At the recent gluten free expo I attended in Sydney, I had the pleasure of sampling some lovely, convenient, gluten, Kosher and preservative free food.
Prior to the Expo I had arranged with the lovely people from Tasty Bite to do a bit of an exchange, they would put some of my lovely blog cards at they stand and in turn for the favour I would write a blog post about their product, a bit of old fashioned trading!
Tasty Bite stand was the first exhibit we saw when we walked in, I went straight up, chatted to the lovely ladies and tried some of their wonderful meals on some small pieces of pappadums (yes we coeliacs can eat pappadums!!, rather exciting)! Both my mum and I really enjoyed the food that we did try, it is an Indian based cuisine, so perhaps not entirely appropriate for children, if they aren't used to Indian food with a bit of spice!
To be totally honest, prior to the expo I really didn't know what products Tasty Bites provided! As soon as I saw the exhibit I realised that I had walked past their products (they are generally in the Asian/Indian section of Australian supermarkets), each time I went to the supermarket. Not knowing what they were, I hadn't tried them.
I decided after the expo that I couldn't write a post that gave a correct view of the product from the small samples, so I brought some boxes myself. Twice I have tried the Tasty Bite product, the Bombay Potatoes and the Jaipur Vegetables, both times I have served them with rice and pappamdums. These delicious dishes only take 90 seconds to cook in the microwave, you can also cook on the stove top, but I choose the easier option, both nights that I ate these meals, was easy dinner night, my husband had his own individual frozen lasagna, and I had my delicious meals.
One of the most convenient things about these products is they are not stored in the fridge, you simply store them in the cupboard and with a shelf life of 18 months, it is well worth having a couple in your cupboard for those nights where no one can be bothered doing too much cooking!
I only recently discovered that Tasty Bite have a fantastic website which I will provide you with the link to, you can buy their products online, there is also a variety of other things including recipes a blog, testimonials etc. The link that I have provided is a direct link to the gluten free food that they have It's best to check out the website http://www.tastybite.com.au/ or at the least when you are shopping and before you place one of the delicious Tasty Bite boxes in your trolley, make sure that you are selecting one of their gluten free dishes, as they have a variety of dishes available. But we coeliacs or gluten intolerant people are very used to reading labels of products before eating them! But the best think about this product, is there is table on the back which lists a possible 8 ingredients and things you have to do to store etc, and all you have to look for is to make sure the no gluten box is ticked (much easier then reading the generally long list of ingredients in some products!)
Make sure next shopping trip, or online order, try one of these dishes and if you like Indian food you will be pleasantly surprised, and at a little under $4.00 a box (at one of the leading supermarkets), its a very cheap dinner! Its also something that if your the outdoor type and like a bit of camping you could put this dish over the campfire stove and have it without rice, or if you have an additional saucepan you could also put on some rice too!
Readers please remember, everything I have written is my honest opinion, this was a trade off for the lovely people at Tasty Bite, displaying my blog cards, to hopefully get my blog out there to a wider audience and help more people with coeliac disease.
My only small downfall with this product is when heating the food in the microwave, because of the curries and spices, it will stain your dish, particularly if using plastic. I used an old plastic bowl to heat the food and covered it with cling wrap (to avoid splattering over the microwave), but as the dish is white, I have a stain on the bottom of my bowl. To me, that's ok, I will make sure that's the bowl I use whenever I eat one of the Tasty Bite meals! If you are into Tupperware and have any of the more recent red dishes range, this would be perfect to heat up the food, as you can't tell that there is a slight stain. I haven't tried heating it up in a non plastic dish, but I'm sure the stain would be much easier to remove if you used crockery and not plastic to heat it, but just be aware that a crockery or porcelain dish may be rather hot, straight out of the microwave!
So make sure you try one of these meals, very easy and to be totally honest, a whole lot nicer than I originally thought. I just checked the packet and the serving size recommends two, but I ate it to myself! (whoops what a piggy I am!). My advice if you and your partner or another person are going to try this you could share but I would use alot of rice and have a few pappadums ready, but if two of you are going to eat this meal, why not heat up two different dishes and have a little feast, a bit of this, and a bit of that, mixed with with rice and the almost compulsory pappadums!
Enjoy and let me know what you think of these very convenient easy meals!
xxxxxx
p.s I have just changed the website, I had the American website up before, this is the Australian website, my fault, sorry if anyone was confused.
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Be brave, try the gluten and casein free diet on your child for behavior!
