not a huge fan, but I don't mind them.

Um, at all. And so there's different kinds. There's also black. I think there's black bean noodle. Oh, yeah, they're all sorts. They made there's so many different types of noodles now that you can find. So you can do trial and error. Everyone's tastes are going to be a little bit different, but. Yeah, in our house, we tend to do the Tinkyatta noodles that rice noodles and everyone is okay with them. Yeah, they're they're most in our opinion. What we've found so far is they're most like

regular noodle, right? A number of people in my family have eaten them at our house. And they're like, I would never know the difference. And so I think that's a really good sign that they, um, they are similar to gluten containing noodles. Yeah. So we were, we were transitioning there into like having snacks when you go out, the other thing that, you know, a natural next step for this is going to be, what do you do when you're going out to a restaurant?

Oh my. So restaurants are interesting and fun in their own right. It's probably not the if you're going gluten free and dairy free, you want to you want to do that for just a little while before you decide to go out to a restaurant because the the key with that we have found is or the least that I have found is looking at the menus before you go to the restaurant because some places will have

completely separate gluten-free menus. Some places will mark on their menus gluten-free options. Others will say, yep, we offer gluten-free, but you have to ask your server. But typically online, you can figure out what those gluten-free options are for food. And some places will say, yes, we cater to gluten-free. And then they have one salad and one shrimp dish that is all they offer that's gluten-free. And you're like, well, that's not going to work. Or you can get a burger with no bun and

No fries because we're in a, you know, a shared fryer or whatever it is. Um, and that's something to be aware of too. Now that I mentioned the fryer, I am someone I have celiac, but I am not extremely sensitive to a shared fryer. What that means is if they are making, you know, onion rings or chicken fingers in the fryer in the same fryer where they're frying my fries.

I typically won't react simply because there's been gluten containing products in that fryer. Now, if someone has, I mean, and a lot of people who have celiac disease can't do that, they will have a reaction. And so also, let's, let's, let's, let's, I want to time out right there. And I also want to say like,

You may not be having a reaction because you don't need a bucket of fries. Right. And that's true. They bring a portion and she never finishes what they bring. And I bring a few and I very rarely go out to eat to be honest. I mean, we do that on special occasions or if we want to get together with friends, but we're not doing that like on a Wednesday night. You know, I mean, it just that's not something that we do because there is such a high probability that there's going to be some sort of cross contamination.

The only way that you can really avoid that and be confident in it is if you go to an allergen free restaurant and, you know, unfortunately with a pandemic, we had a number of them that we were fans of that ended up closing.

So we're kind of on the hunt for new options out there. But if a restaurant caters to people who have issues with food allergies, you're probably going to be OK because they know what they're doing and they cater to that. But that's not to mean that, you know, not to say that you can't go out to eat.

Um, if we're eating with other people, a lot of times we will choose like a steakhouse or a bar and grill. Yes. Um, because you can get meat and vegetables and, you know, and I do fries a lot because I don't have a problem with, um, with a shared fryer. You still have to be careful though and note to fire waiter because some fries have a breading on them. You, I find that a lot where, and

I have found that not all waiters even know that. They'll bring them out, and I'm like, do they have to have a coating on it? And they'll be like, I don't know. And then they'll go back and say, oh, yeah, we did check. And this is after I've already told them that I can't have gluten, that I have celiac. So you have to be very diligent. We've also, I mean, just recently, we went to a restaurant, and I got a spare, I guess. And they had told me, you can't put the agio. We were getting a steak. You can't put the agio on the steak. That would be a problem. And they brought me a spare, I guess, that had an

breadcrumbs on it. Yeah. But they swapped it out. It was no big deal. It's not a big deal. But what I'm saying is you have to be aware. You have to be aware. And just because you told them you can't assume what they gave you is gluten free. You've got to check it and ask questions. And I know that that's difficult. If you are someone who doesn't normally want to be a pain, that's definitely where I'm at. But it's much worse for me to eat something I'm not supposed to eat. Yeah.

