Sure Foods Living - gluten-free and allergen-free living

I’ve hit a big milestone today! I feel mature, womanly, but not over-the-hill at all! I am truly happy and thankful for all I have on my 40th birthday and I feel a lot of love coming my way. This blog is the only diary I have, so I thought I would write down 40 things I’m grateful for (in no particular order — just the way they came out of my head). Here goes…

I am grateful for:

1. my health!
2. my beautiful daughter Maxine, who is sensitive and determined and challenges me and will be my friend for life
3. my beautiful daughter Annie, who loves to hug and makes me laugh every day and drives me crazy
4. my husband, who believes in me and supports my passion and who at age 40 himself has become an even better man (and who will think this is an embarrassingly sappy and corny post, so please don’t tell him about it!)
5. my mom, who is also my friend and teacher and motivator, and who still picks me up if I have fallen down
6. my dad, who is still my daddy and my doctor
7. my sister, who is still as accepting and easy to talk to as she ever was, and who is a mom I admire
8. being diagnosed with celiac disease before I had children
9. my grandmother who is 97 and has the most amazing memory of anyone in our family
10. my children having close relationships with all of their grandparents, and two great grandparents
11. my open and honest and loving relationship with my mother-in-law, who has made my birthday weekend possible — BIG points MIL!
12. my father-in-law, who always makes sure everyone is okay
13. varicose vein removal (haven’t done it yet)
14. sports, and that I was raised playing them
15. the fact that cell phones and little video cameras and You Tube didn’t exist when I was in high school and college
16. not getting married too young
17. never having to face a major tragedy (knock knock knock on wood)
18. this blog
19. my wonderful old friends, including one who flew from Miami to California to stand next to me at a conference all day, just so she could spend time with me on my birthday weekend
20. my “new” friends who are already feeling like old ones
21. my blogger friends, who inspire me with their knowledge about food and living healthy lives, and whom I’ve even met in real life!
22. the people who read this blog and share their stories, which keep me going
23. straightening irons, which were not available for so many years of my life that I really needed them! The hours I could have saved! We had crimping irons instead!
24. being able to afford organic, gluten-free, allergen-free food (I really feel for those who cannot — everyone should have access to healthy food)
25. good teachers
26. good doctors
27. good tv shows
28. cozy beds
29. flip-flops becoming acceptable footwear
30. learning to speak Spanish
31. a large extended family that gets together on the holidays
32. a home
33. having wild and crazy times to look back on
34. still planning on having wild and crazy times in the future, just a little less crazy and wild!
35. being raised and living in an open-minded place
36. seeing other cultures and learning to appreciate what I have
37. people who make the hard decisions
38. people who make me laugh
39. kissing my children goodnight
40. my health. again.

Thank you to everyone who has made this a special birthday for me!

Have you ever wanted to tell someone about the new product you found, the great (or not so good) restaurant experience you had, the book or cookbook you discovered, or a recipe you tried? Now you can share your opinion on anything gluten-free by joining me in a new online community called the Gluten Free Groupies!

As a member of the Gluten Free Groupies, you can write reviews, make lists of your favorite things, add a recipe, rate products and comment on other people’s reviews. It’s a fun and interactive way to give your 2 cents!

To join, go to www.lunch.com/glutenfreegroupies and click Join. Then participate as much as you would like!

Are you gluten intolerant or have you been diagnosed with Celiac Disease?  Maybe you’re wondering if gluten is involved with your children’s health?  Perhaps you’ve seen that gluten-free products are on the rise in many stores and wonder what that’s all about. Whether you know about gluten, want to know more or are simply curious…..

PLEASE JOIN US
TUESDAY, August 4, 2009.
Time and place to be determined.
(We are looking for donated space in Marin County to accommodate our growing group!)

Please email alison@surefoodsliving.com
to be put on list to receive updates regarding the meetings.

These meetings are packed with up-to-date information about the medical aspects of Celiac Disease and Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance, the latest and greatest gluten-free food finds, samples, book sales, and a chance to ask your questions and share your experiences. Don’t miss out on being part of the gluten-free community right here in Marin! Questions? Call 415-785-4980 or email alison@surefoodsliving.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meet the co-founders of the Gluten Intolerance Resource Group (GIRG) of Marin:

Alison St. Sure founder of  www.surefoodsliving.com has Celiac Disease and is a mother of 2 daughters, one with multiple food allergies. Intimately connected to gluten and other food allergies, Alison’s website and consulting services have become known as an exceptional source of information & assistance in the world of food allergies.

