All the posts recommended for a first time, starting out on grain free reader.
What is a grain? What is a seed? What are pseudo-cereals? When first going grain-free it can be a challenge to work it out, especially as grains can be hidden in the most unlikely of places. This list can help you. Regularly updated.
This post is for anyone visiting this website for the first time, or is new to eating a grain-free diet and would like to read about how another person has approached it. I talk about my personal journey, about the website and its history and give some great tips on what has helped me most living grain free.
While I have been grain-free alongside my husband for over a decade, I always felt that I sat outside of the typical reasons for being grain free – namely, dealing with auto-immune disease or chronic illness. As a result of that, and as is fairly evident from the sugar laden recipes on this website, my version of grain free for myself was as long as it technically doesn’t contain a grain, I would eat any processed, refined, manufactured, packaged and sugar laden product and call it food. I have throughout the years regularly gone on “health kicks” where I removed sugar and dairy from my diet, but inevitably the call of the sugar and carbs would become too strong, and I would fall face first into a plate of grain free pizza dough followed my large amounts of chocolate and ice cream. Of course, a recipe for disaster, how could it not be?Read More »Lessons learnt about being grain free
I sometimes get emails from people asking why I use quinoa, amaranth and buckwheat in my recipes. Many people have been told, or believe, that… Read More »Seeds, Grains, Pseudo-cereals, Pseudo-grains and Grain Free Living
I started on my grain-free journey 19 years ago when my husband became extremely sick. He was eventually diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. We rejected drugs… Read More »About
Living with long term food sensitivities isn’t easy. It’s navigating your way in a mine-field where your body seems to betray you at every turn. It can be depressing and extremely frustrating. It can also be lonely, especially if you are surrounded by friends with apparently cast-iron guts who have absolutely no way of empathising or understanding your unique stance on food.
You don’t need to throw out your cookbooks. Use this list as a guide, you can easily convert any “normal” recipe into a grain-free, gluten-free, soy-free, dairy-free or anything else free with a little bit of know-how.
We personally went grain free almost two decades ago to deal with Crohn’s disease. This article will cover our reasons for going grain free and I’ll share my favourite resources that explain the science behind why going grain-free worked so well for us.
This is not a diet of just salad and protein. That would be really, really boring. And restrictive. (I should also point out that it is NOT ANYTHING LIKE OR TO DO WITH the Aiken’s Diet or any other low carb eating plans. This is a diet for intestinal and immune health and wellbeing, and it is total lifestyle change and it not a DIET in the traditional sense of the word, although for simplicity I tend to refer to it as that).
To my mind, the typical Australian or American diet is WAY more boring. Think about it:
You get up in the morning and have the same old cereal (wheat), muesli (wheat) or toast. (wheat)
Mid-morning tea you have a coffee or tea and some biscuits (wheat)
One of the first things I hear from people (by people I usually mean doctors and traditionally trained mainstream dieticians) minds when I tell them we are grain free is “that must be so unhealthy, you are cutting out AN ENTIRE FOOD GROUP”
Really? Actually, going grain free is NOT always a low carb eating plan. Many people assume that cutting out grains is “completely cutting out a food group – isn’t that really dangerous and doesn’t it mean that you are going to be malnourished because you don’t eat bread or rice and pasta?”
Well, to see where this idea comes from, lets take a look at the typical modern day food pyramid: