National Celiac Awareness Month Puts a Focus on the Family

May is National Celiac Awareness Month; at SensitiviTees we are particularly aware of this specially designated month that promotes awareness of and information about celiac disease because our son has it. At first this diagnosis turned our household upside down but it answered so many questions and mysteries about his digestive problems and concomitant health issues. Once we understood what foods to avoid, which precautions to take, and the intricacies of maintaining a strictly gluten-free diet, we all settled in to our new normal. And our son feels so much better!

What’s more, his condition and diagnosis—and subsequent changes in our diets and our lifestyle—were the inspiration for SensitiviTees. Our gluten-free purple people eater was one of our first designs as a result.

This year the theme is “Fuel the Family,” with a focus on family testing and education. The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness  (NFCA) has great materials and information for people with celiac disease and their families. For example, you can download the organization’s first-ever toolkit and get information about the value of family testing. Celiac disease is genetic so it’s important if you or a family member has celiac, to encourage all first- and second-degree relatives to be tested for it.

Living with celiac is not impossible but it certainly has its challenges. However, we found over the past couple of years that there are many other families just like us, who lived through the concern about a loved one’s health before diagnosis and are now figuring out how to live happily and healthily in a gluten-filled world. We have also discovered a wonderful community of families and individuals who are sharing their experiences, insights, and delicious gluten-free recipes for anyone with celiac disease or non-celiac gluten insensitivity.

The website, www.celiaccentral.org, has lots of valuable resources and helpful information about celiac disease, how to talk to family members about it, how to discuss testing, and much more. You can also read stories from gluten-free bloggers who are featured on the website, check out the gluten-free product of the day, and share gluten-free tips. There is also a kids’ page with games and information just for children, and a section where youngsters can share their personal stories and create their own community.

We recommend you check out the NFCA’s website often, as new products are always coming to market, and new information is always becoming available. And we recommend that if you or someone in your immediate family has celiac disease, that you be tested for it so you can maintain your optimal health.

You can purchase any of our designs (above) by logging on to our website: www.SensitiviTees.com

Dealing with Seasonal Allergies

10 simple steps for enjoying the 
great outdoors during allergy season

Wheezing, sneezing, coughing, blowing—it’s allergy season again! The biggest culprits are all types of pollen: weed pollens (especially ragweed), grass pollens (watch out for Johnson, Timothy, blue, orchard, Bermuda, and sweet vernal grasses), and tree pollens (hardwood deciduous trees such as birch, elm, oak, ash, alder, maple, and hazel can be rough on allergy sufferers).

So what’s a person to do when dealing with allergies but wanting to spend time outdoors this spring?

There’s no need to lock yourself in the house and avoid the great outdoors—everyone needs the sunshine and exercise. You can still get outside and have fun with a few precautions.

1--Avoid being outdoors in the early morning if you can (5:00 to 10:00 a.m.). Peak pollen production generally occurs at that time so outside activities are better for you later in the day.

2--Try wearing a painter’s mask if you are doing gardening or other outside work to provide you with a protective screen against airborne allergens.

3--When you come back inside, take a quick shower and change your clothes to remove pollens that may have settled on your hair or clothing outdoors.

4--Speaking of pollen clinging to fiber, avoid hanging your laundry outside during pollen season.

5--Recirculate your air supply in the car and in your home—set the car’s air conditioner to “recirculate” and at home, keep your windows closed and use the air conditioning (make sure to change your filters or clean them often).

6--Try planting trees on your property that won’t aggravate your allergies (see list of offenders above). Good choices are dogwood, fir, crepe myrtle, catalpa, or redwoods.

7--Keep your grass short.

8--Be attuned to your particular allergen’s schedule so you can be prepared. You can check your local allergy calendar by entering your zip code here -http://www.claritin.com/allergy-forecast/index.aspx.

9--The weather forecast affects local pollen levels. Pollen counts are usually highest on warm, breezy mornings and are low on cool, rainy days.

10--Watch the local weather forecast for pollen counts. If you have severe allergies, it’s best to avoid a lot of outdoor activity and exertion on high-pollen days.

