• Gas and bloating
• Abdominal swelling
• Burping/ belching a lot
• Breaking wind
• Bloated or extended stomach
• Bad Breath
• Stomach pain and cramping
• Bowel obstruction symptoms

There are others that I could list but I you should get the idea. This set of symptoms is often associated with gluten intolerance (and some of them may be associated with lactose intolerance). Heartburn and a feeling of too much acid in the stomach often occurs at the same time.

It  seems like it would make sense that if your you experienced just heartburn and no other symptoms, then gluten would not be to blame, but the in fact that is not true. You may be experiencing continued colitis and heartburn symptoms and are now looking for a heartburn cure. Even if you remove all the gluten from your diet properly, which rarely happens, your body may be ravaged from years or decades of living with intolerance. Sometimes you don’t want to look for a new heartburn treatment, thinking that it is unrelated.

You may still experience acid reflux symptoms, chronic heartburn, or indigestion even though the stomach rumbling and cramping is gone. You think you are gluten-free. You may not be. IF you are exposed to traces of gluten you may not experience abdominal swelling or breaking wind, but you may still feel heartburn after eating. You will want to check with your doctor before beginning or changing your diet or treatment plans, but you should think about re-examining how to avoid cross-contamination before you really certify yourself gluten-free, even if you have just heartburn and no other symptoms.

1. Include the standard sections about the gluten-related conditions, definitions and causes. Leaving these parts out will just be presenting yourself as less of an authority than your competitors.
2. Read the books that are already out there: You don’t have to read every one, but by seeing what parts are in all the books, as well as what is missing from all the books, you will end up with a far better gluten-free cookbook.
3. Don’t make it just about recipes unless they are awesome and not available elsewhere
4. Create original recipes. The web is filled with gluten-free recipes and “experts.” You want to offer something special and new. My belief is that you can convert virtually any recipe to gluten-free, therefore, the sky is the limit.
5. Test all your recipes: if you convert a bunch of recipes make sure that the directions you present actually work well (and are clear). Even if you know how each GF ingredient works in a cooked or baked dish generally, make sure you never skip this step. The last thing you want is bad publicity because your recipes are actually bad.
6. Include a new “technology” to set your book apart
7. Include nice photography: Think about including pictures of the actual dishes you have made. Try to steer clear of stock photography and things which might stifle the personal touch of your work,
8. Even if you publish your book traditionally (physically), have an e-book too.
9. Make sure the e-book format is compatible with anyone who might want to purchase it (or offer multiple formats)
10. Don’t over price it. Instead offer freebies like a bonus insert/ whitepaper or whatever.
11. Add testimonials and social proof such as celebrity endorsements. Even though they are just other people, their words carry a lot of weight and can really accelerate your book sales.
12. Be passionate. Start strong, finish strong, market strong.

Bonus tip: Be careful to not plagiarize. It may seem obvious, but much of the science of gluten intolerance will begin to seem repetitive to you as you read what is out there. Make sure that you cite what is not your in own words and find your own words for the ideas you don’t.

What you need to begin an elimination diet

My general recommendation he is for you to keep records and a log whenever you are trying to identify what is wrong with your wellness. You can often get valuable information when you look at how you feel, and what you’re experiencing over several weeks, or an extended period of time. Without a log some people me begin an elimination diet or construct elimination diet menus based on trial and error alone. Any time you are beginning any new diet plan or wellness plan, my strong recommendation is that you seek assistance from your wellness professionals. For more information you have and the better your records are, the more quickly you’ll be able to identify all of the offending ingredients and eliminate difficult symptoms, improving your overall wellness and well-being.
Even if you only plan on continuing your elimination diet for a couple of weeks to a month, such as when undertaking a basic Candida elimination diet, I believe the skills that you gain can be part of a significant lifestyle change and improvement. Even where a food intolerance is not to blame, reading labels and researching elimination diet recipes is essential. People often find many more items containing the offending ingredients than they ever expected. If you don’t build the habit of reading the labels of everything you eat, you will never know for sure if your food is cross-contaminated or contains a dose of the ingredients you hope to eliminate.

The reasons to begin an elimination diet may relate to a food intolerance such as gluten intolerance, or it may stem from a more permanent lifestyle change such as becoming a vegan. Even if it is the short term detoxification many people can benefit from an elimination diet.

I read all the time now. I take advantage of little bits of stolen time and feel super lucky if I read one page and pick some fact or even a GFCF recipe idea that I hadn’t thought of before. If you are like me, you don’t want to read on your phone much, and really don’t want to pull out a laptop, even if you have it to read for five minutes on the train or on a coffee break. That is the big reason I love having a Kindle.

Something cool also happens when I am at the coffee shop. It seems more interactive or comfortable approaching someone reading on a Kindle, whether a colourful Fire or the basic model. Laptop users might be working, so they get less attention. And who wants to bother a book reader? That sounds like a pickup line anyways if some asks what you are reading. Not only are people more interested, but it is also very easy to brush people off, since you are clearly doing something. And just sitting there with your coffee? Now you are learning nothing and actually getting cheap looks. The Kindle is a perfect storm of the ‘best of both worlds,’ if you are open to meeting people or interacting on boring afternoons or coffee breaks.