Sheila Wagner, PT, CN, discovering her Non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance, was inspired to integrate her Orthopedic Physical Therapy practice with Certified Nutritionist services. Sheila has been practicing for 29 yrs. and is known as an expert in evaluating and treating chronic pain and orthopedic problems and discovering their connections to food incompatibilities and metabolic dysfunctions.

I usually don’t write a lot of personal information on this blog, aside from food allergy-related stories. But, I have been tagged by another blogger, Gluten-Free Optimist, to write “7 Things You May Not Know About Me.” So, now I’m IT, and you are going to learn something about me besides that I don’t eat gluten! Here goes…

1. In my dream life I am a singer. Now, don’t go thinking that this is an American-Idol inspired fantasy. I wanted to be a singer way before that show existed. Just look at the VHS tapes of me singing (screaming) “Maybe” from the musical Annie. I may not have been a very good singer (I actually tried out for a local production of Annie and didn’t make it), but I had heart. Unfortunately, it’s genetic — the wanna-be Annie gene, I mean. My 4 year old daughter has been screaming “Maybe” for a good month now!
2. My first job after college was teaching high school history which I did for 7 years. I was 23 and the students were 17 when I started! Teaching was the hardest job I have ever had (by far). Hooray for teachers!
3. When I was a small child, I had a skin condition called vitiligo, which resulted in large white spots (devoid of any pigment) on my face, legs and lower back. The pigment on my face luckily came back but the other white spots remained. I was self-conscious about them, but then decided to make the best of it. I named the spots. The largest of the spots was named… Spot. The smallest one was named Pee-Wee. Whenever anyone asked me why I had the spots, I told them the truth: that I was half-leopard.
4. I went to about 35 Grateful Dead concerts and was sad when Jerry Garcia died (I went to Berkeley, what do you expect?) I do not wear Birkenstocks, burn incense or have underarm hair however.
5. Two of my favorite movies of all time are Waiting for Guffman (Christopher Guest mockumentary) and True Romance (Quentin Tarantino’s first screenplay, an amazing cast). One is silly, the other one is just cool.
6. I’m not crafty or artistic. I come from a family full of artistic people, but I have always colored in the lines and strived for symmetry. I can’t think of anything more tedious than knitting a scarf or — oh, god — needlepoint! I can barely sew a button on and I don’t have any use for those fun scrapbooking scissors. If you want to see me struggle, give me a paintbrush and canvas and tell me to create something. I would give anything to go play volleyball or organize my toolbox instead.
7. There are some things I didn’t even know about myself until a week ago when my mom found a scrap of paper with my future scribbled on it. Apparently I went to see a fortune teller while on a family vacation to Jamaica 17 years ago. Here are some of her predictions and whether or not she got it right:
   • “You will have 2 children and they will be girls” — she was right!
   • “You will have no medical operations or problems except for a blocked tube” — I have not had any operations and I have celiac disease, which is a disorder of the intestine… a TUBE! I guess you could say it was blocked in that nutrients could not be absorbed.
   • “You will be divorced and remarried at 40″ — husband better watch his back!
   • “You will be an independent old woman with cats” — does this mean I’m going to outgrow my allergy to cats? woo-hoo!

Well, that was fun! Now it’s my turn to tag other bloggers. I chose people that I really enjoy, admire and learn from and who I would like to know more about. Here are my picks:

• Karina, the Gluten Free Goddess — she is an arteest in so many ways, and hers are still my favorite gluten-free recipes. Plus, she provides so many options for people with other food allergies.
• Sharon the Blogger Queen — Sharon is a mom of a child with severe food allergies. She also is hilarious. I suggested to her one day that she should have a blog to share her life’s stories, and POOF! she started a blog (I’m taking credit now in case she becomes famous). You need to read her blog. It will make you laugh. (Warning: some may find her crass and inappropriate… I find her hysterically funny! P.S. it’s not about food allergies.)
• Ali of Whole Life Nutrition — a new discovery for me are her great healthy gluten-free recipes.
• Kelly of CeliacChicks — she’s a cool NYC chick with celiac who’s been blogging gluten-free since 2003!
• Gabrielle of Peanut Free Mama — she gets the whole peanut-allergy thing!
• Gina Clowes of Allergy Moms — this is a woman dedicated to helping food allergy moms everywhere!
• Sloane a.k.a. Allergic Girl — another NYC gal, she writes about gluten-free and allergen-free life.

RULES: “The rules are simple. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post. Simply share seven facts about yourself in the post. Tag seven people at the end of your post and let them know they’ve been tagged. And have fun!”

