By Zach

Here we go, gluten-free eaters. There’s another company trying to make a rift and a ruckus in the gluten-sensitive community, and it’s name brand is Wegmans Food Markets. Alright alright, all joking aside, I just want to state as a disclaimer that this post is simply an informative news report about a new “gluten-free” line of foods at Wegmans. Wegman’s has informed Triumph Dining that all gluten-free mixes and gluten-free pastas are being produced in dedicated gluten free facilities. They also mentioned that “gluten-free ingredients are investigated and verified, including processing aids and incidental additives and manufacturing environment, processing, scheduling, and  also that good manufacturing practices are evaluated for the potential for cross contact/cross contamination with gluten.”

Since the Domino’s Pizza gluten-free crust didn’t go over very well with a lot of you, this may not please everyone either, but we feel compelled to bring you up to speed whether you love it or hate it.

Without further ado, Wegmans Food Market, a Northeastern grocery chain with about 80 stores, has just announced that in honor of National Celiac Disease Awareness Month they have introduced, what they’re calling, four new gluten-free favorites into their stores. One of these is their corn-based pastas, which supposedly have an appetizing texture and hardly tastes any different than regular pasta. As an added bonus, shoppers can download a dollar-off coupon for the pasta from the Wegmans’ website. All four family favorites are Wegmans’ own brand and include:

• Gluten-free spaghetti, fusilli, penne and elbows, in one-pound boxes that sell for $2.49.

• A vanilla cake mix and chocolate cake mix. Each mix makes one 8-inch round cake layer and sells for $3.49.

• A gluten-free sugar cookie mix, which sells for $3.49 and makes 22 cookies.

• A double chocolate brownie mix for $3.49 that makes one 8-inch square pan of brownies.

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As Celiac.com so rightly points out, weight loss is considered a common sign of undiagnosed celiac disease. After all, the intestines of a person who is erroneously eating wheat are not going to absorb nutrients, and at least in theory food is going to pass through them much quicker / without time to be digested.

And, of course, there are all the other GI troubles that are often linked to undiagnosed celiac disease / accidental glutening – among them one that starts with a big D. So, when a team of researchers set out to look at Body Mass Index at the time of celiac diagnosis, it would seem logical that they would find a high rate of thin people.

It would have, at least…but of course this isn’t what they found at all.
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Amid all the hubbub about Domino’s gluten-free (but not celiac-safe) pizza, another very exciting gluten-free offering seems to have gotten a bit lost.

If you’re in Minnesota and have a child, you can now go to Chuck E. Cheese’s and enjoy a celiac-safe gluten-free pizza and gluten-free chocolate cupcake. Hearteningly, Chuck E. Cheese’s is going to extreme effort to ensure that these menu options are safe and uncontaminated.

As the press release explains, “the personal cheese pizza, manufactured by USDA/FDA-approved, gluten-free facility Conte’s Pasta, will arrive to stores in frozen, pre-sealed packaging. The bake-in-bag pizza will remain sealed while cooked and delivered and until opened and served with a personal pizza cutter at families’ tables by the adult in charge.”

There are also single-serving, pre-sealed chocolate fudge cupcakes from Fabe’s All Natural Bakery. You can see both options in the video above, and both are made by GFCO-certified companies.

Kudos to Chuck E. Cheese’s for going above and beyond to ensure a safe experience for all gluten-free children (in Minnesota). As with other test markets, if this one goes well we can expect to see more Chuck E. Cheese locations around the country offering gluten-free pizza and  cupcakes.

Have you tried the pizza? How was it?

By Zach

Let’s see what’s on the gluten-free dinner table this evening: maybe it’ll be rice noodle spaghetti and meatballs, or maybe a zesty quinoa salad with chicken, or perhaps…a half veggie, half sausage gluten-free crusted pizza from Domino’s! Wouldn’t that be exhilarating? Well, now you can have your own whack at any kind of pie from Domino’s now that they have gone on the record to claim that their glutenless crust is “appropriate for those with mild gluten sensitivity,” however, it is not suggested for people with Celiac Disease – discouraging we know.

Before we get your hopes too high, yes, of course, there’s always some kind of catch or folly with such good news as this. I’m sure this progressive step for the pizza industry isn’t as piquant to those who don’t get to reap the benefits, rather it just keeps you a bit cynical and on the edge. The fact that Domino’s only recommends this new concoction to people with mild gluten sensitivity almost nullifies half the gluten intolerant demographic.