I bought my Kindle Fire from Amazon.com and have since loaded it up with two dozen gluten-free living books and gluten-free meals recipe books. I probably get through at least two or three extra books just in my spare time each month that I never would have fit in. I call that a win. The moral of my post is that you don’t have to shell out for my larger Ipad or even an Android tablet. $79 bucks gets you in the door.

Kindle Fire High Points

• 19 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books
• Thousands of popular apps and games, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, and more
• Ultra-fast web browsing – Amazon Silk
• Free cloud storage for all your Amazon content
• Vibrant color touchscreen with extra-wide viewing angle – same as an iPad
• Fast, powerful dual-core processor
• Favorite children’s books, graphic novels, and magazines in rich color

KIndle “with Offers”High Points

• 30% lighter, less than 6 ounces
• 18% smaller body, same 6″ screen size – Fits in your pocket
• Most advanced E Ink display, reads like paper
• Built in Wi-Fi – Get books in 60 seconds
• Massive book selection, over 800,000 titles are $9.99 or less
• Borrow Kindle books from your public library

The number one purpose of this article is to help you avoid unemployment that stems from difficulty adjusting to life with a food intolerance. More than that, though, this article is also about finding ways to make your career work better for you while minimizing the interruption and negative effects of the symptoms of your condition. There are a range of issues many of us face such as anxiety, shame, fear, as well as all of the physical symptoms. Sometimes the worst course of action is to simply act as though you can go about your daily work life with no changes or personal recognition of your condition. Doing that will often lead to fear and poor planning, then anxiety and shame, when you encounter serious symptoms and difficult work situations.

The first roadblocks for me are fear and anxiety. Much of these stressful emotions stem from feeling as though you are not fully in control of the outcome of your day, and the behaviour of your body. Obviously, one essential part of minimizing these emotions is to be vigilant in seeking to reclaim wellness and eliminate symptoms. I know that that is rarely a smooth and level upward march. Let me also note that anxiety here can really mean two separate conditions. Anxiety may relate to your concern over your ability to handle the day or work tasks, as well as embarrassing situations such as bloating, gas, and stomach gurgling in the presence of your co-workers. On the other hand, anxiety can also manifest as a symptom of food intolerances such as gluten intolerance as part of a range of cognitive symptoms that can make optimal functioning at work quite difficult. For the gluten intolerant individual, it may not always be easy to determine which of these two categories the anxiety stems from, particularly since they may overlap or feed into one another.

The fear and non-symptomatic anxiety stems a lot from feelings of helplessness or uncertainly over the outcome situations, for example. This may be worsened if your work environment is quite poorly suited to your needs and condition. If you suffer from severe bloating and gas every day, but work in a crowed office full of closely packed desks, this would naturally cause anxiety. It will also make the entire work experience far less fulfilling. Again, the ultimate aim is to mitigate or eliminate all of the serious symptoms, but I understand it is not so easy as that since it took me close to five years of concerted vigilant effort before my symptoms were alleviated to the point where I no longer experienced any serious anxiety or fear about work environments. Prior to that I was either afraid about my ability to work at all, or else convinced I needed a flexible job that allowed me to escape as needed if my symptoms became overwhelming.

In the previous part of this employment series (find it here) I covered whether or not you should fully disclose your condition to your co-workers, and how to get out of the endless cycle of explanations. One person (or group of people) that you may have to have a frank discussion with regarding your condition is your boss. This conversation needs to happen more urgently the more acute or severe your conditions are that create the fear and anxiety for you. Naturally, the thought of doing this will often create anxiety on its own, but that is part of life and this article is not about curing anxiety but dealing with the effects of food intolerance at work. Sorry to lay the tough love on you like that. The biggest obstacle after the anxiety is the shame. The shame can come from embarrassing situations at work, or from concerns over disclosing your condition to others and feeling that they will respect you less or see your differently as ‘diseased’ and less able or less worthy perhaps. This is a part of the reason why you really do not have to always disclose everything to your co-workers about your food intolerance. It does not affect them in the least. The bigger picture is that most of the people who find out will not know enough about what you are even talking about to make any negative judgement about you. Think about that for a moment.

The reason why the talk with your management may be necessary and unavoidable is because you want to do everything you can to protect your job. You do not want sick days to be mistaken for hangovers or being irresponsible. The same is true for days when you show up with stomach cramps. You want your boss to think you are a trooper, not a flake. The additional benefit of this conversation, which I see as the more important part is that this discussion frequently forces people to evaluate their work environment. I hate to cause a fuss and I think many others who suffer from food intolerance are the same. We desperately want to be seen as normal and able. How do you know that there are not accommodations that would not make your life easier. Something as simple as a different desk space or as major as switching your job (or part of it) to a telecommuting role. How do you know that you would not be twice as productive in the comfort of your own home? I know that I am!

