Here's My Gluten-Free Food List with Brand Names to Make Shopping Fast and Easy

Using your own personalized core list of safe brands
makes it faster and easier to shop gluten free
(Post includes my own list to get you started)

The purpose of moving to a gluten-free diet is to stop your immune system from overreacting and give your body the space it needs to heal.

Creating a core gluten-free food list can help your body calm down and give you a good, solid nutritional foundation from which to build your own personalized gluten-free diet.

With this core list of safe, brand-specific gluten-free foods in hand, you can get your weekly grocery shopping done faster, and you won't have to worry as much about making a serious mistake.

Avoiding gluten will be easier than ever before, especially if you're becoming more sensitive to gluten.

Ordinarily, gluten-free food lists contain dozens of brand names and product sizes for each food, but that's quite overwhelming and unnecessary, so I don't do it that way.

You do need a list, though.

One reason is that some product sizes are gluten free, while other product sizes are not, even for the same brand. It's not as simple as just staying loyal to a particular brand name.

You also have to take the package sizing under consideration.

This requires you to stay diligent and be extremely mindful to make a gluten-free diet work well. It also takes a lot of memorization.

(But please don't run. I have a simple solution to the time-consuming old-generic way of doing things. It's down below!)

As you travel down the grocery aisles, the old method requires you to skim through that lengthy list of products for possible brand names that are available in your area and double check yourself before putting the item in the cart.

You're told to read the product label in full, even if you've purchased that particular food before.

Manufacturers and their suppliers can change ingredients without notice, so you'll also need to read the label each and every time you shop.

If you don't have a clear image in your mind as to what's gluten free and what is not, shopping for groceries can literally take hours.

However, there is a much faster way to shop than using a book of lists, lengthy online printout, or even an app.

Obviously, you should never place speed above your health, but taking the time to create a personalized core gluten-free food list is also a must-have if you are reacting to everything you eat.

A core gluten-free diet isn't just for beginners.

It is a practical, realistic, safe food list that you, as a super-sensitive celiac, can return to again and again while sorting out why you're currently being glutened.

[Make sure to pin this post, so you can return to it when you need to find out what's glutening you!]

How This Gluten-Free Food List was Born

The very first time I went to the grocery store, after going gluten free, I spent 5 hours walking up and down the aisles (without a list) trying to find enough food to serve the two of us for the week.

The second week, I did have a lengthy list of potential food choices with me, but it was not very effective.

I still spent 4 hours in the grocery store because I wasn't familiar with appropriate brands and product sizes.

While I admit that a whole foods diet is definitely a wise choice for eating gluten free, my ignorance about condiments, sauces, and safe frozen produce only complicated those shopping trips.

When everything you are used to eating is suddenly off-limits, it's easy to feel overwhelmed and insecure.

These feelings of helplessness also popped up again for me as I started to get more sensitive to gluten. Gluten reactions are not fun and the fear of getting glutened definitely plays into the emotional turmoil that accompanies a gluten-free diet.

During my first month gluten free, I literally spent hours putting together a hefty safe-foods shopping list. Since I couldn't afford to buy a book of gluten-free lists, I made my own.

That list contained every single brand that was reported to be gluten free, including product sizing. Each time I learned of a new safe brand, I added it to the list.

The list was huge and just kept growing.

I printed it out and put it in a 3-ring notebook, hauling it with me everywhere we went because I never knew when I was going to need that list. It was quite burdensome and totally impossible to memorize.

While it did enable me to carve an hour off my shopping trips, I was still spending way too much time shopping for gluten-free groceries.

At one point in my journey, I heard about a group of name brands that had openly declared that they would not hide gluten ingredients on the label.

Since I had to read the label of everything I bought anyway, this dramatically cut down on the amount of time I was spending every week.

I simply memorized those few brand names, eliminating the need for a list.

This was a bit rough on the intellectual part of the mind that wanted to shop the sales each week and save some money, but I could easily justify the added expense because store brands are not always safe for celiacs, anyway.

Shopping was still burdensome, but spending 3 hours at the grocery store sorting through name-brand products was more welcome than spending 5.