Firstly I would like to apologise to my readers to my lack of posts this week, my health (read accident post if you want more info), this week hasn't been the best and life has been hectic. I will do my best to ensure that post are put up more frequently!
As promised this isn't a review as I will alternate between review and the standard post, but I do want to say to the lovely new friends I met at the expo, fingers crossed I'll be able to get more blogging, and more reviewing quicker than I have been!
I have been doing research both the traditional and face to face with people who work with children, one a experienced psychologist and the other a child care worker and obviously as a teacher I have an educated and experienced opinion about the benefits of a gluten and casein free diet on behavior. Most people focus on this diet as for the autism spectrum alone, but it has a profound positive impact on children with various behavior issues!
What amazes me is this research and success has been around for many years! I have a good friend with a 19 year old son who suffers from, ADD and dyslexia, he doesn't suffer the hyperactivity and it was more a challenge concentrating on one thing at a time, his behavior is excellent (though when he was younger it was a little challenging), his other skills are excellent and he is extremely intelligent. I am qualified to make that claim as I have not only known him for several years but used to tutor him, in English, his knowledge of Mathematics is light years ahead of me! Despite how he is now, as a 3 year old his health and behaviour and development was causing some concern, thus his mother was recommended to remove a large number of things from his diet, gluten and casein was one of the main things! Unfortunately 16 years ago the access to gf products was nothing like it is today, leaving my friend no option but to travel great lengths into small health food stores into the city, over an hours drive, to get some gf pricey things. She's also of
Russian and polish background and her dear mother who was still with us then, baked potato
bread, from only a list of ingredients her grandson could eat and she created a lovely bread! I think it is important to acknowledge this amazing women was very versatile, probably from
surviving a pow camp in WW2! (To create a bread from scratch with limited ingredients and the fundamental ones of making bread removed, clearly demonstrates someone who know what to do to survive, to work with whatever you are give). Thus, he was on this diet for many years and whenever he altered the diet by eating gluten, there were noticeable changes to his behaviour and other aspects of himself. So being the wonderful mother she is, she kept her son on the diet for several years, despite the difficulties to provide food for him. She is also an avid and fantastic cook (the one who made me the schnitzels), so that made comparably easier, than for someone who didn't cook. But still the point is, she saw improvements in her son and she did whatever she could to keep him on that diet, for as long as recommended!
Now thankfully we live in a world or country at least that provides an increasing amount of gf food, most of which is readily available at a majority of supermarkets, no trekking across towns and cities anymore (in most cases), just buy the goods in your local shopping! Cook or no cook, you can very easily put your child on the gluten and casein free diet relatively stress free and if you are prepared to cook a bit, either from the large variety of packaged food, or you do the cooking for yourself, you will see the massive benefits in your child in the long run.
My strong advice to you us if you have a child who us on the autism spectrum or has some behaviour problems, try this diet, even for a month and see the difference.
Trial this, diet and observe your child, if in a month or 6 weeks you cant notice any positive behavior and interaction and engagement changes, go back to their normal diet, ultimately you have lost nothing and potentially gained alot! I have prepared tables that are basically a tick a box, which focuses on some individual areas of concern with your child and you give a rating out of 10 based on their daily progress. As it is difficulty to put tables up on the blog, please email me and I will send you the word file. This table is important, as changes generally happen gradually and everyone soon adapts to their child, forgetting how they were one or two weeks prior!
If you are trialling this diet, please remember that although sugar and caffeine filled drinks like coke a cola, all soft drinks and sports/energy drinks will impact your child's behavior even though they may be gluten free! As will lollies,anything filled with copious amounts of sugar and preservatives is guaranteed to impact your child's behavior. For example; you can't claim the diet is not working if your child has drank a massive amount of sugar filled drinks and eaten lollies! I understand there are times like birthday parties where avoiding gluten and casein is almost impossible, perhaps let them try some food and watch their behavior, is it different? I will write a post later as to how to cater for a child's birthday party totally gluten and casein free!
One last point if you do start your child on this diet, tell their teacher or day care teacher. I have, and most teachers will be willing to do a communication book with you, letting you know how your child's behavior is going on a daily basis, also teachers are the best source to find out if your child is eating gluten filled food from the canteen, or other children! If your school canteen doesn't sell gf food ie; pop corn, a variety of Mammee snacks,gf bread, salads etc, I would strongly recommend talking to the canteen manager, or school principal if you get no progress with the canteen supervisor, about providing some healthy gf options at the canteen!
