Tricks for a Dietary Transition?

January 26, 2007 9:18 AM

My wife has a condition that may be helped by cutting dairy foods and wheat from her diet. Can anyone advise us on how to make the transition from a diet replete with dairy and wheat to one devoid of these foods? How will our bodies react? What about our psyches? Can anyone recommend recipes or better yet, cook books?
posted by partner to health & fitness (29 comments total)

I've heard good things about Living Without magazine.

I don't have a problem with wheat, but I'm lactose intolerant, and one things that helps with that is to seek out food from parts of the world where many people are lactose intolerant. It's easier just to eat Chinese food than to try to adapt, say, Italian food to my needs.
posted by craichead at 9:25 AM on January 26, 2007

In my experience, dairy's easier to avoid than wheat. Bread is the basis for most of the fast convenient things we eat, so that avoiding wheat means a fair bit of planning and not expecting to eat on the fly. I have no idea how this will interfere with your psyche: for some people the planning and loss of spontaneity are much more of a pain than for others.

Madame should figure out whether she can eat spelt and kamut, which are closely related to wheat but aren't wheat. There are products made of these grains which are pretty good, and pasta made of rice, quinoa, corn and other things. Depending on your local bakeries you may find bread made of non-wheat grain as well. Of course, finding these means you're still making your own sandwiches rather than buying them at the deli. The major downside here is that these products are a niche market and tend to be more expensive than the vastly more common wheat-based versions.

Good luck.
posted by zadcat at 9:27 AM on January 26, 2007

I was about to say - learn to cook some awesome Southeast Asian cuisines. They are almost entirely dairy free, and you can without much effort avoid wheat products. Of course, Western stoves are not really adapted for stir-frying, but you can totally wow your neighbors with your new-found acumen.
posted by scrim at 9:28 AM on January 26, 2007

Here's a blog that has wheat/gluten free recipes.
posted by sulaine at 9:30 AM on January 26, 2007

Can't give much guidance on wheat, but do for dairy...

My daughter seems to have an allergy to dairy, so while my wife is breastfeeding, she's gone off it as well.

The key for us has been SmartBalance (or EarthBalance, same thing, different manufacturers). Tastes remarkably buttery, but is non-dairy.

We cook with it, put it on toast, etc, etc.

Also, Silk brand soy milk isn't bad. I happen to like soy milk, so don't mind the soy-ness, but my wife doesn't, and she's been okay with that particular brand.

I would stay away from almost all other dairy free substitutes, however. Dairy-free cheese, sour cream, etc, are all, IMO, pretty nasty.
posted by gregvr at 9:32 AM on January 26, 2007

Trader Joe's and Whole Foods both have brochures/guides to eating gluten and dairy free from what's offered in their stores. Hope you have one of the two close. Surely the guides will be useful to guide your shopping anyway.
posted by sauris at 9:42 AM on January 26, 2007

This is somewhat localized, but might give you a few ideas.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 9:45 AM on January 26, 2007

There is a huge variety of gluten free foods that are available in local co-ops and places like Whole Foods. Our local big chain grocer is starting to carry these items too (cookies, crackers, mixes, bread, etc.). You can order these items from Amazon, too. I am also working on adopting a lactose and gluten free diet. It is really hard. I recommend joining some local support groups (you can find them through local nutritionalists or even just online), they will share personal experiences and helpful hints as you get started.

A woman I work with just had her sister-in-law staying with her for ~6 mos. and she has Celiac's. She normally lives in NYC, so she had access to lots of different products that she tried to recreate with items she found in our area. She had lots of great hints - invest in a good bread machine, buy the gluten free mixes and go to town adding extra flavors that interest you. She recommended the potato flour over rice for baking dessert items.

Eliminating gluten from my diet means I have to do more actual cooking, which is something I am loathe to do. Many pre-prepared foods contain gluten as thickeners or filler, so I can no longer just grab something off the shelf, I have to read ingredient labels.
posted by blackkar at 9:49 AM on January 26, 2007

Dairy free cream cheese is actually really good. This is coming from a former vegan who loves cream cheese and slathers superthick layers of it on bagels. I also second Earth Balance; though I love Smart Balance, GregVR, it has dairy in it.
I'm assuming she's good with rice. Rice is incredibly versitile. Rice pudding, rice crispy treats, rice porridge, rice milk, rice crisps/crackers, rice cakes(both the snacky wafer kind and the Japanese triangley kind), and about ten thousand different savory recipes.
Rice can do anything. Every seen Seven Samurai? You can kill a dude with a rice cake. It's true.
posted by Juliet Banana at 9:51 AM on January 26, 2007