A Core Gluten-Free Food List
came from the realization that Sweet Baby Ray's
Raspberry Chipotle sauce was our favorite barbecue sauce

One day, while standing in front of the barbecue sauce display at the end of an aisle, it suddenly dawned on me:

Our favorite barbecue sauce was Sweet Baby Ray's Raspberry Chipotle sauce, so why was I standing there wasting time checking out the other potential brands?

Why not just go with Sweet Baby Ray's, as well as our other favorite brand products, and just be done with it?

• One product.
• One brand.
• One size.
• Easy and quick.

That earth-shattering moment caused a fissure in my brain that continued to spread from product to product, until I had created a shopping method that was quicker, easier, and far more effective than what I'd been doing.

Why?

Because there was nothing to memorize. I just stuck to one brand per item. Our favorites, despite which brand was on sale that week.

Today, some of the items we buy do have more than one brand, but this is due to trying out new products and dependent on where we're shopping that week, such as Costco or Kroger.

Difficulties of Finding Reliable Information to Make the List

Removing wheat, barley, and rye from your diet isn't as easy as avoiding bread, crackers, and pancakes. It takes time to read the list of ingredients, the allergy statement, and the fine print on the label before you buy something.

However, a label is only a springboard to safety. It's just the beginning of the process.

No gluten ingredients does not guarantee that the product wasn't made in a shared facility or even on shared equipment with other products that have gluten ingredients.

This fact took me a while to accept.

I wanted to be like all the other celiacs who could just pull a gluten-free product off the shelf and be good.

However, the truth is:

Almost ALL products on supermarket shelves are made in shared facilities!

Manufacturers are in business to make money.
They don't understand what a dedicated
gluten-free facility even is!

Even products that claim to be made in a dedicated facility are often just confined to a different room in the same building. That's how Betty Crocker and many others define a separate facility.

It's just a different room.

In addition, many products are also made on shared lines. This includes gluten-free products, and even certified gluten-free products, as well. Certification does not mean the product was packaged in its own building or even on its own dedicated machinery.

Certification simply means the product meets the standards set for that certification organization. The standards appear to be getting more lax over the years, instead of tighter.

The FDA labeling law left open a ton of loopholes.

This is why we now have sorted oats flooding the gluten-free market, even though they are not gluten free. And why gluten-removed ingredients like wheat starch can appear in the ingredient list of a gluten-free product.

It was super nice that some major brands offered not to hide barley under generic terms like flavoring or natural flavors and have said they will declare when barley is, or even could be, in the product. But when the labeling law went into effect the list of those major brands disappeared.

With today's sketchy labeling laws and lack of real transparency, staying safe when extra-sensitive to gluten is an even greater chore than my first attempts at shopping were.

Using Google or the latest app to track down safe gluten-free foods or relying on gluten-free food lists available online is not helpful for those who react to trace levels of gluten residue.

Many of the products thought to be naturally gluten free are seriously contaminated and will cause a super-sensitive to react.

The fact that going gluten free has reached fad status doesn't help either because now you can't trust a gluten-free or celiac blogger to even be gluten free.

And yes. You heard that right.

Not all gluten-free bloggers are gluten free themselves.

While some do have a significant other or child that needs to be gluten free, some blogs and most articles online are written by people who have simply collected the information and honestly don't know what they're talking about.

In fact, I once read a content marketing post where the blogger showed her readers how to set up and provide content, as well as a sales funnel, for a gluten-free for beginners blog when the blogger wasn't actually gluten free.

She showed them how to get the information they needed.

Much of her advice was offensive to celiacs and her so-called factual info was taken from old, non-active forums, or basic information that is sold in packages by non-celiacs, so the facts were outdated or plain wrong.

You have to be super, super careful regarding whom you trust.

Manufacturer's websites may contain helpful information, but you still have to beware of what you believe.

Many manufacturers do not understand what gluten free means. They simply stand behind the FDA definition. Nor, do they understand the importance of avoiding cross contamination at the manufacturing level.

Also keep in mind that many companies don't update the information on their website in a timely manner. The allergen and gluten information you find there might be outdated or wrong.

What's said there is just a possibility.

You're still better off emailing the company or phoning them. The phone number and email address, if they have one, will be on the product package.