Ultimately, planning and evaluating your work situation, including speaking with your boss about your food intolerance may mean that you have a new perspective on what is going to be most fulfilling for you. You may end up with a more flexible job role or a the ability to telecommute. Small changes may make big differences, too. You may find that you start re-evaluating what you what and where you are if your boss seems indifferent. You will rarely lose in any of the scenarios I covered in this article. You will usually end up with a more comfortable and fulfilling work situation, perhaps a clearer perspective, and less fear and anxiety about what should be painless day to day affairs.

Chocolate Frosting Recipe

Chocolate frosting does take a little bit longer than the basic chocolate icing I covered in the last article, but it is also more versatile in terms of the number of baked goods you can use it with. Although I do it the old fashioned way, you may want to use an electric mixer, instead of a wooden spoon or finger.

Ingredients:

120 grams vegan margarine or vegetable shortening
2.5 cups of GF icing sugar
½ cup of GFCF cocoa
1/3 cup of coconut milk (you can also use help or almond milk for this, but the canned regular coconut milk is by far the creamiest, not to mention the easiest to find in markets).
1 teaspoon of real vanilla extract

Directions:

Place the soft vegan margarine or vegetable shortening in a bowl (or chop the harder cold vegan baking sticks) and cream it using an electric mixer or trusty wooden spoon.
Add the GFCF cocoa and the icing sugar a bit at a time and beat into the shortening.
Add the coconut milk and vanilla extract then mix until very smooth.

As you can see, a gluten free, dairy free, soy free chocolate frosting recipe like this really is a snap!

I used to enjoy mochas and lattés, as well as many of the Christmas drinks that we may be missing if we are looking for healthy coffee recipes but suffer from food intolerance such as gluten intolerance, or dairy intolerance (casein or lactose). For some people, even soy is off limits. As a result, and from the experiences of my own life, I have compiled a short list of useful ingredients that will help you craft your own gourmet healthy coffee beverages from scratch in the comfort of your own home

I hope that you will not only enjoy the result of these coffee recipes, but also enjoy their flavour, and the major savings your pocketbook will enjoy. Without further ado, below is a list of ingredients that will help you prepare some of the coffee recipes that I have included for your reference at the end of this article.

You will find that with this list, as well as the coffee recipes that follow, you ought to be able to craft a fairly wide assortment of organic coffee drinks that you can prepare and savour even given nearly any common food intolerance. You should find that the result will often be slimming coffee that has fewer chemicals, preservatives, and cholesterol compared with the typical major chain drinks.

Healthy Coffee Recipes Ingredient List:

• Organic coffee
• Sweetener (optional)
  • Agave nectar
  • Honey
  • Brown sugar
  • Maple syrup
  • Refined sugar
  • Coconut ice cream
  • Vanilla or other syrup
  • Coconut milk
  • Spices (optional)
    • Cinnamon
    • Nutmeg
    • salt
    • Cocoa powder (depending upon recipe)
    • Milk substitute (for recipes that call for foam)
      • Hemp milk
      • Almond milk
      • Gluten-free rice milk
      • Coconut milk
      • Other flavourings or extracts (depending upon recipe and tastes)
        • Vanilla, maple, peppermint, almond, etc extract
        • GFCF soy-free Chocolate shavings

Healthy Coffee Recipes:

a)      Basic coffee

1. Start with a brewing a pot of black organic coffee. You can start with whole gourmet coffee beans and make it in a French coffee press if you like. You can also brew a pot of cheap fair trade coffee in an automatic coffee maker. Whatever works for you. I prefer a French coffee press to get the coffee oil and bit crema for the best flavour release.
2. Keep a few cans of whole coconut milk in the fridge. You can use light coconut milk, but that will just mean that you will have less to work with, since what we want is the chilled coconut cream that high in healthy coconut oil, with less of the water.
3. Cream: Scoop out a tablespoon of the cream and stir it very well into the coffee (or however much cream you would normally use.
4. Milk: If you prefer milk in your coffee, try hemp milk. I use it often and like the consistency and flavour in coffee. I find that almond and rice are thinner, although they can be very low calorie and better than black if you really want something in your coffee.
5. Choose one of the sweeteners listed above. This part doesn’t change much from how anyone would sweeten their coffee. If you are vegan, beware of white refined sugar, as well as brown sugar, which can contain animal products such as bone char. I recommend trying agave nectar. You may want to try Stevia, although it is not my cup of tea,

b)      Slim down mocha

1. Add a tablespoon of cocoa powder to the above recipe. I like to put mine right into the French coffee press or the basket of the automatic coffee maker.
2. You can do the same with the sweetener. Syrup or nectar will work the best, I find.
3. Use extra coconut cream. You can try adding a scoop right to the top like whipped cream, but I really like to just mix it in and use a bit less, to cut down on the calories in coffee.
4. Tropical cappuccino: What do you think? Look below for some tips.
5. Iced gingerbread present: What do you think? Look below for some tips.

You can use the above ingredients, directions and coffee facts to create many more recipes that build upon these. Imagine adding coconut ice cream and gingerbread cookies with coffee in a blender. You can make foam with hemp milk with a whisk or with an espresso steamer. Use these tips to round out the above recipes on your own and you will be well on your way to a full repertoire of healthy coffee recipes.