might go to is always a steakhouse for the most part even if they are like well our seasoning has gluten in it like well leave that off the yeah a lot of times we say no seasoning and we will probably talk about that later but anytime you're talking about any blend of seasoning if it's not a pure spice could have gluten in it so you need to be aware of that at the store and also when you go out to restaurant

Yeah, welcome back everyone if you're just tuning in today we've been talking about Practical tips for going gluten-free and dairy free and right before the break we were talking about Going out to eat and finding restaurants and how we typically tend to stick to steak houses

that those places typically are more gluten friendly than other types of restaurants. But there's also, Erin uses, like if we're on vacation or whatever, she uses an app called Find Me Gluten Free. It uses your location to find restaurants in the area that are gluten free. It's really nice. She typically does lots of research before we go somewhere.

Right, because if we are on vacation, we're going to be eating out probably more than normal at least, even though we always find, say, at a place that has a kitchen, we still will usually eat out for some meals. Find me gluten-free is a good app because people who are eating gluten-free will write in reviews and are pretty good about doing that, for the most part, and not just strictly gluten-free restaurants. They'll do that even for chain restaurants, and we'll say, you know, I had a reaction here, or the people seem knowledgeable.

Um, you can also look on Yelp. They'll have some things, but Fimey gluten free tends to be a little more helpful in my opinion. Um, but that's really hit or miss depending on the location you're at. Um, there are times when I'll look at for a specific place and there will be nothing on Fimey gluten free within like 30 miles or something. And then you've got to go to Yelp or you just kind of have to go and, you know, work it out, get a grilled chicken breast.

Yeah, tell them, tell them, don't put anything on it. I mean, you know, you do the best you can. And then I don't know if you wanted to talk. We're not big fans of fast food, obviously. I say with fast food for the most part, just avoid it like as much as you possibly can. If you get into a bind, ask wherever you're at. Hey,

What do you have that's an option? Most places have some sort of salad. A lot of times there's croutons on it. So you want to make sure to leave those off. But for the most part, I say just do your best to avoid fast food. Because you run the risk of so much cross-contamination going on, because these places, they're small. They don't have dedicated areas where they can deal with gluten-free

products. I mean, even places like, you know, we've seen it like pizza hut or dominoes. They have a gluten-free crust option. But if you go to order it, they have warnings on there saying, hey, we don't have a dedicated gluten-free area. So there will be some cross contamination. I appreciate them for doing that because they're letting people know, hey, yeah, we have this gluten-free option for people who are trying to avoid gluten. But if you're celiac, you might want to avoid and that's my take for for fast food as well.

right just keeps us out of the trying to tell someone oh yeah go here and then some of the celiac goes and they have a problem there you're gonna probably have cross reactivity or or cross contamination at places like that right i will say so some of the things we have tried um i have gotten

grilled nuggets and fries at Chick-fil-A. I have reacted before and not reacted before. So and not severe reaction. So I'm just saying if you're in a bind, that's one that does not at least contain gluten. There might be some cross contamination. Chipotle, if you get without cheese, get a bowl. I've tried that same thing.

I see and I won't, I don't feel good generally after I anything fast food. And so it's hard to say was this a reaction or was this just like my body's not used to fast food. I've heard Chipotle is similar to Kidoba. That's another one. I haven't eaten there. You know, I don't know if I've ever eaten at one, but that's one that's been mentioned to me. When we traveled a number of months ago, we drove to Hilton Head for vacation and we packed

picnics. And we set the kids, um, well, and we've got pictures outside of gas station. There was a grass in the back and we were in the middle of nowhere, but the kids were hungry. And so lost their minds hungry. Yeah. And so we just pulled over and got out some, you know, I don't even remember. I know we had, um, hard bull legs was one of the things we had. I don't know. We had a number because that was a mess. It was, it was a disaster.

Yeah, but um, but you just have to be prepared that goes back to you have to plan ahead because We were not anywhere that I mean there might have been a McDonald's nearby, but I mean that's it. There wasn't anything Oh another thing we've tried is McAllister's and that was that has worked that has worked they that that hasn't been too bad and

So yeah, I mean, you know, if you end up having to eat fast food, just know, okay, it's not going to be healthy, but I can probably avoid gluten and dairy if, you know, you search hard enough for it. So I think that's important.