Some company websites also have contact forms at their site. I've only been ignored one time by using the contact form. Most companies will reply, but the reply might just be a standard form letter they send to everyone.

You have to listen to the meaning behind the words they use when they answer your questions.

Beware that:

Information you receive by email or over the phone will often be rehearsed and simply a form letter or speech based on legal rederic that protects the company.

The company has no interest in protecting those with celiac disease. They are in business to make a profit. That is their purpose and goal.

Don't forget that.

This tendency to spin out form emails has become more common since the gluten-free labeling law went into effect.

Companies that don't test for gluten will not guarantee that their products are gluten free. They can only reveal if they actually have added gluten ingredients to the product.

Even if they do make a gluten free claim, the claim is only within the legalities of the gluten-free labeling law.

And this includes all of those past companies who promised not to hide barley on the label.

Their past promise had to do with the company not knowingly adding any ingredient with wheat, rye, or barley to the product without listing it on the label.

When a company (or almost anyone) uses the term gluten free it will ALWAYS mean:

Up to 20 ppm.

It will almost never mean that the product is gluten free and safe for a super sensitive celiac.

It simply means that the product fits within the FDA guidelines for products to be labeled gluten free.

The same goes for naturally gluten-free foods.

Many, if not most, non-gluten grains have been shown to be highly contaminated with gluten during studies conducted by Gluten Free Watchdog.

If you react to gluten residues that are lower than 20 ppm levels, finding safe grain sources can be extremely difficult.

Going with certified gluten-free brands is best, but only if you can tolerate that level of gluten contamination. Not all super sensitive celiacs can tolerate certified gluten-free grains.

Many have to go completely grain-free for a lengthy period before the body calms down enough to stop reacting to grains.

Personally, I can handle up to 10 ppm, if I only eat at that level of contamination very occasionally. I do much better with products that are certified at up to 5.

I also have to limit the amount of condiments I use, as well as more general products.

Creating a safe list requires you to be a detective.

Everything is suspect until it's been proven to be safe.

But even then, safety is relative. What triggers my immune system might not trigger yours.

What a Core Gluten-Free Food List Can Do for You

During the early days of my super sensitivity, when I was struggling to discover what I was reacting to, a fellow super-sensitive celiac advised me to create my own personalized gluten-free food list.

She told me to start with only 2 or 3 foods that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt were 100% safe for me, and then after the immune system calmed down, to try adding new gluten-free foods to my diet – one at a time.

Creating a core gluten-free diet gives you a safe starting point from which you can begin to rebuild your life.

But, more importantly, it gives you a place of safety you can run back to when you're reacting to something, but can't quite figure it out.

The core diet I eventually designed was larger than just three foods, but three foods is where I personally started from.

That degree of restriction enabled me to test what I was eating and nail down the fact that no matter how badly the gluten-free community wants to believe that other food sensitivities are to blame for non-improvement on a gluten-free diet, that is rarely the case.

I'm not going to say never because things like casein and soy allergies do exist, but I don't believe they exist to the extent that the gluten-free community believes they do because:

• dairy products
• soy products
• corn and corn derivatives
• non-gluten grains like sorghum flour
• flaxmeal, preground
• Xanthan gum

and other common gluten-free products can be contaminated with gluten. Removing an entire food group will get rid of the problem, causing you to mistakenly believe the food group was responsible instead of a particular brand or item.

It is not always necessary to go to that extreme.

Find the brand that's problematic, and your symptoms just might clear up.

That's what happened to me after I did a little dairy sleuthing, stopped using a local brand of butter, and switched to the Amish Roll Butter available at Smith's grocery (a Kroger store) instead.

The aggravating symptoms I had been experiencing for several months suddenly went away.

Tips for Putting the List Together

A core diet should consist of mostly whole foods, plus a few items that you are 100% sure are safe for you.

If you're new to a gluten-free diet, it is wise to avoid all 8 of the major allergens, especially dairy products and sugar, so you can give your body the space it needs to heal. Many foods that have the potential to be inflammatory can keep your body in an inflammatory state.

The goal of using a core diet is to assist your immune system in calming down.

This is not a permanent gluten-free diet.

It's more like a perfectly safe-and-sound, sure foundation upon which you can rebuild your life.

