Writers choice nomination award

It's nearly been a year since I started writing this blog and I have come along way. I have improved in my blogging skills. Through twitter and Facebook I've been able to come into direct contact with my readers.
I have also entered food blog hops #SABH monthly, which has broadened my contact with other food bloggers, who have given me tips of what to do. Each month I enjoy creating a delicious dessert, showing that GF doesn't have to be tasteless to numerous readers from around the world.
When I joined Twitter I came in contact with many bloggers, food and non food who have complimented me on my blog and I have worked with them, received tips, pointers etc from them. I even participate in a chat forumn called #ausallergery which takes places every Tuesday nights 8.30pm AEST, we chat about allergies, where to buy products from, reactions, just living with allergies in general. Please feel free to come and join us, they are a lovely bunch of people.

For those of you who regularly read my blog (from countries all around the world), you know that I haven't had the easiest of times. This blog provides, me with an outlet and allows me to research new things about the disease and forward this information to my readers.

When I heard about the competition, my first thought was that someone else, a reader should
nominate me. But then I heard my grans voice in my head saying, 'you have to be in it to win
it'!

So I thought why not and I entered my humble blog into a big competition. My readership is wide, across many countries as is my twitter followers, it's just yet to show on my individual followers on my blog. It would mean so much to me if you could take the time and fill in the nomination form. It is the ultimate way that you can show your support for reading my blog. The competition is yet to open, it opens Friday the 13th April, this is just to remind you, get it in your head, then I will write another blog closer to the date reminding people how to vote.

So my lovely readers who have kept my blog going, I'm ever grateful too. I have one thing to ask you, the voting for this competition starts on the 13th April, you can enter my blog in this competition. Details or voting lines aren't open before then but I wanted to put the idea in your mind first.

As my readers I feel it is my duty to let you know I'm going to revamp this site, at the top of the site will be some of the lovely pictures from the dishes I have cooked, there will be more tabs, making it easier to navigate the recipes. Overall the site will look more pleasing to the eye, and easier to navigate! I hope to have all this done before judging time begins.

If you are anything like me, life can get so busy and you mean to vote for someone in a contest and you just forget the date, so although it is a little early now, I'm putting this out there to get you thinking about voting for me. I will also in the week leading up to the special day, if your not superstitious date of Friday the 13th, to remind people about the award and how to vote for me.

I appreciate your support and look forward to giving you more details about how to vote, just leave a comment if you have any questions and I can ensure I get directly to you once I have the information.

GF Layered Pear Crumble Cake

Coeliac Awareness Week

This week is Coeliac Awareness Week in Australia. Unfortunately there is not alot of information out there to promote this. This leaves it up to us bloggers to promote this debalitating and at times life threatening illness.

Sorry for those of you who have read this before, but I'm going to provide you with the basic information about the disease. Firstly Coeliac Disease is not an intolerance but an actually autoimmune disease. The immune system reacts abnormally to gluten (a protenin found in wheat, barley, rye, an oats). In America they have declared some oats to be gluten free, but it is essential to follow the guidelines set by Australian organisations. When gluten containing products are digested, damage is done to the small bowel. In technical terms when gluten is digested, the villi which line the small bowel, become inflamed and flattened. When this occurs the surface of the bowel available for nutrient absorption is significantly reduced, which can lead to various gastrionitenstional and malabsorptive symptoms. A number of serious health conditions can arise from this diesase, if this condition is not diagnosed and treated properly and efficently.

To have this disease, you must have these genes HLA DQ2 and HLA DQ8, thus it is a heredity condition. However it is important to note that only 1 in 30 people with these genes will develop the genes. If one of your parents has the disease, I would strongly suggest seeing the doctor and getting tested yourself as you have a higher chance than others of having the disease

At present in Australia there are 1 in 100 Australians are diagnosed with this disease, however approximately 160,000 Australians remain undiagnosed!

The symptoms of Coeliac Disease are very similar to that of IBS, and often many people including myself are diagnosed with IBS for many years prior to receiving a diagnosis. The symptoms include; bloating, abdominal cramps, fatigue, constipation, dirroeha, flatulence, low iron levels or anemia (I had severe anemia). If left untreated the disease can lead to cancer and severe illness as extreme malabsorption is occuring, thus you aren't receiving the goodness in food etc.

The good news is that this disease can be controlled by diet. Simply removing gluten from your diet, can change the damage to your small bowel and reduce the symptoms that you have been suffering from for many years. It is very common for people to be diagnosed later in life with this disease. At present scientist are in the process of developing a vaccine for coeliac disease, thus allowing us to eat gluten! Sounds exciting.

If you suffer from some of the symptoms for this disease, it is important not to self diagnose or remove gluten from your diet. If you suspect you have this disease, make an appointement with your gp, exlpain your concerns and ask for a refferal to a gastro specialist. If this diease is in your family, your chance of having the disease is raised significantly. The only way to officially diagnose this disease is by an endoscopy where there is a biopsy taken of the small bowel, this will give a positive or negative diagnosis of the disease.

More awareness of the disease is occuring now then 10 years ago, at most supermarkets, generally in the health food aisle, there is about 1/4 of an aisle dedicated to gluten free foods. There are also a number of restaurants which show a greater understanding of the disease and identify their gf products with the gf symbol. I have to advise that it is essential to check to ingredients, even if it says it is gf, ask if the stock or sauce is gf. If in doubt, opt for a different meal (its not worth the horrible side effects, and the damage to the small bowel).

