<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hi again! Here is what I wrote up to answer one of the respondents to my "wellness on a gf diet" post...since reading about the end-stage Celiac disease, I thought this was especially pertinent. It seems daunting (to say the least!) to "restrict" our diets even more than just that of Gluten avoidance...but in actuality, going meatless and later vegan (no animal products at all including eggs and dairy/cheese) opened up the world of food to us more than ever! Before Celiac disease we ate the same 10 things over and over. Then after CD, we modified those same 10 and added another 2-3 and ate those over and over. The rest of the story is in my letter below: ================================ HOW TO GO VEGAN WHILE GLUTEN-FREE: Thanks for the nice feedback! First, I started getting more and more grossed out with meat. I began teaching Once-A-Month Cooking classes and using "whole" things like whole chickens...really sickening. I was trying to "simplify" my life and actually started sicking myself out! Then, we started looking into what is actually up with the meat industry and what we found was awfully yucky. Of course, you have to actually look into what you read on the internet, etc. to be sure of the least amount of exaggeration, but even still, meat is not made in a nice way no matter how nice it is presented. We ended up feeding the last of our Once-A-Month meats in the freezer to the dog. (BTW, in "real" OAM cooking you freeze whole meals, but I didn't since we are gf and it saved a lot of time just having the meats done.) We found that we overate cheese, eggs, and milk to the max...like they filled in for the missing meat. Consequently, it seemed like that can't be "healthy"...so we substituted bit by bit. I got sicked out easily by eggs at that point as well. Tofu was a big BLECHHHH! at first, but s-l-o-w-l-y we learned how to (and how NOT to) cook with it!!! Lastly, I read up on the dairy industry (killing baby boy calves for veal after boxing them in small crates for a couple of months and feeding them "milk replacer", repeatedly impregnating mom cows so they would lactate then killing them when they didn't produce a lot, and all the chemicals, antibiotics, hormones, and *PUS* in the final product) and wished I had quit dairy BEFORE meat!!! LOL! ==================== So, how to do it...start slowly, keep trying things (just like when you first went gf and it seemed insurmountable then got easier), check out LOTS of cookbooks from the library, join a list, and read, read, read! What we eat is so amazing now. We don't have the "constraints" of meat-and-potatoes with meat as the centerpiece. On a typical evening we might eat acorn squash, honeydew melon, and a salad with some roasted almonds. I try anything that is gf and vegan. I bought dollar store lidded jars (1, 1.5, and 2 quart) for all my rice, beans, grains, flours, nuts, seeds, and noodles. I keep them on a restaurant rack that I bought at Lowe's. I write on the lids, sometimes even the cooking instructions or put the package inside with the beans or whatever. We mail order flour or travel to a Wild Oats or other health food store to buy gf flours. Occasionally we buy gf cookies and other "convenience" foods a case at a time and get a 10% discount. I love to browse "natural food" and grocery stores and see what I can find that's new. Oh, and we buy noodles - lately mostly the corn ones by Mrs. Leeper's. We cook them to taste - NOT the time on the package! We shop at the coop (once a month ordering and picking up at a church basement) - most towns have them...I get almonds, cashews, pistachios (all raw) and roast them myself in the oven on a cookie sheet (350 for 15 minutes) then put them in a jar when they are completely cool. We also buy seeds (sprout mix, sesame, sunflower, poppy) and all our spices at the coop (WAY cheaper!) as well as rice nuts (bulk) cereal and boxes of Maple Buckwheat Flakes. Also from the coop, we get HUGE bags of TVP (texturized vegetable protein - sub for ground meat...cook onion, garlic, etc. add spices, then tomato paste, then enough water for TVP, then stir in TVP when boiling, turn off heat and cover for 5 minutes, voila taco "meat"), nutritional yeast (looks like fish food flakes, tastes like cheese, sprinkle in soups by the cup-full, make broccoli-rice with "cheese" sauce, add to gravy, etc. - said to be a good source of B12 for vegans), and brown rice flour. I keep these three items in 5 gallon buckets. I have three giant tupperware-type containers for veggies (modern fridges are for MEAT AND CHEESE with teeny-tiny veggie drawers) - I don't use plastic baggies at the store (too much trash) and just place them together in the large containers without washing them...then try to rotate to make sure nothing is wasted. We eat mostly organic produce: cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, baby carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, fresh greens. I don't refrigerate potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, garlic, and most fruit (I do refrigerate kiwi, lemons, and limes). And tomatoes and avocados are left on the counter as well. I like tofu in a lot of forms. We love tempeh. Of course, I am sure seitan (wheat meat) would be great, but we can't have it! And we drink soy milk. We make smoothies with organic frozen fruits and soy milk and we make "ice cream" or sorbets with soy milk and/or fruits (I have a freezer thingie that you just pour in the liquid and it freezes without stirring, then you transfer what you haven't eaten to a freezer container). :-) I am sure I am forgetting something, but just ask about what you would like to know. I am happy to help.