Healthy Food Choices for Celiac Disease

Last Update: August 12, 2008

Video By: LIVESTRONG.COM

Dieting tips for people with celiac disease. Learn how to adjust your diet to fit your specific health and nutrition needs in this video on grocery shopping.

Take Action

  • Avoid bread and grain made with barley
  • Eat fresh fruits and vegetables
  • Substitute flours
  • Learn alternative names for gluten

About this Author

Mary Hondros graduated from University of Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in Dietetics. She currently works as a nutritionist for New Hanover County Schools in North Carolina. Her main focus is to teach children to improve nutritional habits.

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Video Transcript

MARY HONDROS: I'm going to talk a little bit about celiac disease. Celiac disease is another word for a gluten allergy. People that have this disease need to avoid the wheat protein gluten in any form. Gluten is found in anything that's labeled wheat, rye or barley flour. All those products contain gluten. Unfortunately, this means that most bread products, pastas, cereals, rices and other things like that are going to contain gluten in a regular grocery store. However, in a specialty food store, you could find lots of different products that are gluten-free and that are good substitutes for gluten. If you're looking to hold a gluten-free diet, you can look at buying flours like, made from white rice, almond, anything that's corn flour, potato flour, corn starch, tapioca flour, and potato flour. All those types of things are safe for somebody with gluten allergy or celiac disease to consume. So, 4 tips if you're trying to follow a gluten-free diet and you have celiac disease. Number 1, you need to avoid all bread and grain products that are made with barley, rye, or wheat flour and those are always written on the label. So make sure you learn how to read a food label and identify gluten additives. Secondly, you can pretty much guarantee safety with any kind of fresh, frozen, or canned fruit and vegetables. Those are all safe products for you to consume. They usually don't have gluten added to them. Thirdly, you can try substituting some of the flours in your diet with buck wheat, rice flours, corn flours, almond flours, potato flours, and tapioca flours and they'll usually be labeled gluten-free if they are gluten-free product. And lastly, learn the alternative names for gluten. Gluten can come under a variety of different names, so you need to learn to read your food labels and identify which foods have gluten in them. So those are 4 tips on living with celiac disease.

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