If you've been on a gluten-free diet for a couple of years, or even more, you might not need to go to this extreme. It all depends on how sensitive to gluten you are.

Things can turn around remarkably quickly if you're able to track down the gluten residue that is giving you problems and get rid of it.

You don't want your core gluten-free diet to be boring.

Make sure that you include your favorite foods in some form. Choose gluten-free foods that are particularly soothing and comforting, so you won't have to battle with a deprivation mindset at the same time.

No matter which foods you choose, make sure they are 100% safe. Safety is what a core list is all about.

If you have any doubt about the gluten standing of any food you want to place on your list, don't eat it!

It is best to error on the side of caution than to include anything that is suspect. The potentially harmful food can throw the whole list off track.

Also, it's a good idea to keep a section in your recipe file filled with recipes that can be made with your core list of ingredients. Choose recipes that are simple to make, but extremely tasty and filling.

If you feel bad enough to return to this core list, you will want to make dishes and snacks that you really like. Don't make your list something unbearable.

It's meant to be soothing and healing.

A Quick Word About Symptoms Not Coinciding with Damage

This gluten-free food list has evolved over the years many times.

It started out as being a list of my favorite brands and product sizes, so I could save time shopping for gluten-free groceries.

It then evolved into a list of safe products that were much lower in gluten than my original list, so I could use it to help me track down potential sources of gluten.

It changed again when I went through a 3-year stint of giving up dairy products, corn, and soy, and evolved again when I put those things back and started zeroing in on just the gluten.

Products change.

Manufacturers either bend to fit the needs of the gluten-free community, or they do not. An example of this is:

Gluten-free Barilla pasta

It started out on my safe list, then was taken off when both hubby and I started reacting with dermatitis herpetiformis symptoms.

As time went by, however, I learned that the pasta was now being made on separate machinery, so I put it back on the menu, and neither of us have had any problems.

While I appreciate the idea that the immune system reacts whether you have symptoms or not, at this point in time, symptoms are the only measurement we have to go by.

According to the studies done by the FDA, super-sensitive celiacs react to gluten residue in foods with symptoms BEFORE damage to the intestines occur.

Granted, that might not be true for everyone, and a symptom could also potentially mean you've stepped over the line, but it did hold true for the groups of super sensitives that the FDA looked at.

My Core Gluten-Free Foods List with Brand Names

Here is my core gluten-free foods list. Since this is dialed in to fit my own super-sensitivity, please consider it to be a sample list only:

Fresh Meat, Poultry, and Fish

I rarely eat fish, but I do love wild salmon (frozen) and the fresh Rainbow trout our landlord used to give us from time to time. I simply baked it with butter and basic spices like salt, pepper, and garlic.

When using this core list to track down hidden gluten, I do not eat tuna. Most canned fish is packed in broth, making it iffy at best.

If I'm using this list as an elimination diet, I will also remove the skin from the poultry and eat more chicken breast than dark meat. Poultry is often cleaned with corn-based washes.

I never buy frozen chicken breasts, even when on my personalized standard gluten-free diet, due to the injected saline solution. It don't trust what's in there, which is a vertigo thing.

It may or may not be gluten related. I honestly don't know.

Meat is always fresh, as well. I rarely eat frozen hamburger patties. In fact, I only buy freshly ground meat at Costco because I know I won't react to it.

Processed Meats

I only eat a few processed meats:

• Kirkland Signature boneless ham
• Kirkland Signature bacon
• Kroger sausage (patties, links, or Italian-type)
• Foster Farms gluten-free corn dogs
• Earl Campbell's Hot Links (hot dogs)

If I'm not reacting, we will sometimes pick up some dry salami from Costco to go with our cheese and crackers for a quick lunch or snack.

I rarely eat lunch-meat.

Fresh Eggs

At one point, I thought I was reacting to eggs, but it turned out to be the butter I was cooking them in.

Although fresh farm eggs are always best, I can't justify the cost. We buy 5 dozen at a time, depending on who has the best price that week.

Fresh, Canned, or Frozen Fruit

Since both hubby and I grew up in Southern California, we struggled with getting fresh fruit in Utah. It was horrible most of the time, so we got used to eating canned and frozen fruit.