Please forward this blog post to your friends, the more people who read about this disease, may just reduce the number of undigangosed people. This might just be the prompting someone needs to go to the doctor to get tested.

I would like to acknowledge that there is gluten intolerance, where people have an allergy to gluten, they often experience the same symptoms as a coeliac. However no damage is occuring to the small bowel and they can tolerate a small amout of gluten. Once again don't just assume you have one of these problems, please go to your doctor and get reffered to the appropriate specialist.

Many people are choosing to remove gluten from their diet. Unless you are a coeliac or have a gluten intolerance, you should not remove gluten at all. There are many great health benefits in wheat, barley, rye and oats. People often complain about eating too much bread, you can reduce your bread intake, or replace sandwiches with rice crackers or salads, but don't ever remove gluten totally from your diet.

I would like to mention and thank the Coeliac Organisation of Australia for a vast majority of this information http://www.coeliac.org.au/coeliac-disease/index.html. An excellent website for any queries you have and you can also join the organisation, you need a form completed by your gp and you are provided with a variety of information, there is a cost involved for membership.

In August the Gluten Free Expo Sydney is on on Friday the 24th and Saturday 25th August 2012. I went for the first time last year and was amazed! There were so many exibits selling a variety of gf products. People came armed with massive bags, coolers, eskys etc. They stocked up on the products that were available. They were also experts talking about the disease, to give you a break from all the exhibits. This is a fantastic expo that I encourage everyone to go to. Here is the website to get further information http://www.glutenfreeexpo.com.au/.

I will be re posting some of my gluten free recipes this week and providing you with more information about this disease. Please remember to forward on to as many people as possible, hopefully someone will go to their doctor after reading this blog.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me on mmoagflife@gmail.com or chat to me on Twitter @MMOAGFL or Facebook under the page Mishaps and Mayhem of A Gluten Free Lie.

Diet as a coeliac

Today I start a diet, my first proper diet in 30 years! I'm reducing the meds which have caused weight gain and I want to be as healthy as possible! It's a high protein diet something that will make me eat more than I have done before! It's a six week diet regime, so I finished my last night of freedom with a massive bowl of ice cream, filed with crushed nuts and caramel topping. It almost made me feel sick! But I had to get that last bit of freedom in. I'm sure that after this 6 weeks is over, I won't be craving ice cream as much, but then again my sweet tooth is pretty promiment.

This new diet calls at times for lean cuisines, filled with gluten, here's my challenge. What to do?? I'm going to make healthy lunches based on what the packages call for. So instead of instant frozen dinners, I will be making an alternative healthy dish. It got me thinking, how to you do a diet like Lite and Easy for example when you are a coeliac? Have you been on one of the big diets and have they or have they not catered to your gluten free needs?

Thankfully with this diet, the only things I have to alter is the frozen meals which I have no problem making my own. Morning and afternoon snacks in the first week call for eating 4-5 pieces of ham or turkey and a piece of low fat cheese, much more than I would usually have, I looked through the pages of the book and in a few weeks I'll be eating gf rice porridge, smoothie, bacon and eggs! I think I will expolode!

I will keep you updated on my diet, I ate today rice porridge for breakfast with a cup of tea, morning tea was, a tin of tuna on 2 rice cakes (my normal lunch), lunch was meant to be the lean cuisine or my alternative but I wasn't feeling that well so I ate the cold meat I was meant to eat for breakfast, 4-5 pieces of turkery, 1 piece of low fat Jalsberg cheese (there was meant to be avacado but it was over-ripe, I will now have 5 pieces of ham and 1 piece of Jalsberg Cheese and Chicken and vegetables for dinner with an apple for a snack.

Have you ever been on medication that has made you put on weight? I can fit into the majority of clothes but have gone up several bras sizes and my curves are bigger. I actually had a doctor for the first time in my life tell me I was overweight. The 15 year old in me, wanted to purge the iced chocolate I had eaten prior, but the 30 year old in me kicked in and I told him I don't think someone who fits into size 10 clothing is overweight (this was the first time he had met me!) He recalled his statement. But young women reading this, don't take to heart the silly things some doctors say. I remember a 20 year old friend who's doctor mentioned her size 10 frame was overweight, she dove straight back into an extreme eating disorder, being more a size 6-8! Doctor's need to think about their words and the affect they have on women. Even after the visit, I could here thoses words, your overweight, replaying in my head.

So ladies or gents, how have your managed a commercial diet being a coeliac? and have you have a doctor tell you you need to loose weight when they are very wrong? Have you been on a medication that a side affect makes you put on weight? I'd love to hear your stories.

My health and lack of posts

I just wanted to write you a short post explaining my absence. As a side affect from my accident I get migraines. Over the past 5 days, I've had a migraine every day, which leaves me bedridden until the afternoon! Then last night and today I had crippling neck spasms leaving me crying n screaming in pain and my tolerance is pretty high!

So basically it's only in the evening I feel half decent, but not really well enough to write a big post or cook anything!

So this week I'm going to post on twitter and if my health prevails I'll put the best of posts on Facebook. My mum has also made me delicious carrot muffins, with no icing they are very healthy. When I feel up to it I will post her recipe up.

Thankyou for your patience and following me here on twitter or Facebook! Please urge any young p plate drivers to slow down, I wouldn't want anyone else to go through what I've been through!

I love when I get a new follower on Twitter @MMOAGFL or on my blog or Facebook! Also your comments keep me going, make me proud of what I'm doing. Also If you want to email me my email is mmoagflife@gmail.com