On high-pollen days, it’s best to avoid strenuous exercise outside. That’s because the harder you exercise, the faster you breathe; this means you inhale more irritants and allergens. Choose something less stressful such as yoga or stretching exercises, even a slow walk.

Specialty T-Shirts with Sensitive messages; Gluten-Free, Wheat-Free, Dairy-Free, Peanut-Free, etc...

With SensitiviTees™ you can make sure that other people are sensitive to your child’s needs—with a little bit of lighthearted fun mixed in! 

SensitiviTees™ is a unique line of clothing for babies, toddlers, children, and adults that convey something special about the wearer that can be very helpful for others to know about. 

Through whimsical artwork and colorful “be sensitive” messages, the SensitiviTees™ apparel line broadcasts your message and helps others be more understanding about potentially sensitive situations—from food allergies to new adoptions to breast cancer awareness. 

A look at our website, www.SensitiviTees.com, will show you why SensitiviTees™ 
is “the sharing caring clothing company.”

SensitiviTees™ grew out of our experiences dealing with our son’s food allergies, and our concerns about how to deal with this issue as he entered school; we were very nervous about a teacher or teacher’s aide not remembering about our son’s allergies since even our own family members forget! We understand from our own first-hand experience how hard it can be sometimes for parents to get the word out about a particular issue and hope that everyone around your children understands as well. 


As moms who care deeply about helping other people become more sensitive to our son’s allergies, we wanted to do everything possible to help him. Out of this concern came our solution and in July 2010, the SensitiviTees™ line of graphic apparel was born.

After developing our line of allergy-related sensitivity messages, we soon realized that the "be sensitive" message was applicable to other areas of life, such as adoption and same-sex parenting, so we added those designs to our SensitiviTees™ brand. In 2012 we added gluten-free to our line. Feel free to contact us at sensitivitees@gmail.com with your suggestion for other messages for our graphic shirts, dresses, and infant clothing and accessories.

You can purchase any of our designs (above) by logging on to our website: www.SensitiviTees.com 

Dairy Free Recipe Contest (deadline: Friday, May 17, 2013)

Dairy Free Recipe Contest brought to you by: Alisa Fleming, the founder of GoDairyFree.org.

The So Delicious® Dairy Free Recipe Contest

How to Enter:

1--Create a vegan recipe using one or more So Delicious® Dairy Free products.

2--Take a picture that showcases your creation.

3--To officially enter:

3a--For Bloggers:

Post the recipe and photo in a new post on your blog, announcing it as a So Delicious recipe contest entry and linking to their contest page.

Email them at sdrecipecontest@godairyfree.org with the post link and with your Pinterest account name. You will then be invited to pin your entries to the Official So Delicious Recipe Contest Board on Pinterest.

3b--For Non-Bloggers:

Email your recipe and photo to sdrecipecontest@godairyfree.org. We will post qualified recipes to www.GoDairyFree.org. We will then pin your entries to the Official So Delicious Recipe Contest Board on Pinterest. (anyone can follow it!)

4--The winner will be chosen via Pinterest “voting”. The recipe with the most “likes” will be selected as the Grand Prize Winner!

5--One runner-up will be selected via Pinterest “voting”, one will be chosen by Go Dairy Free and one by the So Delicious team, so it is anyone’s game!

The Grand Prize:

$500 to spend at Williams-Sonoma

Good in stores or online for shipment throughout the U.S. and Canada!

10 So Delicious® Dairy Free VIP Product Coupons

From ice cream to yogurt, enjoy ten of your favorites for free!

A Print Copy of SO Delightful!

Enjoy the new full color cookbook filled with So Delicious recipes!

Runner-Up Prizes:

Three Runner-ups will receive 5 So Delicious VIP Product Coupons and a Print Copy of SO Delightful!

Contest Rules and Unruliness:

Yes! You can enter more than one recipe. Up to five recipes are permitted per person.

Yes! You can enter a previously created recipe. For bloggers, simply create a new post adding the prior recipe and photo, and following the entry process above.