Have you or someone you know been diagnosed with celiac disease?
Do you or someone you know have gluten intolerance?
Are you looking for possible answers to your health problems?
Would you like to find out more about the gluten-free diet?

If the answer is yes to any of the above questions, please come to a class I am giving called “Living Gluten-Free” on March 2 in San Francisco. I will be speaking at the Community Health Resource Center at California Pacific Medical Center from 6-7:30 pm. This class will provide you with invaluable information about the gluten-free diet. Topics include symptoms, diagnosis and follow-up, shopping, cooking, product information and more!

Living Gluten-Free
Speaker: Alison St. Sure
When: March 2, 2009, 6-7:30 pm
Where: NOTE - LOCATION HAS CHANGED! The new location is:
Enright Room
2333 Buchanan St.

To register, call 415-923-3155
or email cpmcchrc@sutterhealth.org
or register online

Driving Directions

If you are a reader of my blog, and are planning to come, let me know! I hope to see you there!

Dear Readers,

I just want to let you know that if you are having a hard time finding my website through Google’s search engine, it is because my website got hacked into. Without getting too tech-y, I will try to explain what happened…

Someone out there (be it a person or a machine) hid a bunch of spammy words in the code of my website (the kind of annoying/offensive stuff that you get in junk email). When Google’s robots came to automatically “index” my website (put all my pages into its search engine so that people can find it), they discovered the hidden text and found it to be “outside [their] quality quidelines.” So they kicked me out of their search engine. No warning, just an email.

Being kicked out of Google is like internet death. Great for the true spammers out there, but for me? Ouch. To Google’s credit, I had no idea that my website contained all that spam until they told me and I have made and am working on changes to prevent this from happening again. I have submitted the site for reconsideration, but don’t know how long it will take. So, in the meantime, please still visit the website and refer others to it via other search engines or by typing out the url: www.surefoodsliving.com in your web browser.

Thanks!
Alison

UPDATE: I am back in. It took a month.

Thanks to everyone who sent in recipes for the Who Needs Martha online recipe exchange! I have decided that rather than post all the recipes at once, I am going to create a new feature on the website called Recipe Share. These recipes will be the ones that you, the readers, send in to me. Whenever there is a Recipe Share post, you will see a blue cupcake icon.

I do want to mention and thank the following blogs that posted recipes for this exchange:

• Heather at Beyond Allergy posted a recipe for Lemon Spaghetti – wheat free, egg free, nut free, soy free, possible dairy free
• Shannon at Some Fine Taters shares a dairy-free pancake recipe
• Carrie at Tales from a Modern Housewife sent over her vegan banana bread recipe

Stay tuned for readers’ recipes to come…

If you have a recipe to share, email it to alison@surefoodsliving.com along with (if you wish) your name and a picture of either the food you created or of you or your family. My only request is that they be at least gluten-free but can also be free of any of the common allergens.

Just a reminder that if you are doing any Amazon shopping this holiday season, consider clicking through to Amazon from the Sure Foods Living website. Amazon will pay a small commission that goes directly to this website — this helps pay for monthly fees to keep it going. There is no extra cost to you, and all you have to do is come here first, then click on the Amazon link in the right sidebar before you start your shopping — that’s it! Thanks for your support!

Also, if you are stumped for gift ideas for someone that has a dietary restriction, consider a gift certificate to an online grocery store, like the Gluten Free Mall, The Allergy Grocer or Gluten Solutions. Even Amazon now has a wide selection of gluten-free products to choose from.

Just in case I have any loyal fans out there (anyone? anyone?) who are wondering why I haven’t been writing as many posts as usual, it’s because I am extra busy at the moment.

I am doing a consulting job with a food distributor who is going to launch a gluten-free product catalog (and possibly dairy-free on my suggestion) for the restaurants who buy from them. Why are they doing this? Because restaurants are asking them for gluten-free products. Why are restaurants asking for them? Because customers are asking for them! So keep going to restaurants and asking for a gluten-free menu — even if you know that the restaurant doesn’t have one. Your voices are being heard!

And, if you are a manufacturer and think that your products would be good in the foodservice industry, please let me know via email: alison@surefoodsliving.com

It always makes me happy when someone tells me that they gave out my website address to a person in need of help. So, to make it easier to tell a friend about my site, I created business cards that you can print yourself, cut and keep with you just in case someone starts talking to you about their ill health.

To print my cards, just click here to open a page of cards and then print from your computer. They will look fuzzy, but they print clearly. They are not exactly quality business cards, but it’s all I’ve had time to do for now!

Thanks for sharing my information about celiac disease, gluten intolerance and food allergies with others!

-Alison