I'm Back and Healthier Than Ever!

It's been a while since I have been able to post on this blog, but last year I got really ill just after Labor Day. My white blood count was at a steady 14,000. The bad news: My vitamin D and folic acid were deficient. The good news: It was not cancer or leukemia. However, when my vitamin D and folic acid levels came back up, my white blood count dropped, but then my iron also dropped. In December, I would get up out of bed only to end up having to go back to bed. I was pale and weak and literally a shell of a human being barely walking around. In January the anemia was at its worst. I actually began falling asleep in the middle of the day, including at church!! Something was wrong. They checked my iron after two months of being on a long-term use antibiotic for which I also take a probiotic, and my ferritin was 41. But I was passing out and fainting. I was miserable. I received my first iron infusion in March this year. My ferritin soared to 283 and I have more life and more energy now than ever before.

Now, I have a different focus for My Gluten Free Life. You see, in December I was confirmed to be on the spectrum. At the age of 33, I am now diagnosed as not only having ADHD, but also having a high-functioning autism. This has changed some things. The gluten free diet helps alleviate symptoms of both conditions, but it's not enough for me.I am beginning a journey onto the GFCF (gluten free casein free) diet, which is good because I am allergic to cow dairy anyway. But to further complicate things, I am now on a crusade. I am trying to eliminate ALL products that contain HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) from my diet. Not only is that chemically processed substance bad for the body, but it tastes gross and makes me more symptomatic.

Why do they still use HFCS? Sugar is now cheaper. HFCS was created in a lab because at the time sugar was expensive due to war-related shortages. But that's not the case now. So why do they still use this offending substance?

So anyway, that's why I have been so silent on this blog lately. I have been processing things and recovering from life-threatening iron anemia.

Oh, I should say that I recently discovered that I was NOT allergic to chickpeas (I now LOVE hummus) or mushrooms (although I'd rather not eat them if I can avoid them). I also discovered that I was NOT allergic to raspberry (I just don't like the taste of it). Each of these were cross-contaminated with gluten containing food products. However, I am developing an allergy to oranges and orange juice. And that is in isolation. So now, I am seeking alternatives to oranges and orange juice to get my vitamin C.

But I'm back and I'm better than ever and I'm ready to start reviewing some more of my favorite (and not so favorite) gluten free products. Beginning with that Against the Grain pizza I had a couple of weeks ago that was so good that I actually ate some cold slices the next morning for breakfast!! Now, I'm going to buy their pizza shell and make my own all natural, dairy free pizza using a new favorite of mine: Daiya. Oh, and what goes better with that than Silk Fruit & Protein in Mango Peach?

Udi's Lemon Streusel Muffins

Udi's has these Lemon Streusel Muffins. They sent a pack to me for review when I inquired about writing a review on some of their items.

I will be honest. I don't like lemon. And these muffins are HUGE. But I absolutely LOVED these muffins.

The texture was crumbly and dry, but the taste was exceptional. I would recommend having some kind of beverage on hand when enjoying these. I had one of them for breakfast and it kept me quite full for a while.

These muffins are gluten free, soy free, dairy free and nut free, so they are a good product for a variety of allergen free diets.

My recommendation is to give them a try.

Enjoy Life Foods Crunchy Cookies

When Enjoy Life offered to send me their newest line of crunchy cookies for review, I was elated to say the least. Like a child at Christmas, I opened the box and assessed the contents.

The newest line includes Crunchy Chocolate Chip, Crunchy Double Chocolate, Crunchy Sugar Crisp and Crunchy Vanilla Honey Graham.

As a reminder from an earlier post, Enjoy Life products are free of the top 8 allergens: wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, egg, soy, fish and shellfish; they are also free of potatoes, sesame, sulfites and casein.

These crunchy cookies go great dunked in almond milk!

When I bit into the chocolate chip and the double chocolate (which is basically a chocolate chip cookie) cookies, I could not believe that they had no milk ingredients. They were very much like the chocolate chip cookies I remembered from before going gluten free. The vanilla honey graham reminded me of graham crackers. And as to the sugar cookies, they were not my favorite. The sugar cookies were too sweet for my liking and were only made tolerable when dunking in the almond milk.

Aside from the sugar cookies, I give this new line of crunchy cookies my strongest recommendation.