The recipe must contain at least one So Delicious® Dairy Free product.

The recipe must be vegan, though you don’t need to be vegan yourself to enter! It must be dairy-free, but we also request that it is free of any animal products, including meat, honey, and eggs.

The recipe must be your own. So Delicious® Dairy Free and Go Dairy Free/Fleming Marrs Inc. hold no liability for any submitted recipes that are plagiarized. Entrants are representing the recipes and photos as their own work, and will be liable if at any time, this is found to be false. So keep it honest people!

By entering this dairy-free recipe contest, you are giving rights to So Delicious® Dairy Free and Go Dairy Free/Fleming Marrs Inc. to republish your recipe and photo online.

All winning recipes will be featured.

All entrants must be residents of the U.S. or Canada.

All entries must be received for pinning no later than Friday, May 17, 2013. The voting will remain open through Thursday May 23, and the winners will be announced on Friday May 24, 2013, just in time for a deliciously dairy-free holiday weekend!

Seasonal Holiday Message for Everyone...

How To Make Gluten Free Lemon Cross Drop Biscuits for Easter

A Lemon Cross Drop is a dropped biscuit with lemon pudding on top. You will need a pastry bag with a tip so you can draw a cross on each biscuit with the lemon pudding.

Substitutions: Use your favorite sugar free sweetener in place of the 'white sugar' according to the conversion on the substitute.

Serves: 12

Prep Time: 15

Total Time: 35

  

Ingredients

Bisquick Pancake and Baking Mix Gluten-Free

2-1/2 cups

3/4 cup butter or margarine

2 teaspoons white sugar

1 cup water

1 egg

prepared instant lemon pudding

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Prepare the lemon pudding according to the package directions (instant is fine). Let set (at least 30 minutes) in the refrigerator.
Have the pastry bag and tip handy for after the biscuits cool.

While the pudding is chilling....
Preheat over to 425 degrees F (219 degrees C).
Cut the butter and baking mix until crumbly.
Beat the egg and sugar together until smooth (with a whisk).
Add egg mixture, water, and crumbs together and stir until well mixed

Drop onto lightly greased cookie sheet (about one tablespoon each biscuit).

Bake in preheated over until golden on edges (about 8-12 minutes).

Remove from the over and cool on rack.

While biscuits are slightly warm....
Using the pastry bag and tips, draw a cross on each biscuit with the lemon pudding.
Dust lightly with powdered sugar

Serve warm
OR
Refrigerate and serve chilled

Refrigerate all left overs

Copyright © 2013, Squidoo, LLC and respective copyright owners

Image Credit: Daniel St.Pierre / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Gluten-Free and Kosher for Passover (Pesach)!

Readying a Gluten-Free Passover

Courtesy of CARLO WOLFF--CJN Staff Reporter  http://www.ClevelandJewishNews.com

Chandra Morgan-Henley is going to her mother’s for Seder. Mom will make Morgan-Henley Gluten-Free Matzah balls. “She’s wonderful,” said Morgan-Henley. “She’s the only mother I’ve got.”

So accommodating, too: Mom is broadening her culinary perspective – as well she should, given that her daughter is not only celiac, she’s in the celiac food business.

Part of what makes mom wonderful is that a few years ago, she began to “dip her toe into cooking gluten-free for me,” said Morgan-Henley, who runs Gluten Free Catering, a gluten-free baking company, out of her home in Cleveland near the border of Lakewood, OH.

Morgan-Henley bakes pastries and bread for people like her who cannot eat anything with wheat, barley or rye. Oats, too, are forbidden unless they’re certified Gluten-Free.

Morgan-Henley swore off grains altogether in 2006 after she wound up requiring transfusions of iron, she said. She was already “mostly wheat-free, but that kicked me all the way to gluten-free.

“I started baking because I got tired of feeing deprived, and I started baking for other people because they were tasting stuff I was baking and going, ‘Oh, my G-d, this is wonderful,’” Morgan-Henley said. Over the past several years, she said, there has been “a boom” in the availability of Gluten-Free foods; before, “a lot of the products were pretty awful. There are probably 15 or 20 times as many products available now as there were six, seven years ago.”

