Title: “Pants on the Ground”

Purpose/Question: Determine if the intake of gluten effects the time spent on “The Can” for individuals diagnosed with celiac disease vs. individuals undiagnosed celiac disease.

Hypothesis: Persons on a gluten free diet will spend much less time on “El Crapper” than people who are undiagnosed with celiac disease.

Abstract/Background: I was sitting on “The Lou” and had plenty of time to think about the gluten I ate that day.

Materials: Gas mask, “Porcelain Throne,” TP, gluten.

Procedure: #2, repeat

Results/Data: The following graph from my sample population(1), shows that people on a gluten free diet, spend far less time on “The Thinking Chair” than people who are undiagnosed and “normal” people(control group).

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Conclusion:  Eating a gluten free diet reduces test scores.

From our data collected: “Normal” people spend an average of 6 minutes on “The John” vs. 11 minutes for undiagnosed people with celiac and 3 minutes for people who are diagnosed with celiac and are eating a gluten free diet.

Gluten is a wheat protein that is hard on the body to digest, resulting in more time spent on “The Potty.”  A gluten free diet usually consists of healthy and easy to digest foods, therefore less time is spent “Going Push.”

Time spent “Dropping the kids off at the pool” is usually spent reading readily available magazines, books, or labels of cleaning products.  If such mentioned reading materials or cleaning products are not within an arm’s reach, then time is spent pondering life or the common creative thinking exercise of “What do I use when when the TP runs out.”

The result of such reading, or creative thinking, leads to a greater mental capacity in the fields of current events, joke telling, chemical reactions of cleaning solutions, or secret keeping like “how did the bathroom hand-towel disappear.”  Later in life, when confronted with a standardized test or problem solving in the workplace, the subject scores higher in the reading comprehension, science, and logic portions of the test.

Despite the occurrence of what is known as “brain fog” among the celiac community, the test sample of “undiagnosed people with celiac” test scores still remained higher.

Bibliography: 1.  Sample population size of 3… me, myself, and I.

Disclaimer: This study from the College of Brain Fog is meant for humorous people only, and may be used as a thesis reference at the risk of your well-being.  I am not a scientist, do not claim to be one, do not play one on TV, but have received an honorable mention in the 2nd grade science fair of 1992.

GLUTEN FREE The Movie from Tyler Isaacson on Vimeo.

I can’t “love” many of my favorite foods anymore, but after switching to gluten free, there are two things I do love: Mary’s Gone Crackers and hearing other people’s stories.  For the next month, I am able to combine the two!

The Contest: Answer as many, or as few, of the following questions as you wish.  EMAIL your answers to me.  I will post them as a new article on my blog so that others can enjoy and learn from your story.  After many submissions, a third-party will then select which three responses they enjoy the most and another three as runners-up.

The Prizes: The first three selected will receive a box of Mary’s Gone Crackers goodies!- including Mary’s Gone Crackers in original, Caraway, Black Pepper, Herb and Onion and Sticks & Twigs in Sea Salt, Chipotle Tomato, and Curry.  Please visit their website for more information on these great products.  The runners up will each receive a Gluten Free Awareness Wristband.

The Questions: Recently, my sister had to interview someone and write a paper on a food related business.  My answers can be found HERE.  Here are your questions to choose from:

1. What are your favorite restaurants? Are these different than before you followed the diet?
2. Are food industry workers knowledgeable about Celiac disease?
3. Do you trust that the food you receive from restaurants/friends/family members is gluten free?
4. What were some things you believed about Celiac disease that have proven false?
5. What precautions do you take when eating at family and friends’ houses?
6. What is the biggest difficulty with having Celiac Disease?
7. What are the foods you missed the most?
8. Does your significant other/friends eat gluten free with you?
9. If you initially did not follow the gluten free diet.  What made you change your mind?
10. Has Celiac Disease affected aspects of your life other than your diet and health?
11. Why did you start your blog?  What are your goals with the blog?*
12. What are the most common topics on the blog?*

Submitted Answers:

• Me/Mike
• Bella
• Velmoose
• Janelle
• Laurie
• Sarah
• Amy
• Debra

On a daily basis, I check to see what search terms people used to end up on my blog.  Some are pretty basic and some get complicated.  I am going to try and cover a bunch of them now…

Chipotle: My “go to” for a quick and tasty meal.  I can always find one nearby when in a hurry.  I get a chicken burrito bowl!  I like it so much, I decided to make my own at home.  It was pretty good.  Every time I go, I watch the cooks to pick up tips and the little ingredients.

Free Wristbands: My wristbands are not free, but I do offer a couple ways to get yours free for helping spread the word about them.  I did give a handful away for free during the gluten free Twitter party #gfree.

Bakeries: There are some great bakeries out there that make gluten free items.  Lots of them are even supplying restaurants so they can offer their version of gluten free plates.  I started a list of gluten free bakeries sorted by state.

Jokes: I would have never guessed that so many people would search for jokes about celiac.  I guess when the symptoms are “dirty,” you could call these dirty jokes!

Margaritas: Yes, margaritas are gluten free!  There are lots of different ways to make them, but I posted my favorite.  I can’t think of anything that is normal in margaritas that could contain gluten.  This is always one of my safe bets.  I used to love a nice cold beer on a hot day(or any occasion) but good margaritas are doing the trick for me now.

Magazine: There are a few magazines about living gluten free: Delight (that I wrote a review of), and Gluten Free Living.

Effects of Gluten/Sleepy/Lethargic:  I didn’t have the typical stomach symptoms, so it was tough for me to make the switch to gluten free and keep on track.  After years of delaying my switch, I noticed I was always tired and could care less about many things.  After switching, I feel great and alert!  When I accidentally get ‘glutened’ I can tell a difference in how I feel that day and the next morning.  I wake up after sleeping 10 hours and think back to something I ate yesterday.

Beer/Light Beer/Redbridge/Bud Light: NO, Bud Light is not gluten free!  YES, Redbridge is gluten free!  There are many alternatives now and many more to come!  ARTICLE

Taquitos: You have to watch out when buying or ordering taquitos,  they can have hidden sources of gluten.  First, you need to make sure they use corn tortillas.  Second, frequently even ground beef can have gluten added to it.  I wrote an article about some taquitos I found that state on the box GLUTEN FREE.

Pizza: Pizza is one of the things I miss the most.  I used to be able to go to the Little Ceasar’s and get a $5 pizza- how convenient, cheap and good.  I can’t do that anymore.  Here are a list of places that serve gluten free pizza.  Through trial and error, I have found some good ones.

#gfree: This was a Twitter tag that is used to categorize Tweets when talking about gluten free.  It was started when we had a gluten free party day.  The #gfree party was a huge sucess, and I hope to see many more in the future.  People continue to use it.

I hope this article has helped give you quick references to the most frequently searched terms on my site about gluten free.  I’m sure I will add more in the future.

Today on The View, Elizabeth Hasselbeck spoke about her life with celiac and releasing her new book THE G FREE DIET.

Here are some videos:

On CBS News

Video #2