I'm not sure about gluten-free diets, but vegan cookbooks are pretty easy to come by. Vegan With A Vengeance and The Everyday Vegan are good places to start.
posted by wearyaswater at 9:56 AM on January 26, 2007

Is her problem wheat specifically or gluten more generally? It's a lot easier to cut out wheat than to cut out gluten. But there's growing awareness of celiac disease, which makes a gluten-free diet more doable than it would have been a few years ago.
posted by craichead at 10:03 AM on January 26, 2007

FYI, Smart Balance is not actually dairy-free, but Earth Balance is. Both are made by the same company. Earth Balance is the only decent-tasting non-dairy margarine I've found. It tastes good on toast, and it's good for baking too.

As for avoiding wheat, for baking you can use gluten-free baking mix. My mom has celiac disease, and she mixes gluten-free baking mix with rice flour when she bakes (half and half), with pretty good results. The consistency isn't quite the same as goods baked with wheat flour, but it's not too far off. And it's pretty tasty too.

Rice noodles are yummy. You can find lots of good recipes online for Asian dishes using rice noodles.

Good luck with the new diet!
posted by smich at 10:06 AM on January 26, 2007

there is a new beer coming out that is said to be gluten free, from I believe Michelob. There was a recent article about it in the Ny Times science section (i think). designed for people with celiac's.
posted by chickaboo at 10:12 AM on January 26, 2007

I agree with zadcat that wheat might be a little harder to avoid than dairy, so what you might want to do is research wheat-free products and recipes, and then substitute dairy when necessary.

There are a lot of people avoiding wheat for whatever reason, and googling "gluten free recipes" or "wheat free recipes" returns a whole bunch of ideas. Also, health food stores are a great resource for finding wheat-free grain products; I frequently see wheat-free breads and all kinds of non-wheat flours. I've personally had good luck baking with spelt flour -- it tastes a lot like whole wheat, and has the added bonus of being really good for you too. Rice flour, potato flour, and chickpea flour are other substitutes I've heard of people having good luck with, and there are undoubtedly more out there.

With regard to substituting dairy, you might want to look at some vegan cookbooks and/or recipe sites: there are some really good recipes out there, and many of them are also conscious of other dietary restrictions (whether or not something is gluten-free is something I see frequently when looking at vegan recipes). Even if you don't use the recipes, they can give you a good feel for what works as a substitute for various dairy products.

With regard to specific dairy substitutes, I find Tofutti products are usually easy to find and very good. Their cream cheese and sour cream especially are hard to beat, and their American-style cheese slices taste like the real thing (even if the real thing is kind of over-processed and not really cheesy... it makes a good grilled cheese nonetheless). I'm a fan of Vitasoy soy milk, but it all depends on your personal preference, so don't be afraid to try a bunch of them out.

Southeast asian cusine, as scrim suggested, is definitely something to look into as well: I frequently cook Indian, Thai, Japanese, and Chinese (Cantonese, usually) and none of it that I can think of has any wheat or dairy. Googling "authentic [indian, thai, etc.] recipe" has usually worked well for me -- I actually don't own any cookbooks with these recipes in them.

As with any dietary restriction, you might find you're doing more cooking and label-reading, but you should be able to eat very well once you've re-oriented your pantry a bit. I hope this was helpful to you!
posted by AV at 10:22 AM on January 26, 2007

I don't eat dairy or wheat - wheat because of allergies, dairy by choice. Fantastic way of eating, to my mind. I second the yummy factor of rice noodles - they're amazing with stir fried veggies and a little tomato sauce mixed in....so good!

My favorite sandwich in the world is a veggie burger topped with avo and tomato, between two corn tostados. Very savory, filling, and crunchy. You won't miss wheat or dairy at all.

I make my own verion of those KFC bowls you see advertised on TV (in the US). I put mashed potatoes in a bowl, and then a layer of corn, and then a layer of chopped veggie burger, soy protein, or beans, or whatever you like, and then a layer of tomato sauce. That's one of the many variations, but it's my favorite. You will be full.

There's a non-dairy butter substitute called Smart Balance that's every bit as good as real butter. You can cook with it and bake with it and flavor with it.

I also love to make risotto. It's very satisfying - good comfort food. My favorite recipe uses vegan veggie stock, fresh plum tomatoes, and spinach.

