there are three people in my family, my husband, my daughter, and I, and among the three of us I am the only celiac, as far as we know, we are actually waiting for my daughter's blood test results. so we actually only need to buy specialty gluten free for me, however, sharing a kitchen with others who do eat gluten can be very challenging and stressful for celiacs. I am a new mom, and ensuring that I do not eat gluten by accident, even the smallest crumb, is extremely important. knowing that gluten will compromise my body's ability to absorb essential nutrients from food was a scary thought when I was pregnant, and now while I am breast feeding.
in order to ensure the safest environment for me, and thus the healthiest environment for my daughter, we all eat gluten free! my husband does still make toast from his favorite cheese bread (gluten containing) but I have set him up with his own toaster on the other side of the kitchen. he has his counter, and I have mine, with my own gluten free toaster, of course.
it can be very challenging for a gluten free parent to feed their child gluten. for my own personal reasons I held off on feeding my daughter gluten until she was one year of age. but at some point I needed to introduce it to her. all of the parents reading this will understand, that young children are not just messy eaters, but they love to eat with their hands, and then put their hands in your mouth, or on your plate, or anywhere that interests them. you could potentially have gluten on your bed sheets, or on your toothbrush. so introducing gluten to my daughter was extremely stressful, and I decided that it couldn't be me feeding her. I will only feed her gluten free food, and my husband can share his toast with her. she also eats gluten at her grandparents' house, but I always make sure her hands are well washed before interacting with her. I know this sounds over cautious, but it's necessary, and it will indirectly benefit her.
so now that I have explained why I shop gluten free for my whole family, you can imagine the extra expense we incur because of it. fortunately I have recently found a way to help with the extra cost of shopping gluten free. it's called the The Healthy Shopper, which is a coupon book for natural and organic products, and the best part is that many of the products are gluten free! the book can be picked up for free at participating natural food stores, I get mine at Choices Market. to find the store nearest you click here. it's also available online, but you will need to pay for shipping. if you register online, you will also have access to the ecoupons. all the coupons are valid for one year, the current book expires on march 31, 2010. the good news is that while the book is only available at certain stores, the coupons themselves are valid anywhere the products are sold.
some of the gluten free product coupons are:
Simply Natural Organic
Nature's Path or EnvroKidz
Glutino or Gluten-Free Pantry
Barbara's Bakery
Pamela's Products
San-J
please note that some of these companies are exclusively gluten free, while others are not. please check with the product websites to verify which products are gluten free. we have already posted on several of these, Simply Natural Organic Mustard, Glutino Crackers, and Pamela's Products Classic Vanilla Cake Mix.
the coupons range in savings from 50 cents up to 2 dollars off, so I easily save 10 dollars when I shop. I will be looking forward to the next edition of this coupon book in april, and hope to find even more gluten free product coupons to use next year!
Robyn and I will also be posting soon on another way to save money on a gluten free diet, if your doctor can verify that you have Celiac Disease, then you qualify for a special medical tax write-off in Canada. I am not sure about other countries, but it is worth looking into. Happy Saving! Andrea.
the healthy shopper | canadian celiac association
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5 comments:
Wow...so much to think about. Hey, Gluten Free Girl is also blogging about this...a bit of a different reason for the blog but still...about expense and she has some good tips about purchasing through Amazon. Check it out here...
http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com/
thanks trish!
i think we were reading the article at the same time!
its great to see amazon taking on gluten free groceries! i also noticed a few gluten free cereal and cereal bars at shoppers drug mart.
i recently stumbled upon the glutenfreemall (www.glutenfreemall.com) and it is quite amazing! its also another online store with a ton of selection, and they ship to Canada. this is a good way to order products from the US that are not available in Canada.
Good article Andrea. Given that the focus is on saving money, I'm surprised you didn't mention that Revenue Canada recognizes Celiac as a medical disability. If you have Celiac, you can claim the price difference of commonly purchased food items as a medical expense.
Rev Agency page: http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/tpcs/clc-eng.html
In English:
http://www.penny.ca/Disability.htm
And if you REALLY want to stick it to the man, back file for previous years!!! ;)
As an aside, is it now trendy to not capitalize the first letter in your sentences? ~Shudder~ Kinda hurts readability... :(
hi anonymous,
thanks for your comment. I actually mentioned the tax info in the last paragraph, maybe you didn't read until the end?
additionally we wrote a separate post on the subject which you can read here:
http://glutenfree-vancouver.blogspot.com/2010/04/tax-time-celiac-disease-and-medical.html
thanks again for visiting our blog, andrea
from my experience being gluten free, I found that a lot of food (gluten free) has so much sugar and starch. Now I am carefully reading ingredients.
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