Ah it’s April, finally a new month where I can highlight little tidbits of information about celiac disease and people who live the gluten-free lifestyle.
Research: A better gluten-free bread?
ScienceDaily reported on a new study from the Journal of Food Science. Researchers looked at the best ingredients to help make a gluten-free French bread actually have the look and feel of regular French bread.
It reported guar gum helped add the color characteristics similar to French Bread. And buckwheat flour improved the quality, making the texture softer and more similar to regular French bread. The buckwheat flour also added dietary fiber. “Buckwheat flour in the actual base of ingredients was found to have interesting improving effects on the quality attributes of the bread, ” lead researcher Marie de Lamballerie told ScienceDaily. Now researchers are having consumers provide feedback on this gluten-free French bread.
Gluten-free cheesecake
There’s a relatively new gluten-free cheesecake available to order online. Mitchell’s Cheesecakes are made-to-order in Stillwater, Minnesota.
The one celiacs want to look for is the “Nutty Professor”. It has a walnut-based crust. If you’re not quite ready to commit to an entire cake, you can also try it out by the slice: at the Linden Hills Co-op in Minneapolis and The Bikery, Lowell Inn, Shane’s on Main, and Luna Rossa Trattoria and Wine Bar — all in Stillwater. You may want to call ahead to make sure these locations have the gluten-free versions.
Two new restaurants with gluten-free menus
Axel's Bonfire has a gluten-free menu
So I was cruising around on the Gluten-Free Registry site and I couldn’t believe all of the new places that suddenly had gluten-free menus. One was Axel’s Bonfire, which has several restaurants in the Twin Cities. It now has a gluten-free menu with salads, steaks, chicken and fajitas — with soft corn tortillas.
Olive Garden just published a gluten-free menu
The other restaurant is Olive Garden. I wouldn’t dare have gone there before a gluten-free menu. But now they have one — which mostly is chicken and steak — no pasta.
I would like to think that along with both of these gluten-free menus comes cross-contamination training. I haven’t tried either of these restaurants with their gluten-free options just yet, but maybe we will soon.
Going gluten-free — a guide to the celiac lifestyle
I’m teaching a class on April 21st at the Linden Hills Co-op on the basics of starting out gluten-free. As many of us know, the lifestyle and diet change can really be a shock to the system. This class is a crash-course — from diagnosis to action! I hope you’ll check it out.
New gluten-free blogger just getting started
Let’s welcome glutenfreemixes to the club of gluten-free or celiac-related bloggers. Blogger Laurel explains who this blog is for, “it is for kids and teens to participate in, communicate their joys and frustrations together.” Let’s give her a little time and check back often!
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