Free baby stuff from How Does She

I have so many friends who have just had or who are expecting babies. How She Does blog has provided codes available for FREE Car Seat canopy (Click HERE), FREE Nursing Cover (Click HERE), and a FREE Baby Carrier (Click HERE). Just use code 4HOWDOESSHE  and all you will have to pay is shipping and handling, which totals out to be about $15, which I think is very reasonable for a $50 product!  Enjoy the FREEBIES!  And thanks How Does She!  Hope you don't mind me spreading the word.

Snapfish Print at Home

As much as I love Snapfish, sometimes I just can't afford to order prints or customized products.  Today, Snapfish sent me an e-mail about Free summer printables. Of course, I can't pass up free (as you can tell from my previous post), so I had to check it out.  Turns out, they have so much more than just free printables!!  They have a whole Print at Home portion of their shop. Click HERE  for FREEBIES!  Enjoy!

Free Summer Printables from Snapfish

I don't know about you, but I am ALL for free. This time, I found some free printables.  Enjoy!

Click HERE for FREE Summer Printables from Snapfish.

I LOVE Snapfish.  Keep an eye out for their Penny prints.  The deal is usually 99 prints for .99 (+ shipping, which is usually around $5-$7).  And they have plenty of room to upload your pictures, which is a good option if you don't have another way to back up your photos!

Using flour alternatives for thickening

Finding foods we can all eat without gluten is difficult. But it becomes exceedingly more difficult with all the hidden sources of gluten.  I went to make one of my sisters recipes, Rice-a-weanies, which calls for cheddar cheese soup, milk, rice, and hot dogs. Seems pretty simple right? And everybody loves it.  We’ve had it before, but not since we went gluten free.  I get all of the stuff together and then check the labels just in case... A good thing too because right at the top of the ingredient list on the cheddar cheese soup is... you guessed it!  Wheat flour!  Ugh.  So my whole dinner plan is ruined. So I google homemade cheddar cheese soup and find a good recipe at busymominthekitchen.com. Only one problem: still calls for all purpose WHEAT flour. So BACK to google.  How to use corn starch to replace flour as a thickener, which brought me to Celiacdisease.about.com.  It said to substitute ½ as much corn starch as the recipe calls for flour. So if it calls for 2 tablespoons, only use one tablespoon. Also, don’t add the cornstarch directly, dilute it with water to make a sort of slurry and then add it in. Well, now we are back in business. Too bad it’s too late for me to go back to the store today.  Curse you gluten! Get out of my food!

Gluten Free to Combat IBS

My husband has been suffering from IBS for about three years now. He's been to the doctor, to the ER, and all they ever wanted to do (besides unnecessary diagnostic tests) was throw medicine at the problem. But it never helped and he would just end up at the ER again. This last time, they took a CT, which showed nothing, and gave him double the medication and a pain medication. After talking to friends on Facebook and finding a few friends who reported the same symptoms finding relief from a gluten free diet. I did a bunch of research and found out that gluten can cause A LOT of issues that can be disguised by other diagnosis. After much resistance, I FINALLY convinced him to try it. It's been 6 weeks now since he went COMPLETELY gluten free and went from vomiting every morning, having severe intestinal issues, and not even being able to work to waking up every morning with little to no symptoms and not missing a single day of work. I say little symptoms because gluten is tricky. You never know where you are going to find it. But for the most part, his symptoms are gone. Now the fun part, finding foods that he actually likes. Small sacrifice for having my husband back. :-)

How we did it:

1. Of course, the first thing you have to do is identify all the foods that contain gluten. Food packaging is usually (though not always) pretty good about indicating possible allergens in the food. Wheat gluten is what you want to watch out for, it will be listed as Wheat on the label under the ingredients. It can be in ANYTHING, even corn meal and soy sauce can contain wheat. Read labels CAREFULLY.
2. Go gluten free. It takes about 2-4 weeks to see improvement, so don't get discouraged. Your body has to get rid of the gluten still in your body before it can start to heal. And it is very easy to contaminate yourself with gluten. All it takes it being cooked in the same pan as gluten for you to get sick. The best way is for the whole household to go gluten free together to avoid cross-contamination. (We are still working on this, finding the best kind of flour to use instead of wheat and where to find it. We live in a small town with only one grocery store and it is limited.)
3.  At this point, if you are on any medications for IBS, slowly wean yourself off of them. With any medication, stopping suddenly may cause adverse reactions, so slower is better.
4. Identify hidden sources of gluten. Possible sources of contamination could be salad dressings, soup mixes, lipstick, certain vitamins, some preservatives, medications, envelope glue, stamps, Play-Doh. There may be more, but this is all I've found so far.
5. Find ways to enjoy being gluten free. A big problem my husband has is not having very many options of things to eat. With all bread off limits, your chooses narrow greatly. Fruits and vegetables are great of course, meat and fish and other proteins are still ok. We are still experimenting with ways to make the bread items with another type of flour. I've been told that you can usually replace all-purpose flour with almond flour and it act just about the same. We've tried mixes with rice flour but I didn't really care for it. It's really sticky and harder to get cooked all the way.

Easy Immune System Health has some good information, even symptom checklist, so check them out if you have more questions. Or ask me and I'll see what I can find out for you. Going gluten free is a huge life changing journey that you don't want to go at alone. Having a good support system is very important. If your family isn't behind you 100%, it will be more difficult. Good luck!!




Sources from this post include:
www.mindbodygreen.com
www.naturalnews.com