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This was in a health newsletter this morning.  I don't know if you'll learn
anything new but it seemed worthy of passing along.  The link at the bottom
with tips for traveling is timely for summer vacation trips.  I hadn't
thought of ordering food and having it sent to my destination. I sometimes
order online and have things sent to my home, so sending it somewhere else
is just as easy and it would be nice  to have things I like waiting for me
rather than having to search out food at my destination.  I like that one,
especially since we're now charged for checked baggage.
Mary in upstate NY

The Three Most Common Gluten-Free Mistakes
<http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/the-three-most-common
-gluten-free-mistakes/> 
Carl Lowe <http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/author/carl-lowe/>  | Jun 26,
2012 | 
A large number of people who follow a gluten-free diet because of health
issues can't seem to find complete relief despite their efforts to banish
gluten from their meals. When researchers examine this problem, they find
that many of these gluten-free dieters are making three key mistakes that
may contribute to their illness and discomforts.
Trying to eat a gluten-free diet can be stressful. Gluten is not a single
substance, but a group of proteins derived from wheat, rye and barley.
Because wheat is so cheap for food manufacturers to obtain and it is so
useful as an additive in many processed foods, wheat is present in many - if
not most - of the items sold in supermarkets. Consequently, trying to keep
gluten out of the foods you eat requires constant vigilance.
Wheat or wheat flour may be added to soups as thickeners and to salad
dressings as fillers. Even breakfast cereals that seem to be made from oats
often have wheat added to them.
Labeling Issues
Unfortunately, while many foods that are gluten-free trumpet their lack of
gluten on their packaging, foods that contain gluten rarely make this fact
plainly evident. As a result, if you're on a gluten-free diet, you have to
be a careful reader of food labels and you have to know what to avoid. But
even then, you may not be safe.
According to researchers in the United Kingdom, the three biggest problems
for people trying to stick to a gluten-free diet are:
1.	They don't have a good knowledge of the foods they need to avoid.
2.	They eat out at restaurants very often.
3.	Processed foods are often poorly labeled, making it more difficult
to understand if their contents contain gluten.
The fact is, if you are very strict about eating a gluten-free diet and want
to avoid the health problems your body has with gluten, you have to make
most of your meals yourself. That is the only consistent way to be sure that
your meals are clear of gluten.
For those who are trying to be gluten-free, eating out can be risky unless
you eat at a restaurant that is seriously committed to cooking gluten-free
dishes. In most restaurants, even if you order something that should be
inherently gluten-free (like a steak), you run the risk that the item you
order may be cross-contaminated during its preparation. If that steak is put
on a grill that previously was used to heat a bun, your food may pick up
bread crumbs that you will consume. There is also a chance the steak has
been seasoned with flavorings that contain gluten or has been marinated in a
sauce that had gluten in it.
Every time you eat out, you must explain clearly to the restaurant staff
that you need to eat gluten-free and outline explicitly what that means.
Even then, you never know when someone in the establishment's kitchen will
make a mistake.
Processed Foods
When it comes to packaged, processed foods, there's not much you can do to
know if these foods have been cross-contaminated with gluten. Unless foods
are prepared in manufacturing facilities dedicated to being gluten-free,
there will almost always be some gluten in a processed food. That is a good
reason to prepare most of your own food yourself, from scratch.
Despite all these difficulties, eating gluten-free can make a tremendous
difference in your health if you have an autoimmune response to gluten. For
me, since I possess a body that is heavily inflamed by gluten, avoiding
gluten is a matter of life and death.
For more advice on how to eat gluten-free, you can find introductory
directions here
http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/starting-a-gluten-free
-diet/  and here
http://www.easyhealthoptions.com/alternative-medicine/tips-for-gluten-free-t
ravel/
.


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