New Winner Announced for Rudi's Gluten Free Giveaway

I announced a winner October 3 and because it has been a week since I contacted the winner and have not heard back from her, I went back to Random.org to generate a new winner. Congratulations Diane721! You will have a week to respond to the winning e-mail.

AND THE WINNER IS...

12 entries, 5 people. 2 people did not complete the mandatory entry and had to be disqualified, so after subtracting the five entries that were ineligible, I went to random.org and fed it 1 for the lowest value and 7 for the highest value. Random.org then generated a random number. The lucky number is 3. Using a spreadsheet to keep track of entries, lucky number 3 is Rebecca! Congratulations Rebecca! I will send you an e-mail to verify your mailing information right now and you will have one week to confirm. The prize will have three coupons, each for one FREE Rudi's gluten free bread item. Enjoy!

Rudi's Gluten Free Multigrain Sandwich Bread Review and Giveaway

When I asked Rudi's if they work with bloggers who want to write reviews on their products, the response was greater than I imagined! They not only offered to send coupons for me to get the bread that I choose to review, but they even offered to work with me on doing a giveaway on the blog!

Due to a computer glitch, I ended up with two sets of three coupons sent to me, so this round of the giveaway, the winner will receive the coupons directly from me.

But before I dive into a run through of the rules which were stated in a prior post and post the trivia question, I want to tell you that the reception to this particular bread is tremendous!

I chose for the first review to try the Multigrain Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread. I am a skeptic with multigrain and I have had other brands of gluten free bread that have not been very impressive to me, so I was hesitant. But I decided to try this bread out with homemade egg salad.

From the first bite, I was in heaven! Every bite was just as good as the first bite. The bread is moist. It has texture, and not a grainy one like one might expect with traditional multigrain bread. It even brought out the flavors in the egg salad! My second sandwich with this bread was yet another egg salad sandwich. I have a confession. I usually throw the heels of a loaf out because they tend to be dry and crusty. But I tried the heel of this loaf and I LOVED it! It tasted no different than the main loaf. I still have enough of this loaf to make a few more sandwiches or slices of toast, but I am so excited about the prospect that Rudi's has created that I want to make sure to go ahead and give one lucky reader a chance to also try it out.

When I contacted Rudi's about the extra set of coupons they had sent, they told me that it might be possible that I might be able to have another giveaway and with that one, a winner would receive the coupons directly from Rudi's. But I will post more about that should that come up.

For this first giveaway, I wanted things to be as easy as possible. So this giveaway will be quite basic.

Here's the first request, but as I have no way to verify age, I will ask you to just be honest. I would prefer that the winner be of the age of majority in his/her state of residence.

The first requirement is that you live in the United States. All 50 states are eligible.

The second is that you leave a valid e-mail address. I have posted a form that is supposed to accept e-mail addresses, but not knowing for sure how it will work, this is what I suggest to deter someone from just copying it without some work involved. You may leave it in this format: susanelizabeth31 [at] gmail [dot] com.

The third and final requirement is that you correctly answer one question that can be found if you read the Rudi's Gluten Free site. The question is:

How many formulas did Rudi's test before landing on a recipe?

If you go to the Rudi's web site, you have an opportunity to download a coupon for $1 off.

Here are some things you can do for EXTRA entries:

1. Follow my blog via Google Friend Connect or NetworkedBlogs.

2. Follow Rudi's via Twitter.

3. Like Rudi's on Facebook.

4. Like this blog on Facebook.

5. Blog, tweet, or share about this giveaway, and leave a link for each thing you do to spread the word.

The required entry may be one comment. Please leave separate comments for each additional entry.

The giveaway goes live as soon as the post is live and will run through midnight September 30, 2011. The winner will be announced after going through random.org by October 7, 2011 and will have one week to confirm after receiving his/her e-mail.

Let's keep it clean and keep it fun!

Udi's Snickerdoodle Cookies

Udi's very graciously sent me some food items to try out for reviews when I inquired if they work with bloggers. One of the items and the first one that I tried was the newest Snickerdoodle Cookies. These are gluten free, soy free and nut free. They do contain egg and milk ingredients.

I had to look up information about snickerdoodles because I had a misconception about the name. Basically they are just a cinnamon sugar cookie that used to have a snail shape.

I have had other gluten free snickerdoodles. They are very soft and chewy and quite cinnamony. The Udi's snickerdoodles are larger than most, but still just as good.

With the exception of the egg and the milk which can cause some allergy sufferers issues, I highly recommend giving these a try.