Please don't hesitate to contact me via comments or email if you have any questions, but take that chance and give it a go, you have nothing too lose and a huge amount to gain. Don't forget to email me if you are trying this diet to get the table, it will help!
Good luck and please let me know how it goes for you.
xxxx
Don't forget in the next few weeks keep watching the recipe page, I will put up quick snd easy recipes the entire family can enjoy fuss free and time efficient!
As promised this isn't a review as I will alternate between review and the standard post, but I do want to say to the lovely new friends I met at the expo, fingers crossed I'll be able to get more blogging, and more reviewing quicker than I have been!
I have been doing research both the traditional and face to face with people who work with children, one a experienced psychologist and the other a child care worker and obviously as a teacher I have an educated and experienced opinion about the benefits of a gluten and casein free diet on behavior. Most people focus on this diet as for the autism spectrum alone, but it has a profound positive impact on children with various behavior issues!
What amazes me is this research and success has been around for many years! I have a good friend with a 19 year old son who suffers from, ADD and dyslexia, he doesn't suffer the hyperactivity and it was more a challenge concentrating on one thing at a time, his behavior is excellent (though when he was younger it was a little challenging), his other skills are excellent and he is extremely intelligent. I am qualified to make that claim as I have not only known him for several years but used to tutor him, in English, his knowledge of Mathematics is light years ahead of me! Despite how he is now, as a 3 year old his health and behaviour and development was causing some concern, thus his mother was recommended to remove a large number of things from his diet, gluten and casein was one of the main things! Unfortunately 16 years ago the access to gf products was nothing like it is today, leaving my friend no option but to travel great lengths into small health food stores into the city, over an hours drive, to get some gf pricey things. She's also of
Russian and polish background and her dear mother who was still with us then, baked potato
bread, from only a list of ingredients her grandson could eat and she created a lovely bread! I think it is important to acknowledge this amazing women was very versatile, probably from
surviving a pow camp in WW2! (To create a bread from scratch with limited ingredients and the fundamental ones of making bread removed, clearly demonstrates someone who know what to do to survive, to work with whatever you are give). Thus, he was on this diet for many years and whenever he altered the diet by eating gluten, there were noticeable changes to his behaviour and other aspects of himself. So being the wonderful mother she is, she kept her son on the diet for several years, despite the difficulties to provide food for him. She is also an avid and fantastic cook (the one who made me the schnitzels), so that made comparably easier, than for someone who didn't cook. But still the point is, she saw improvements in her son and she did whatever she could to keep him on that diet, for as long as recommended!
Now thankfully we live in a world or country at least that provides an increasing amount of gf food, most of which is readily available at a majority of supermarkets, no trekking across towns and cities anymore (in most cases), just buy the goods in your local shopping! Cook or no cook, you can very easily put your child on the gluten and casein free diet relatively stress free and if you are prepared to cook a bit, either from the large variety of packaged food, or you do the cooking for yourself, you will see the massive benefits in your child in the long run.
My strong advice to you us if you have a child who us on the autism spectrum or has some behaviour problems, try this diet, even for a month and see the difference.
Trial this, diet and observe your child, if in a month or 6 weeks you cant notice any positive behavior and interaction and engagement changes, go back to their normal diet, ultimately you have lost nothing and potentially gained alot! I have prepared tables that are basically a tick a box, which focuses on some individual areas of concern with your child and you give a rating out of 10 based on their daily progress. As it is difficulty to put tables up on the blog, please email me and I will send you the word file. This table is important, as changes generally happen gradually and everyone soon adapts to their child, forgetting how they were one or two weeks prior!
If you are trialling this diet, please remember that although sugar and caffeine filled drinks like coke a cola, all soft drinks and sports/energy drinks will impact your child's behavior even though they may be gluten free! As will lollies,anything filled with copious amounts of sugar and preservatives is guaranteed to impact your child's behavior. For example; you can't claim the diet is not working if your child has drank a massive amount of sugar filled drinks and eaten lollies! I understand there are times like birthday parties where avoiding gluten and casein is almost impossible, perhaps let them try some food and watch their behavior, is it different? I will write a post later as to how to cater for a child's birthday party totally gluten and casein free!
One last point if you do start your child on this diet, tell their teacher or day care teacher. I have, and most teachers will be willing to do a communication book with you, letting you know how your child's behavior is going on a daily basis, also teachers are the best source to find out if your child is eating gluten filled food from the canteen, or other children! If your school canteen doesn't sell gf food ie; pop corn, a variety of Mammee snacks,gf bread, salads etc, I would strongly recommend talking to the canteen manager, or school principal if you get no progress with the canteen supervisor, about providing some healthy gf options at the canteen!