That may be because there are many more people who need such products than was assumed even 20 years ago.

According to Cindy Koller Kass, a Solon woman with high praise for Morgan-Henley’s baking, celiac, technically known as celiac sprue, affects approximately one in 100 people. If a celiac ingests a forbidden grain, the villi, projections from the intestines that absorb nutrients, flop, so the nutrients never make it into the person’s system.

“Depending on where in the intestine the villi flatten out, you may have iron deficiency anemia, you may develop osteoporosis; everybody’s different. If you’re female, you might have miscarriages as a result of not absorbing nutrients. Because it affects everybody differently, it’s hard to diagnose if you’re not looking for it,” said Koller Kass, who discovered she was celiac about 20 years ago.

Koller Kass is president of the Greater Cleveland CeliacAssociation, the local chapter of the Celiac Sprue Association of the United States.

There are 50 to 75 active members in the support group, which meets monthly. The chapter has a mailing list of 500 names.

Koller Kass discovered her condition when her mother was about to enter a hospital for gall bladder surgery and coincidentally, Koller Kass wasn’t feeling well herself. Her mother suggested Koller Kass see the mother’s doctor, who diagnosed her as celiac. At the time, the disease was so rare the doctor ordered another round of tests.

When the diagnosis was affirmed, her mother’s doctor warned her that a Gluten-Free diet was “very difficult to follow”; meanwhile, Koller Kass’ brother, who is also a doctor, told her to adopt it immediately. At the time, she said, a Gluten-Free diet was a challenge; no products were so labeled.

“I figured I would go out to dinner one last time because I didn’t think I could go out to a restaurant ever again because there’s flour in everything,” said Koller Kass, who attends Park Synagogue. “My favorite food was Eggplant Parmigianino; I thought I would miss that the most. So I went to an Italian restaurant, and as it turns out, they did not bread their eggplant.”

After that meal, she fasted for Yom Kippur, and then began the gluten-free diet. “Psychologically, I cleansed my body for Yom Kippur and started the diet the next day.”

As for Passover (Pesach), Koller Kass said “a Gluten-Free diet is a Passover diet all year long, minus the Matzah.

“Matzah is the biggest barrier to truly observing Passover,” she added. “For many years I had to make Hillel sandwich with just the bitter herbs and charoses, but recently Yehuda came out with a Gluten-Free Matzah-style cracker, which is actually very good. It looks like regular Matzah, but because it does not have any wheat in it, it is not technically Matzah; but it is Gluten-Free and kosher for Passover.”

Here is Morgan-Henley’s Passover “Matzah” recipe:

You will need about four eggs and about a half-cup of vegetable oil; a pinch of onion powder; salt and pepper to taste, and enough dried potato flakes to make it thick.

Beat the eggs and the oil together until they emulsify, then sprinkle in some potato flakes and seasonings. Keep stirring with the fork and sprinkling in the potato flakes until there’s enough to form little balls.

Let it rest for five to 10 minutes, stir with the fork again; you can do it with bare hands if you want to wash your hands with Dawn detergent afterwards.

Then form it into balls the size of walnuts, drop it into boiling water, boil for 18 minutes with the lid on, and there you have it.

Morgan-Henley has used three kinds of gluten-free Matzah, all available at Unger’s on South Taylor Road in Cleveland Heights, OH.

The first is Shmurah Matzah, made from certified Gluten-Free oats, but expensive; the next is Yehuda Matzo squares, made mainly from tapioca starch; the last is Manischewitz, new to Unger’s this year; she wasn’t sure how the Manischewitz would work – it’s “sturdier” than the Yehuda, she said – but she will be back for more.

This year, she’ll bring her mother something new: gluten-free cake meal. “They make the Matzah and then they grind it up to be made it into a cake. I bought a package for my mother so she can make her sponge cake Gluten-Free.

“When I bake, you can’t tell it’s Gluten-Free unless you see me eating it,” Morgan-Henley said, laughing.