Are you eating oatmeal on a gluten-free diet?

chewy · **Posted:** Tue Jan 16, 2007 7:05 pm

I know oats are questionable for celiacs and gluten sensitive people.Are you including them or not?Any adverse reactions eating oats?So far I'm avoiding them but am curious if I should try to incorporate them .
Any suggestions?

groundhogg · **Posted:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:37 am

Oats bothered me the last two times I tried them. I like feeling good, and hate feeling bad, so I don't really see myself ever try them again...I don't really miss them at this point. My favorite breakfast has become a mix of blueberries/blackberries/cherries (I buy large frozen bags from a restaurant supply store--cheap--...GFS, then keep out some thawed in the fridge for breakfasts for the week) topped with sliced banana, a sprinkle of walnut pieces and a drizzle of raw honey or maple syrup. That's really tasty, yummy, filling, nutritious...etc., and I like that better than my old oatmeal breakfasts.

Supposedly, oats are almost always cross-contaminated with wheat dust, so they say. I've heard that if you can find oats that are guaranteed to never be grown or processed/packaged alongside wheat, then it might be a different story. It's harder to find them that way, though, but supposedly, in theory at least, a certain percentage of celiacs or others intolerant to gluten might be able to tolerate the uncontaminated oats.

However, Dr. Kenneth Fine, gastroenterologist and the researcher who began the Enterolab testing, includes oats in his list of gluten-reactive foods to be avoided for people who test positive for gluten through Enterolab.

I also stopped buying just any ol' rice cakes for the same reason...they are frequently processed right alongside wheat and such and can be contaiminated with gluten-bearing dust. Although I never was aware of any personal reactions from them, I'd read of many on celiac boards, and so I now buy rice cakes ONLY if the label says GLUTEN FREE.

DianeR · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:29 am **Posts:** 1279

I've been having them, as you know. But I'm new to the gluten-free game and lack any official confirmation. (Just ordered the Enterolab tests last night -- so I'm feeling poor [financially]) But as lab tests go, not that outrageous. I remember seeing the bill for the MRI I had on my knee two years ago :eek:

I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it, particularly since it didn't show anything. The doctor still said I needed surgery, I disagreed, and got better, just to show him! Well, I wanted a functional knee too, but it was nice to prove him wrong ... although what he said was that he was glad "we" decided against the surgery. Right :cool:

What I'm saying is that I will go my own way no matter what a doctor may say ...)

Back to the subject at hand. It seems like the problem for gluten sensitives isn't the oats per se, but wheat contamination of the oats, which may be common with big commercial outfits. I've been having packets of organic oatmeal from Nature's Path. The ingredient lists say they "may contain traces" of tree nuts, peanuts or soy, but don't mention wheat, which I think they would mention if it was a possibility. So I think it may well come down to the oats you select.

Have you tried asking this question on a big board like celiacs.com? You would probably get more opinions that way -- or you could search the archives for the subject (I'm sure it's come up).

groundhogg · **Posted:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:58 am

Congratulations on having more sense than that doctor!!!

And happy to hear your knee is intact!

DianeR · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:29 am **Posts:** 1279

You've probably heard the old saying, "Everything looks like a nail to a man with a hammer." This guy specializes in arthroscopic surgery, so naturally that's what he wanted to do. "Well, we can't tell what is wrong from the x-ray or the MRI, so let's go in there and see!" When I cancelled the surgery he was so irked and claimed I would be calling him in pain in a few weeks and we would have to wait again for a surgery date.

Actually, scheduling delay is why I didn't have the surgery. I had a suddenly locked knee that could only move a few degrees. (Woke up that way one morning for no apparent reason -- try telling people that when they ask how you got injured :lol:

) The doctor scheduled physical therapy so I could preserve what movement and muscle tone I had and perhaps to reduce the swelling. But in the weeks before we could get the surgery done, my knee slowly recovered its range of motion with the thrice weekly physical therapy. About the only thing the doctor did for me was to authorize the PT, which meant my insurance company paid for it. So I suppose that was a useful thing!

Since I started McDougalling over six years ago, this is the only time I've had to go to a doctor.

It seems like most of the my life, if I had something wrong with me, I had to diagnose myself and figure out a cure.

OK, I'll stop hijacking this thread. Back to oats ...

(However, to go OT again [sorry, chewy]-- I never thought of buying in bulk from a restaurant supply store. Do you just call them up and ask if they sell to the public and if so, what? That mixture you have sounds heavenly :-)

)

groundhogg · **Posted:** Wed Jan 17, 2007 8:40 am

In our area, Greater Cincinnati area, we have these stores that sell to businesses, restaurants, caterers, etc. It isn't exactly like a warehouse, like Costco or Sam's, but they just sell stuff cheaper than ordinary groceries, and in bigger bulk.

Ours is called GFS (have no idea what it stands for)...there are several stores all around the area...you don't need a membership or anything...just walk on in and buy whatever ya need.

