Doing a Gluten-Free Trial as a Family

This is not an April Fools' Joke...

After lots of thought, research, discussion and prayer, our family has decided to try a Gluten-Free trial in our home.  It's been quite the journey, full of lots of revelations, indecision and tons of reading.  

We did not embark on this journey because Gluten-Free is all the rage.  Quite the contrary.  This is not an experiment based on reading any one book, listening to a celebrity gush about Gluten-Free or because we just casually decided to do it.

But regardless we're...

Going Gluten-Free as a Family.

For 8 Weeks.

No Gluten.  Period.

In other words, GF.

As SPH and I made the decision, the biggest question to me was "how are we going to tell the boys?"  I mean, they love pizza, pasta, cookies, bread, cake...I could go on.

So over the last few months I've been experimenting (alert readers may have noticed!)...with GF recipes, GF take-out pizza (hello, did you know that Mama Mimi's, Domino's and Donatos all have GF pizzas?) and other ways to eliminate gluten, but maintain healthy whole grains as a part of our diet.

I've perused the GF aisle at Market District, asked for GF recommendations from my friends who have Celiac Disease, and been working on a homemade GF flour mix.

This has not been a hasty decision to try Gluten-Free.

So recently I sat the boys down and explained our reasons for going Gluten-Free and why we thought this was a good thing for our family.

I tried to talk straight about the challenges:  no school lunches, no school treats (but told them I would make some if a birthday was that week), no school snacks unless they were Gluten-Free (but promised to stock their teacher's shelves with some Gluten-Free Snacks), and remembering they will have to ask if they aren't sure if they can eat something.

Then I handed them a few things to read.  First, a brainstormed list of all of their favorite foods that are naturally Gluten-Free foods (and there are tons more!), along with a list of their favorite Gluten-Free foods at Trader Joe's (you can print your own list here).

 

Next, two cookbooks from my sweet mother.  I told R and G they could flip through the pages and pick any two recipes for this week.  We'll be trying Gluten-Free Italian Garlic Breadsticks and Gluten-Free Sugar Cookies.

At the end of the conversation R looked at me and said, "that's fine, I don't really mind not buying lunch at school" (my biggest concern) and G said, "sounds great, why don't we start today!"

Shock.  Awe.  Thanks-giving.

I am thankful they are supportive of this experiment and I hope their attitudes continue.

In the meantime, I'll be sharing what we learn as we journey down this road.

Life is sweet,
SPC