Yeah, and so another thing is like when you're trying to cook at home and you're going into like, okay, well, what am I supposed to cook? What can I cook? Like if you're looking for recipes, paleo recipes are inherently gluten free and dairy free.

I also tell people, you know, just pay attention to like, I recommend a lot of Mediterranean type diet or Paleo or a mix in between because those are typically more gluten free. But one of the key pieces is while you're doing this is making sure you get enough fat in your diet so you feel full. If you just switch to eating meat and vegetables and you don't get enough fat,

You're going to be hungry and hungry and hungry and hungry. That gives you that feeling of fullness. And it's a very important piece of the puzzle in the transition. Right. And I will say that this was something that I had to learn when I transitioned because I don't love to cook. I can cook, but it's not something that I love doing. I just have a million other things going on that I just, to be honest, would prefer to do.

But when I first transitioned, I would make a lot of meat and a vegetable and maybe a big potato or something. And I was hungry all the time. I was always hungry. And then slowly I realized there's not a lot of fat in that.

and what I was eating and so you have to find ways to add fat in or else you're going to be hungry. The other thing is if you're eating whole foods is to make sure that you're adding in flavor because if you're used to eating more packaged foods or even dairy because dairy adds flavor also, you're

you will be surprised at how bland the food is if you're not adding in the flavor. I had mentioned with spices, beware of mixes because they could contain they could contain gluten. So make sure you're watching it. Whole spices are usually fine. We use a lot of Himalayan, pink Himalayan salt. Also for vegetables and things, brags, amino acid or acids or coconut aminos are good to add flavor.

to meet and vegetables. So those are some options to add into flavor. Yeah, our kids actually eat, they like lots of spices and seasonings on their food. We can't, clearly we can't make it like hot and spicy for them, but Lincoln loves lemon pepper. We found some lemon pepper that's gluten free. I actually emailed the company. I'm not afraid.

to email a company or call them and say hey look you know I want to know you don't actually have on your packaging that on the on the bottle that it's gluten-free but does this contain any gluten and they'll respond back with no here's our here's you know this is what's in there this is our process this is what how it's manufactured there is no gluten that ever enters the facility it's just this and I'm like okay that's great I appreciate that you know what that tells me is they're just not paying for the certification to get gluten-free

That was what I was going to say. I think that's a really big point. We always say, make sure it says gluten-free. It's not 100% rule because there is a fee to be able to certify it as gluten-free. A lot of these smaller companies are not going to have the ability to spend the money to get that certification on their products. It doesn't mean that their products contain gluten.

But if you are interested in eating them, you do need to check. Now, it's a liability issue for the companies. They're not going to lie to you. If you contact them and there's a possibility for cross-contamination, they're going to tell you that because they're not going to want the liability of telling you that you can eat something that you end up reacting to.

But that's just a little more legwork on your end. And the easiest thing to do is just if you're getting a product that has a package, make sure it says gluten-free on it. Yep. If you're not going to reach out and ask them.

You know, people ask me where we shop a lot. Um, and we live in St. Louis. We, the, I, where we're at, the deerburgs close to us. It has a lot of options. I go to fresh time a lot. There's whole foods out there. Those are big, those are big staples, um, in our area, our deerburgs and fresh time just because they're close to us. Right. And then there's whole foods. Whole foods is great. They've got a ton more options than deerburgs and fresh time, but it's more expensive.

Yeah, and then we've also got, you know, there's all these and Walmart is starting to bring on more. So the options are growing out there. You just got. Yeah, you just got to look for them yourself and in your area. But that's about all the time we have for today's show. If you want more information,

Please visit our website INHSTL.com. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook. We're out there everywhere. Aaron's on Instagram. I'm out there as well. Shoot us an email info at INHSTL.com. Call us. Call the office. 314-293-8123. We're happy to help. We hope you've enjoyed it. For Aaron, I'm Dr. TJ. Thanks for listening.