It was great for buying things when our daughter was getting married and we supplied the food (UGH>>> a job I don't want again!!!)--we weren't gluten free at that time, but vegan, so we ordered a very expensive, very small, vegan wedding cake for them to cut and save and the wedding party (and the rest of the handful of vegans) to eat, and then found really nice sheet cakes...very fancy restaurant type (SAD) cakes at GFS, as well as other bulk items for the meal, for really, really CHEAP. This was great, since we were supplying food for a couple hundred people. But besides the usual SAD stuff...they're a great place to get stocked up on spices, stuff like jalpeno peppers, tea (or coffee for me--I'm BAD :shock:

), good cooking utensils, and they have big bags of frozen veggies and fruits. I really can't afford to keep us in fresh berries all year...so I've just been buying these large bags of frozen berries because we've liked having them for breakfasts.

If your area doesn't have GFS, I'll betcha they have some other restaurant/caterer supplier than anybody can just walk in and shop at.

DianeR · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:29 am **Posts:** 1279

No GFS here or anything similar that I can find. I looked in the Yellow Pages and did some internet searches and came up empty. I think if such a place existed around here I would have heard about it. I homeschooled my youngest (now in college) and so was on the local homeschool board. Many there are on tight budgets due to living on one income and offered suggestions all the time about saving money.

No warehouse places are close to where I live, so I've never ventured out to see what they have. I also don't trust myself (and don't have that much storage space, particularly for food).

Oh well, I'll figure something out. For the time being, I'm doing fine with the oatmeal. Maybe it's my Scottish heritage. I was googling for a recipe for vegetarian haggis yesterday to serve on Robert Burns' birthday next week. The traditional desserts for the day are high fat; I'll have to modify something. I don't offhand know a good substitute for heavy cream, but I haven't looked. The dessert is raspberries mixed in with the cream with some honey and oats. Probably Scotch too ... everything seems to have Scotch in it :-D

I'll also have to figure out how to season the mashed rutabagas and potatoes (I can't remember the Scottish names offhand). The recipes that I've seen just call for a hunk of butter. And maybe Scotch

I just can't stay on-topic in this thread, can I :lol:

One more off-topic comment. If someone wants to lose weight, s/he should just read the recipes for traditional haggis. :eek:

I can't believe we ate the stuff on our honeymoon and liked it. Probably because we didn't care to hear the details of what it was and it certainly wasn't identifiable. Akin to liking sausage, but being careful not to know what's in it

groundhogg · **Posted:** Thu Jan 18, 2007 6:20 am

hmmmm...that haggis stuff sounds kinda scary :eek:

!!!! I've never heard of it before...could you just substitute plain soy yogurt for the cream...or you could use one of Tofutti's products that could give it the right flavor and texture, maybe???? Many of Tofutti's products don't contain any gluten, but you have to check the labels...their website has helpful info about how to know which of their products might contain gluten. Lots of their usual stuff is safe.

What area are you located in? I'm just outside of Cincinnati, but this place is thick with Cincinnati localisms, culture, etc., and they are the world's biggest producer, here in Northern KY and in Cincinnati across the river of ghetta. That sounds like maybe it might be close to what you're hinting at with haggis...ghetta is a German thing, but it seems most people in Germany never heard of the stuff, because the Cincinnati area was settled by the poverty/dirt poor Germans...and they were the ones who knew about ghetta...it's a combo of oats, spare "parts" (from all sorts of scary anatomical locations)...I'm not sure what else is in there. People from this poor German heritage fry slices of it with eggs. Sounds very gross to me...but, I guess if you grew up with the stuff, you like it!

We used to be down in the KY mountainous area, and shopping was just a futile experience down there. I gotta say, though, one good thing about the Cincinnati area is you have access to lots of good shopping up here! The prices are always so much cheaper here too, than where we used to live.

DianeR · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:29 am **Posts:** 1279

I'm in a suburb of Washington DC. In my neck of the woods we don't have things like Target either -- you have to go way out of your way to find anything like that. On the other hand, my 'burb is known about here as a destination for dining. I guess the downtown got a certain number of restaurants, a certain critical mass was reached, and other restaurants flocked there. It actually has more restaurants than downtown Cleveland ...

Now why the comparison is always made with Cleveland I don't know. Did someone have a list of number of restaurants in each city? Oh well :cool:

So we have restaurants and the National Institutes of Health. Interesting combination, huh?

groundhogg · **Posted:** Thu Jan 18, 2007 7:39 am

I've been to DC only once...and that was as part of a tour done by a charitable organization for teenage Appalachians. We went as chaperones. This was about 20 years ago...and I gotta say...the entire week and a half we spent in the area...from VA to Maryland to right there in DC...the GREAT food we had at all the restaurants STILL stands out as the most memorable thing in my mind.

Coming straight out of the mountians...livin' on mostly beans, greens, and cornbread...we were all just like we took a little visit to heaven...we talked about the foods for a long time after that trip. Even the insides of the restaurants were so cool...like one we went to had fondue appetizers with the fondue pots sitting in tanks, I mean the legs of the pots sitting in there, in really pretty tanks of gold fish...never saw anything like that before anywhere else!!!!

