The first year after I was diagnosed, I bemoaned the fact I could no longer eat oats. After years of eating steel-cut oats every day, I had to cut myself off. Strangely, I missed my morning bowl of oatmeal more than baguettes. I resigned myself to never eating them.
Again, how much things have changed.
Now, not only does Bob's Red Mill make gluten-free oats, but commercial baked goods made with oat flour and oat flakes are starting to show up on shelves around here. There are so many varieties of gluten-free oats available that we have our choice.
Lately, we've been enjoying Gluten-Free Oats around here. The oats taste great. The story is sweeter.
The son of the family who grows and manufactures these oats was diagnosed with celiac at the age of two. His parents didn't let him wheat, of course, but he ate the oats they grew in another field. Sometimes he grew sick. No one could figure out why. Later, when he was doing his Future Farmers of America project on no-bake cookies, he realized that oats are contaminated by growing in fields next to fields of wheat. (Those plants like to mix and mingle, apparently.) He searched for a source of oats he could eat. After finding one, he rolled the oats and packaged them himself, so that other local celiacs could eat oats. (Future farmer indeed!) This small endeavor grew into a family business, pushed forward further when his father was diagnosed with celiac too.
I met both father and son this weekend, at the GIG conference in Seattle, and they were utterly charming. And healthy.
Their oats are pretty darned tasty, too.
Gluten-Free Oats
578 Lane 9 • Powell, WY 82435
(307) 754-2058 • Fax (516) 723-0924
I get my oats from here. Great place and even greater people. The joy of a bowl of oatmeal was beyond all happiness. I really missed having a nice bowl of raisin oatmeal with salt and sugar. And the no-bake cookies, which were probably my favorite cookie.
ReplyDeleteFinally I'm seeing GF oats at regular grocery stores in Canada which is great! I do better on a no grain diet (at most I eat quinoa, which is not a true grain) but I haven't tried GF oats yet so maybe I'll be able to have them every now and again as a special treat.
ReplyDeleteI miss steel cut oats so much. Have you found any GF steel cut? I have not, yet.
ReplyDeleteThis post made me laugh. My five year old is not celiac, but she is allergic to another protein in wheat, so we all eat a wheat free diet at home. Oatmeal, which I'm neither here nor there about, has always been one of her favourites. She ate a bowl for breakfast almost every day from the time she started solid foods until her diagnosis a little over a year ago. Sometime last fall: we're wandering around a health food store way on the other side of our city, and we see GF oats. You'd have thought it was Christmas based on her reaction. She had some for dinner that night, breakfast the next morning, and they are definitely a staple around here now. We're using Cream Hill Estates: Lara's Rolled Oats. Its a Canadian company out of Quebec, and I thought your other Canadian readers might like to know about them, if they don't already. They also make oat flour, which I haven't tried yet, but its on my list.
ReplyDeleteMcCann's steel cut oats (from Ireland) work better for me than any other certified gluten-free steel cut oats I have tried. Ireland does not allow GMO and McCann's does not mix their oat processing machines with any that might contain a gluten grain. I have eaten McCann's steel cuts regularly for almost a year with no problems. Thankfully.
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