Please don't hesitate to contact me via comments or email if you have any questions, but take that chance and give it a go, you have nothing too lose and a huge amount to gain. Don't forget to email me if you are trying this diet to get the table, it will help!
Good luck and please let me know how it goes for you.
xxxx
Don't forget in the next few weeks keep watching the recipe page, I will put up quick snd easy recipes the entire family can enjoy fuss free and time efficient!
Tuesday, 30 August 2011
The Expo
I went to the GF Expo in Sydney on Saturday, WOW!! Seriously it was bigger than Ben Hur! Mum and I went armed with one green recylced bag, and me clutching my walking stick (from the accident, my hip still can't handle long periods of walking). We followed the crowd, and both looked at each other wondering why people had suitcases, in some instances, several suitcases and massive bags! We thought that there must be something else on, or they had travelled interstate for a convention...
When we walked into the Expo, we were blown away by the amount of people! The suitcase laden people, weren't travelling anywhere, nor going to a convention, they had brought such huge bags to stock up on various types of gf goodies!!!
Honestly, it was overwhelming, there were so many people, and so many exhibits that were offering samples of the various gf products they had to sell. There was so much food to sample, that we didn't even have to eat lunch, we were too full from all the samples!!
There was even gf beer that you could sample!! As we all know, beer is made from gluten containing products, making a diagnosis of coeliac hard on the beer lover, or even just someone like me who might like to have a beer every now and then. There were two different types to buy, I'll mention one now, and the other in a post dedicated just to the one beer. One of the beer's I tried was a German beer Schnitzel, and the best thing ladies, was there was one type that was blended with lemon and lime, it was sweet and refreshing not the usually bitter taste of beer. You can buy this beer at most Dan Murphy's in the international beer section and some other independent stories. Let me know what you think if you try it.
Now as I have explained before I went wearing my logo t-shirt, and armed with boxes of cards advertising my blog. I had already arranged two exhibitors to display my cards, and I would write a post about their product, sort of like a trade off.
In my case, the Expo was beyond what I hoped for, 16 different exhibitors agreed to display my cards, one was already a reader of my blog! I don't know who was more excited me or her, when we met! And I also handed my card and gave some advice to some random people who I overheard talking about problems that they were having or there friends were having starting the gluten free diet and dealing with being a coeliac.
So for the next few weeks, as promised I will be dedicating various posts, to the lovely exhibitors who took my cards and passed them around to people. I want you to know that these aren't payed advertising posts, its just returning a good deed and honestly informing my readers of all the fantastic gf food and drinks that are available out there, I had no idea there was so many! There is a market of gf and casein free kid based food products, which you can stock in the pantry for all the kids in the household, so you don't have to deal with the common problem that often emerges when one child can only eat a limited amount of food compared to their siblings, I'll feature these products shortly.
There were also guest speakers at the expo, unfortunately I only got to hear part of the talk from Dr Tye-Din. I am proud to say that I've been researching well, because there weren't many things that I heard him talk about that I wasn't aware of. He did clarify some myths associated with the disease, such as you have to come from an Irish background, which I do (now the disease has been identified, in people from a vast amount of racial backgrounds).
One of the big points that Dr Tye-Din did focus on was that it is important to not self diagnose and take yourself off gluten because as I have mentioned before, prior to having the only conclusive test, that 100% guarantees you have the disease (the endoscope) you need to eat a great amount of gluten in the lead up to the test, yes you may feel horrible, but if you take out the gluten the disease often won't show up if you have stopped completely eating gluten. He did also identify there is a genetic link to this disease, so yes there is a big chance one of your parents had the gene for coeliac, apparently you don't need to suffer but you can be a carrier of the gene, but you can pass it on. There is also a blood test that you can have, but the doctor did stress once again, the only way to correctly diagnose is an endoscope (the camera down the throat and a biopsy), even if the blood test comes back ok and there are some other symptoms you could still have coeliac disease.. One of the scary facts he did identify was that the statics at the moment in Australia is 1 in 100 suffer from coeliac disease, they believe that the stats are much higher, that there are actually a large number of undiagnosed, or incorrectly diagnosed ie; IBS, is a common diagnose given instead of coeliac. Basically if you have any suspicions that you could be a coeliac, go to your doctor and ask for a referral to see a surgeon who specialises in gastrointestinal disease, and they will conduct the appropriate test for you.