Coleslaw · **Posted:** Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:52 pm

OATS are listed in the book, Dangerous Grains as being a gluten. I wonder if the oats themselves could damage the small intestine same as wheat or the other gluten grain. How do they determine one grain as being safe and one not? I suppose it's a matter of the flour becoming a stretchy gluten substance, as in bread baking?

DianeR · **Joined:** Fri Oct 20, 2006 4:29 am **Posts:** 1279

Well, you can look at the results of a number of studies and decide for yourself:
http://www.celiac.com/st_main.html?p_catid=14

What Dr. McDougall says in the Sept 2005 newsletter:
"Oats have been demonstrated in multiple studies to be free of toxic proteins and tolerated by most (but not all) people with CD, but there is worry that commercial oat products may be contaminated with wheat."
footnote omitted

When I googled "oats gluten free," the first hit was a doctor who says:
"Oats is a grain the merits special attention. Oats are believed safe in patients with celiac disease although this was not always the case. The problem with oat products is not the grain but rather the manufacturing process. When oats are processed in the same facilities as wheat, contamination can occur even with the best cleaning protocol. Oat products can now be found that are not cross contaminated. These can be tried after an initial period of 6 months to see if they can be tolerated. Most, but not all patients can tolerate pure oat products."

groundhogg · **Posted:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 6:14 am

Well, from reading the above...it might be yet another gluten-free mistake I've made in that I tried oats DURING those first six months...and my gut was on a really wild roller coaster anyway back then. I haven't tried oats for the past 8 or 9 months at all. I got scared away from them back the other times I tried putting them back.

Also, I'm quite sure I don't have easy access to guaranteed, uncontaminated oats...

Since I'm feeling pretty good these days, and oats aren't really the thing I miss much, I probably just won't try anymore, myself. Also, Dr. Kenneth Fine seems to always just include oats on his gluten free list, so he must have some reason to suspect they are likely to cause trouble in enough people to just leave them out.

What I miss most is wheat and spelt. I never think about oats...I do think about breads, rolls, pastries, etc. But I know better than to even think about that too much.\

I did buy a package of some Bob's Red Mill bread mix last night and made some of that...I used flax meal soaked in hot water for the eggs, and we really thought the stuff was pretty good. Easy to make too!

I made it into a loaf of spinach bread...layering it with chopped, sauted spinach and onions...I used to do this with regular homemade breads. I would roll up the final rising loaf with spinach/onion mixture spread onto it before rolling. This stuff I just layered with spinach/onion as I packed it into the bread pan...but as I worked with the top layer, I discovered i probably could have rolled it up if I would've been extremely careful and kept my hands wet while working with it...so...I'll buy more and try it that way next time.

I also plan to get another package of this stuff and make it into cinnamon rolls and/or nutty sticky rolls...now, that's the stuff I really miss...not oatmeal... :lol:

!

Anyway, back to topic, here...I think if I were gonna test the oats, knowing what I know now, I probably would wait until I felt stable gluten free...until I felt pretty much healed, settled down, just stable and good and gluten free. Then I might attempt to add them back one day, and then watch closely for the next 2 or 3 weeks to see if any weirdness develops. I'd do that a couple of times, assuming I saw nothing odd happen, and then just gradually add them back, a little at a time, watching carefully for any sign of symptoms returning.

As I've said before, there can be a problem noticing the return of symptoms. After I kind of tried gluten free, making mistakes all over the place, back in 2001, decided it was no good and then went back, symptoms crept up so insidiously that I didn't quite put it together for another few years. Just adding insult to injury...MORE damage to heal...so, that's why I would be very cautious about attempting to add back the oats and being able to hang on to enough perspicacity to catch any sneaky symptoms.

Coleslaw · **Posted:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:06 am

Well, I guess a person could always buy the oat groats and grind into flour. This I have done. I have two grain mills. I don't know how oatmeal is made though. Be more trouble than it's worth.

groundhogg · **Posted:** Fri Jan 19, 2007 9:14 am

I have a hand-cranked grain mill I used to use for grinding my own wheat and kamut.

I've wanted to try grinding popcorn (supposed to make the best cornmeal) and rice into my own rice flour, but have not done so yet. I'm a little scared about cross-contamination because I've used it on gluten grains. I think I should throw away the stone whatcha-callits, and just keep the steel ones, because I'm sure there's no way I could get the gluten out of the porous stones. I still worry about getting all the gluten out of the inner workings of the mill.

Also, I bought a pretty nice meat-grinder just before I went gluten free last winter...I made some reeally nice peanut butter in it and mostly used it for grinding sprouted wheat to make sprouted wheat cookies and dried Ezekiel type breads. Same problem with that thing...I would like to use it again for stuff, but I'm afraid of being able to clean out the inner workings sufficiently to avoid cross-contaminating myself.

I have some nice stuff sitting there unused because I am afraid of making myself sick by using it...

.

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