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Two years ago for Celiac Awareness Month, we wrote a post about The Melting Pot‘s new Gluten Intolerance Group-approved gluten-free menu. We can only imagine that you all have been eating a lot of gluten-free fondue, because A: fondue is delicious and B: The Melting Pot’s gluten-free menu is still going strong (in fact, they’re participating in the GIG’s Chef To Plate initiative this month).

However, we’ve got even more reason to think that The Melting Pot is happy to have a gluten-free menu. The company that owns them, Front Burner Brands, also owns a fast-casual concept called Burger 21.

Guess who’s gotten a GIG-approved gluten-free menu this Celiac Awareness Month?
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I know sometimes it can seem like we post news of a potential new treatment for celiac disease, promise to keep you updated, and then drop the topic for a while in favor of delicious gluten-free things, or new studies, or anecdotes from my slightly awkward childhood or what have you.

Rest assured, we’re constantly checking for updates — sometimes it just takes a while for something worthwhile to happen in the life of a potential drug therapy. Today, case in point, we’re revisiting a post from 2009, titled Cure for Celiac Disease?. Why? Because we FINALLY have something exciting to say: Alba Therapeutics is going into phase 2b clinical trials, and they’re looking for volunteers.
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By Zach

Hope you all are embracing Celiac Disease Awareness Month to the fullest. In our Tuesday post, we shared a bunch of ideas and activities you can do to promote gluten-free efforts. For today’s post, we’d like to mix things up a bit and have Olympian Nathan Brannen shed some light about his experience with a gluten-free lifestyle as an Olympic Games middle distance runner.

1.    Can you briefly share your personal story of being gluten-free?

The reason I decided to become gluten-free was a result of my coach. Besides being a world-renowned coach, he is also a world-renowned physiotherapist and suggested that I try a gluten-free diet. This gluten-free practice was something he had been doing for years as an injury prevention strategy.

Gluten is a binder and he found that people that had high-level gluten diets tended to be more injury prone than those who were gluten-free. Physiologically, he found gluten also acted as a binder in the body as well, causing muscle and tissue to get stuck and not move or reacted properly. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try since I had been very injury prone over the last few years. I have found my body to feel much healthier and my injuries have been at a minimum since I switched to a gluten-free lifestyle. I have been gluten-free for just over a year, I feel fit and my running is now stronger than ever.

2.    Please tell us a little about yourself and your career.

At the University of Michigan, my freshman roommate, Alan Webb, and I were the first two sub-4 high school milers to run for the same program in history. By the time I ended my Michigan career, I had won four NCAA titles and ran the second-fastest collegiate indoor mile in history.

After earning a silver medal and winning the Canadian 1500m title in 2006, my 2007 season came to an early halt when I sustained a herniated disc near the base of my spine. After missing five months of training, I opted to have surgery in November. Then began the long comeback to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

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By Zach

As most of you may know, May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month. In honor of this close-to-home celebration, we’d like to share a few tidbits about what’s going on in America regarding this exciting movement and also some great ways you can show your support for this cause. Also, to pay tribute to our faithful followers, we are dishing out some great offers and giveaways throughout this month, so make sure you stay tuned.

To start, we thought you’d find it interesting to know that some studies are tracing Celiac Disease back to prehistoric time periods and more concretely in the 1st century CE. Additionally, May hasn’t been the only month to promote the gluten-intolerant ailment. October was also a month to pay homage as National. Celiac Disease Awareness Month, but, in more recent years, both Europe and North America have recognized May as the predominant month, which is probably good because it seems like Halloween would overshadow October and steal all of Celiac Awareness’ thunder.

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Let me share with you the exciting things I ate yesterday:

• a small tray of mini tater-tots, which I didn’t leave in the oven long enough to get really crispy enough
• five strawberries
• some kombucha, some herbal tea, some water-with-fizzy-vitamin-C-tablets
• a bowl of microwaved rice with a slice of Jarlesburg cheese on top

In other words: I didn’t feel very well yesterday. Gluten-free or not, every now and then we all get laid up with a cold or a flu or a sore throat. But do we all have to be doomed to starchy mush and takeout when we’re under the weather? And if our gluten-free loved ones are sick, what can we cook for them to speed them along the way to recovery?
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Some pretty exciting news for you today! Thanks to Celiac.com for breaking the story: the FDA has, it seems, put their money where their mouth is regarding a timeline out for pending legislation on gluten-free labeling.

According to the post, the FDA, “is gathering data to respond to calls for an ‘alternative approach’ to determining a specific gluten threshold level other than the proposed level of under 20 parts per million gluten as one of the criteria to define the term ‘gluten-free.’” Furthermore, the post notes that the FDA intends to finalize their decisions by the end of the fiscal year (2012).

Hooray! Maybe! What does this mean?
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