I hope I have provided you with enough information, next year if your in Australia, definitely go (it is in a number of states), its well worth it! And my readers from all over the world, I would love to know if your country has these type of expos and what is the awareness like in your country of this disease.
I will try and alternate posts of the various product reviews from the expo, with my traditional post, and I do have a few yummy recipes to put up for you all shortly.
Hope this has helped some people, and welcome to any new readers. Please comment or email me if you have any questions.
When we walked into the Expo, we were blown away by the amount of people! The suitcase laden people, weren't travelling anywhere, nor going to a convention, they had brought such huge bags to stock up on various types of gf goodies!!!
Honestly, it was overwhelming, there were so many people, and so many exhibits that were offering samples of the various gf products they had to sell. There was so much food to sample, that we didn't even have to eat lunch, we were too full from all the samples!!
There was even gf beer that you could sample!! As we all know, beer is made from gluten containing products, making a diagnosis of coeliac hard on the beer lover, or even just someone like me who might like to have a beer every now and then. There were two different types to buy, I'll mention one now, and the other in a post dedicated just to the one beer. One of the beer's I tried was a German beer Schnitzel, and the best thing ladies, was there was one type that was blended with lemon and lime, it was sweet and refreshing not the usually bitter taste of beer. You can buy this beer at most Dan Murphy's in the international beer section and some other independent stories. Let me know what you think if you try it.
Now as I have explained before I went wearing my logo t-shirt, and armed with boxes of cards advertising my blog. I had already arranged two exhibitors to display my cards, and I would write a post about their product, sort of like a trade off.
In my case, the Expo was beyond what I hoped for, 16 different exhibitors agreed to display my cards, one was already a reader of my blog! I don't know who was more excited me or her, when we met! And I also handed my card and gave some advice to some random people who I overheard talking about problems that they were having or there friends were having starting the gluten free diet and dealing with being a coeliac.
So for the next few weeks, as promised I will be dedicating various posts, to the lovely exhibitors who took my cards and passed them around to people. I want you to know that these aren't payed advertising posts, its just returning a good deed and honestly informing my readers of all the fantastic gf food and drinks that are available out there, I had no idea there was so many! There is a market of gf and casein free kid based food products, which you can stock in the pantry for all the kids in the household, so you don't have to deal with the common problem that often emerges when one child can only eat a limited amount of food compared to their siblings, I'll feature these products shortly.
There were also guest speakers at the expo, unfortunately I only got to hear part of the talk from Dr Tye-Din. I am proud to say that I've been researching well, because there weren't many things that I heard him talk about that I wasn't aware of. He did clarify some myths associated with the disease, such as you have to come from an Irish background, which I do (now the disease has been identified, in people from a vast amount of racial backgrounds).
One of the big points that Dr Tye-Din did focus on was that it is important to not self diagnose and take yourself off gluten because as I have mentioned before, prior to having the only conclusive test, that 100% guarantees you have the disease (the endoscope) you need to eat a great amount of gluten in the lead up to the test, yes you may feel horrible, but if you take out the gluten the disease often won't show up if you have stopped completely eating gluten. He did also identify there is a genetic link to this disease, so yes there is a big chance one of your parents had the gene for coeliac, apparently you don't need to suffer but you can be a carrier of the gene, but you can pass it on. There is also a blood test that you can have, but the doctor did stress once again, the only way to correctly diagnose is an endoscope (the camera down the throat and a biopsy), even if the blood test comes back ok and there are some other symptoms you could still have coeliac disease.. One of the scary facts he did identify was that the statics at the moment in Australia is 1 in 100 suffer from coeliac disease, they believe that the stats are much higher, that there are actually a large number of undiagnosed, or incorrectly diagnosed ie; IBS, is a common diagnose given instead of coeliac. Basically if you have any suspicions that you could be a coeliac, go to your doctor and ask for a referral to see a surgeon who specialises in gastrointestinal disease, and they will conduct the appropriate test for you.
I hope I have provided you with enough information, next year if your in Australia, definitely go (it is in a number of states), its well worth it! And my readers from all over the world, I would love to know if your country has these type of expos and what is the awareness like in your country of this disease.
I will try and alternate posts of the various product reviews from the expo, with my traditional post, and I do have a few yummy recipes to put up for you all shortly.
Hope this has helped some people, and welcome to any new readers. Please comment or email me if you have any questions.
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