Food Bank Pioneers Gluten-free Donations

Google News ^ | December 17, 2009 | Kristen Wyatt

[Diana in Wisconsin]

LOVELAND, CO — As a mother of seven, Anne Miller already had a whopping grocery bill. When doctors recommended her teenage daughter go on a gluten-free diet, the family food bill went higher than Miller could afford.

So Miller was first in line this week when a food pantry in this northern Colorado city became the nation's first to promote gluten-free food for needy families with wheat allergies.

"Basically the whole family has to eat gluten-free now," said Miller, who walked out of the House of Neighborly Service food bank with a grocery cart full of gluten-free soups, pastas and pizza dough mix. "It becomes extremely, extremely expensive."

The food pantry, founded in 1961, opened its gluten-free food section after local activists with wheat allergies volunteered to pull it together. Activists say the food bank is the nation's first with a special program for people with celiac disease, a reaction to gluten in wheat or other grains.

Celiac sufferers say that although more gluten-free products are in grocery stores these days, they're so pricey that many with wheat allergies simply forego bread and stick to meat, fruits and vegetables.

[Joya]

Those who are GF cannot have
wheat
barley
rye

= = =
The American Dietetic Association Guidelines were written through a cooperative effort of dietitian experts in celiac disease in Canada and the United States. The following grains & starches are allowed:

* Rice
* Corn
* Soy
* Potato
* Tapioca
* Beans
* Garfava
* Sorghum
* Quinoa
* Millet
* Buckwheat
* Arrowroot
* Amaranth
* Tef
* Montina®
* Nut Flours

= = =
Let’s see, food banks usually have rice, corn, potatoes, and beans. Not as if there’s nothing there for the GF, eh?

= = =
http://www.gluten.net/diet.php

[Joya]

Recently, I ran across a site

http://www.knowthecause.com/

Doug Kaufmann, on that site, blames many ailments on fungii, including autoimmune diseases.

I am currently budgeting to get some of his books and CDs.

Happy New Year.

[RFEngineer]

“Many, *many* people in my family are being diagnosed with Celiac disease. What’s weird is that nobody can remember anyone having problems before the 1980’s. Then people in every generation of my family all started getting sick at the same time. Suddenly everybody started having problems with gluten.”

With me, I think I can trace it back to hernia surgery. There was an article in “Scientific American” a few months back that postulates what I did - that surgery-related antibiotics killed some key bacteria in my gut - the absence of which caused gluten sensitivity.

I dunno for sure, all I do know is that picky or not, I can’t eat gluten anymore. It’s not that hard to live with as more and more products are available. I do miss Guinness, though.

[discostu]

Well there really isn’t much point in giving people food that will make them sick. If somebody walked up to the food bank that was lactose intolerant you’d figure they’d take the cheese out of what they gave them right? Same thing, different ailment.

[discostu]

I’ve known a lot of people with food allergies. Usually it’s lactose intolerance, some folks it’s more of a rash, I’ve got one friend whose mouth skin will slough off if he eats tomatoes. The last one was responsible for me discovering calzones. I’ve learned I actually have a lot of food allergies, but they just give me gas, the people around me suffer but I’m OK.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

(’You’ in the following diatribe is NOT directed at anyone in particular; it is the collective, ‘you.’)

That’s not my point. People know what they can and cannot eat. The point is that we CATER to the INDIGENT instead of getting these generational blood suckers back into society as productive people.

I know; not easy to do when Government constantly re-distributes the wealth of those of us that work for a living...and are still just squeaking by. ;)

Do you get Rush’s little 2-3 minute top-of-the-news-hour radio clips by you? Yesterday, he was talking about all the DONATED food that is thrown away because the Nanny Staters have convinced the Food Pantry people that they CANNOT serve anything high in fat, salt or calories to hungry people.

Good Lord. This nation has gone insane!

And since I’m on a roll...when and where is the last person you saw dying of malnutrition or sickness on ANY American Street? I’ve yet to see one. Heck I’ve been all over Europe and haven’t seen dead bodies in the streets there, either. Drunks? Bums? Sure. No one dead or dying, though. Yes, I know I’ve never traveled to the poorest nations on our globe, but America sends BILLIONS of dollars to those places each and every YEAR and the money and the food and the medical supplies end up in the hands of DICTATORS; it rarely reaches the truly needy.

My tax dollars should NOT be spent on that. Neither should yours. Work locally as I do to help those TRULY in need; a family with a burned down house who has lost it all, an elderly person with no family and a lonely life, etc. If each person stepped up to the plate in this country, we’d all take good care of one another...and our assets wouldn’t be going to those who scam the system everywhere along the line, not to mention CATERING to this PC foolishness.

*Steps Off Soapbox* :)

[discostu]

House of Neighborly Services is a charity, not the government, and they work locally to help the truly needy.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

That’s fine. I give through my churhc, too.

You’re still missing my point. On purpose, I suspect. ;)

[discostu]

I’m not sure what you’re point is. You start off complaining about a food bank making gluten free boxes, then you go on a rant about government which has nothing to do with this article. Yes government wealth redistribution is bad, fine topic for another article. This article is about a private charity responding to food allergies that are real in a perfectly logical way.

[Jessica2677]

It’s the genetically altered foods. Our grandparents and out parents didn’t grow up with all these foods that have been genetically altered for mass production. There’s another article on wheat gluten that explains how the wheat of today and wheat of our grandparents differs all you have to do is search FR for gluten and it will come up. It’s a very good article and reinforced to me why I am now 3weeks gluten free and feeling so much better.