As far as transitioning goes, you may actually experience several days of the motherlode of mucous being expelled from your lungs and sinuses. I did. Other than that it was really easy, and I could breath so much better, and had a total absence of joint pain. So it was all good. Email's in my profile if you want a pep talk, more in-depth details about transitioning, or recipes, or whatever. Good luck.
posted by iconomy at 10:23 AM on January 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dhosa are good - gluten-free, dairy-free pancakes. Savoury with curry, but if you make a batch of batter it's also quite nice the following morning for breakfast.

I put the recipe I use up the last time this question was asked here - there's a lot of good advice in that thread.
posted by handee at 10:24 AM on January 26, 2007

Oh, one more thing - if you're feeling indulgent, dairy-free ice cream is awesome, Tofutti and Soy Delicious brands especially. Seriously almost impossible to tell it from the dairy kind.
posted by AV at 10:27 AM on January 26, 2007

Vegetarian Times magazine offers quite a few recipes that are vegan, and many with out wheat.
Here are some recipes from "Bob's Red Mill" they make a lot of products I use (I'm vegan).
You may need to start shopping at specialty stores instead of your usual grocery store. Try Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, or any natural food stores near you. Things made with rice flour are quite good, and you may find yourself not missing the wheat at all. If you like cheese, you'll want to find a soy cheese substitute. Keep in mind that not all brands are equal. Try different brands until you find one that tastes right. I like Follow Your Heart brand vegan gourmet cheeses, but your tastes may vary. And here is a great site to find products you can't find in stores. Good luck. The first few weeks will be tricky, but it gets much easier after that.
posted by Alpenglow at 10:29 AM on January 26, 2007

If you're really going to be hardcore about dairy, you should be careful with Indian food, because it's typically cooked with ghee (clarified butter.) It's not a problem if you make your own, but it means that Indian restaurants will probably not become your default eating out option.
posted by craichead at 10:37 AM on January 26, 2007

This is fantastic information and encouragement. Thanks to you all!

craichead, I don't know if it is gluten or wheat. I guess we'll have to look into that. What's the difference?
posted by partner at 10:55 AM on January 26, 2007

Basically, as I understand it, wheat is wheat. It's a food, and some people are allergic to the food. Gluten is a protein found in wheat. Some people are intolerant of that protein. The problem is that gluten is added to a whole lot of processed foods that don't contain wheat. So if you're allergic to wheat, soy sauce is fine, but if you're gluten-intolerant, most soy sauce is going to be off limits. (You can buy gluten-free soy sauce, but you'll have to seek it out.)

I know that people who have celiac disease have to be really fastidious about avoiding all gluten, but that might not be true of your wife. It's worth asking her doctor.
posted by craichead at 11:09 AM on January 26, 2007

Gluten is "an ergastic amorphous mixture of proteins found combined with starch in the endosperm of some cereals, notably wheat, rye, and barley." The composition of the proteins differs, as I understand it, and one can have a sensitivity to wheat gluten without being affected by others, although some people's bodies reject any kind of gluten. The only way to find out for sure is to experiment.
posted by zadcat at 11:09 AM on January 26, 2007

If you are thinking about Asian cuisines, remember that most soy sauce is brewed with wheat. You can buy wheat-free tamari yourselves, but for eating out you'd have to check with the restaurant. Depending on your level of sensitivity, the amount of wheat in soy sauce may not even be an issue.

Gluten-free breads are on the whole much denser than wheat breads. It makes for small, crumbly sandwiches. I've been meaning to try making bread with teff flour - what injera is made from - since injera seems to have the springiness that I associate with wheat bread. So Ethiopian or other East African food might be good cuisines to check out.

Bob's Red Mill makes gluten-free baking mixes and specialty flours. They also have a cookbook with a lot of gluten-free recipes. I find their baking mix to be a little beany-tasting, so I cut it with rice flour when making sweet things. Their stuff is available at higher-end grocery stores.
posted by expialidocious at 11:14 AM on January 26, 2007

If you are thinking about Asian cuisines, remember that most soy sauce is brewed with wheat.

Interesting! That will teach me to pretend I know more about soy sauce than I actually do.
posted by craichead at 11:19 AM on January 26, 2007

The Paleo Diet by Loren Cordain is pretty interesting and has a bit of an online following. The diet eliminates dairy, gluten, and pretty much all processed foods. I've felt very healthy since I've been eating this way and blood tests have confirmed it. See www.paleodiet.com for tons of recipes and links.
posted by Durin's Bane at 11:56 AM on January 26, 2007

A lot people feel that soy-milk based products are indistinguishable from real dairy. I find this to be absolutely not the case even kinda sorta. I cook with butter, I love cheese. The texture, mouthfeel, and flavor of non-dairy versions is different, period.

