Staying Healthy

A quick update – the rosacea is looking a lot better – my skin is looking significantly less red, and the spots are virtually all cleared up.

My psoriasis is improving, though not yet gone. I haven’t used any lotions or potions on it while trying the experiment of being gluten free, and the lesions are still there, though softening and shrinking. No doubt, since I’ve been living with psoriasis for decades, it will take longer to clear anyway.

Now, this makes the genetic question about the coeliac disease that my daughter has rather interesting. We’ve always assumed that my husband was the ‘carrier’ since he has a relation who has coeliac – but if I am also sensitive to gluten, then perhaps it was a combination of both of us.

Of course, the other thing we don’t know is whether it is giving up gluten or lactose that is doing the trick. I’ll give this a little longer, and then perhaps try reintroducing one or the other, to see what happens.

If you’re considering going gluten free / dairy free for psoriasis or rosacea, I can recommend it … it’s not that difficult (though it would be nice to share a pizza with my husband) and seems to have an effect – for me, anyway. Worth a try, I’d have thought.

A recent competition for search engine optimisers has just finished – raising money for Celiac Research. Congratulations to the winners – and it will have raised awareness of celiac/coeliac disease.

We’re in the middle of Coeliac Awareness Week here in the UK – how many people have you explained coeliac disease to recently?

So my coeliac daughter is away for four days – the other two children have been having a gluten binge. I’ve deliberately gone out and bought some of the many manufactured products that we just don’t have in the house as a rule, including doughnuts, special cakes, chicken dippers and sausages. I know that many of these kinds of things are available gluten-free, but since the coeliac is also nearly vegetarian, we often don’t eat them anyway.

I haven’t seen a satisfactory gluten-free doughnut, though I can make a good gluten-free cake. I have tried making gluten-free doughnuts, though without much success.

Sausages we can get gluten-free at our local supermarket, and chicken nuggets can be home-made if you fancy them. Almost certainly they’ll be better quality than the bought-in versions, though gluten-free chicken nuggets (and fish fingers) are also available at the local supermarket.

Tonight I plan to take the two non-coeliac children to MacDonalds. We practically never go to MacDonalds – though it is possible to eat there gluten-free as long as you don’t mind eating meat – so this will be a major treat for the children. How sad is that?

How to make gluten-free chicken nuggets at home:

Cut chicken breasts into nugget sized chunks. Coat in gluten-free flour, and then in beaten egg. Then coat again in some kind of gluten-free crumb coating. This could be purpose-made (Orgran make crumb coating), homemade (crumble gluten-free bread very small and toast under the grill) or you can use polenta or cornmeal (our favourite). Some people like to add another coating of egg and then crumb, to make a thicker coat. Finally, put the nuggets on a greased baking sheet and sprinkle with vegetable oil, and bake for 15-20 minutes depending on the size of the nuggets at 180C. You could also fry the nuggets, though the coating tends to slide off – at least it does when I try!