However, disliking one type of tofu-based dessert or soy milk or whatever should not discourage you from trying other brands. I've had vegan cheesecake that was truly fantastic. (Different than when it's made with ricotta or even cream cheese, but a wonderful dessert nonetheless.) I've had soy milk that didn't make me wrinkle my face over the weird aftertaste. Don't get frustrated if you have to keep trying until you find a version that you genuinely like.
posted by desuetude at 3:20 PM on January 26, 2007

There's a similar question concerning dairy to the one others have asked about wheat: is it all dairy she's avoiding, or just lactose? There's a wide range of lactose-free dairy products, from newfangled (that lactose-free milk they sell) to traditional (yogurt and blue or aged cheeses, whose lactose has already been broken down by bacteria).
posted by nebulawindphone at 5:56 PM on January 26, 2007

When I was eliminating wheat and dairy, these are somethings that I found helpful:

Go through your cookbooks and make an index of all the appealing looking recipes that don't include wheat or dairy (or have clear and easy substitutions). Then, when you want to find something to make, use your index instead of flipping through cookbooks and being confronted by all the things you can't eat. One of the benefits of doing this is that the cookbooks you already have probably reflect your tastes, and including them in your cooking routine can help maintain a sense of normalcy while you adjust to a new sense of self created by the restrictions.

Budget a certain amount of money (it doesn't have to be large) for "experimenting". That way, if you buy a $6 block of rice cheese and find it makes you want to puke, then you don't have to feel bad about throwing it out after one bite. And do so. Nothing makes you feel more deprived than forcing yourself to finish "substitutes" that don't satisfy.

Rice noodles are okay, but they aren't as filling as wheat. If you buy the brown rice substitutes for European-style pasta and sauces, bulk up your sauces.

If you can, adjust slowly. Start finding recipes and routines that satisfy, and build on these to create the kind of instinctive ability to satisfy your needs under the new conditions that you had over the old. The hardest thing for me was the totality of routine shifting: every meal takes thought and preparation whereas before I'd just go into the kitchen, look around at what we had, and easily come up with several options.

Total change means that you have to really take some time and effort to make the new options instinctive. If you have to transition totally, all at once, give some thought to how you can create routines and simple meals quickly. Also, brainstorm everything you like to eat now that doesn't contain wheat or dairy, write it down and put it on the fridge. That way when you wander into the kitchen hungry, you have a reminder of what parts of your instinctive cooking routine are well within your limits.

As to eating out: just bring your tamari sauce with you. No one cares (just don't forget it).

As to shopping: learn all the different names for wheat and wheat-products (or write them down) and read labels. Sadly, most packaged or pre-prepared foods contain wheat or wheat products, so depending on how much you need to eliminate, you might be pretty much down to every thing by scratch (including tomato soup and ketchup).

Good luck. It can be a difficult transition, particularly when it's done because of illness (which can induce profoundly uncomfortable/unhappy feeling that can be triggered by the food, which becomes a symbol of the illness). On the other hand, the support of the non-ill people in the household can really mean a lot, and when it works the long term benefits are well worth the initial transition difficulties.
posted by carmen at 8:13 AM on January 27, 2007

Especially while you are transitioning, it might be nice to have treats like the (more expensive) goat or sheep cheese. SmartBalance butter substitute does actually have dairy in it -- EarthBalance does not. (The former is presumably is for people trying to eat more healthy and lower cholesterol, not for vegans -- it may or may not be a tolerable level of dairy for your wife.) More brands: I have found that even very milk people enjoy Silk soy milk (as a separate thing, it does not taste like milk, merely good on it's own terms); Tofutti "cream cheese" and ice "cream", particularly the ice cream sandwhiches, but even the vanilla ice "cream" is good -- most brands can do a decent chocolate, but very few vanillas are good.

In some cases, it might be easier to substitute with something wildly different -- on Mexican food, I will often put more salsa or avocados on something the I normally would have put cheese on -- just something to make it taste more awesome.

I have often used blended silken tofu to do a lot of creamy things -- like make cream sauce for pasta (melt lots of butter-substitute and add salt), or blend with frozen fruit for a shake.

You may want to check a few vegan and wheat-free cookbooks out of the library and just see what some of the substitution possibilities are.
posted by Margalo Epps at 11:48 AM on January 28, 2007