Here, in Texas, fruit has been a bit better, but it's still difficult to get the quality that we used to get in Southern California.

Many hyper-sensitives have trouble with fresh strawberries, due to producers growing them in beds of wheat straw, but I haven't seen that in myself yet. Maybe, I've just been lucky and always picked up brands that weren't.

Frozen fruit is mostly blueberries or fruit that I've frozen myself. I use whatever brand is available and haven't had any problems. Same for canned fruit. I have never reacted to fruit at all.

Fresh, Frozen, or Canned Vegetables

Vegetables are bit more tricky, even if you stick to the single ingredient type, because some brands of frozen vegetables have statements regarding the potential for cross contamination at the factory.

This means that almost all frozen vegetables are suspect. I try to stick with major brands, if possible.

However, I haven't run into any problems with fresh vegetables other than mushrooms. Mushrooms used to make me sick to my stomach, when we lived in Utah, so we rarely ate them. Like strawberries, mushrooms can be grown in wheat straw.

Here, in Texas, I've not had any problems, even though we still purchase mushrooms from Costco.

My reaction to mushrooms might have been because our landlord used wheat straw to mulch his home garden. In fact, I react to vegetables grown in home gardens almost all of the time. While the landlord didn't grow mushrooms, the fertilizer, soil amendments, and wheat straw used for mulching are all problematic for me.

Mushrooms might have simply added to that gluten load.

We stick to mostly major brands for canned green beans, tomatoes, and corn. Often, we buy Kirkland Signature 8-packs of canned green beans, tomatoes, tomato sauce, and corn.

Fresh Potatoes 

Potatoes come in many varieties and all of them are safe for me. While Ore-Ida frozen french fries or hash browns are also fine, I don't eat them when I'm overly reacting because I don't digest fats very well.

Gluten-free Grains and Starches 

White rice and corn are the only two gluten-free grains I eat right now.

Brown rice gives me a stomach ache. This may or may not be a gluten problem. I don't know. Since I went so long without a celiac diagnosis, I might just need some more time to heal.

I react to all non-gluten grains like sorghum as if they were gluten.

Bob's Red Mill uses oats from assorted suppliers, and some of the oats are mechanically sorted instead of pure. This brings a certain level of gluten contamination into their processing facilities, so I don't use Bob's Red Mill products at all.

I cannot do pseudo grains. I react to flaxmeal and psyllium husks, but don't know if that's brand specific or due to something else.

In general, I stay away from grain and seed fiber products because it seems like that's the problem right now.

The rice flour I use comes from Vitacost. It is not certified to be gluten free, but comes compressed in a 3-lb bag, like Authentic Foods products do. I have not reacted to it.

Their tapioca starch and potato starch are certified to 10 ppm, or less, and packed in boxes that look like Ener-G brand.

For cornstarch, I only use Argo or Argo-Kingsford because I react to cheaper brands. This is probably because cheaper brands are run on shared machinery and Argo is not.

However, my son recently showed me that Kroger cornstarch is marked gluten free on the plastic container. The container is similar to the container that Argo comes in, so I'll have to look into that a bit further.

I can do Honeyville blanched almond flour, occasionally, which is certified to 10 ppm, if my intestinal track is not inflamed. I just can't eat it every day, but that might be a fiber thing, too.

I can also eat Nutiva coconut flour, which is certified to 10 ppm, but only in very tiny amounts. Coconut is high in fiber, so it's not a gluten thing.

Xanthan Gum 

Vegetable gum grown on wheat starch is a severe problem for me, so Bob's Red Mill was not an option, but a few months ago they announced on their website that their Xanthan gum is now made from corn.

However, a lot of gluten-free products contain Xanthan gum from an unknown source. I don't know if Bob's was the only one out there that was using wheat starch, or not.

I only use NOW Foods brand xanthan gum in my home cooking, which is grown on cornstarch.

Herbs and Spices

I use fresh stuff like garlic, cilantro, parsley, and gingerroot.

Redmond's Real Salt is a Utah product that's processed from the salt beds there. Now that we're in Texas, I pick it up online at VitaCost.

Some herbs I use are dried, but if I'm really having a problem I stick to salt and pepper until I figure it out.

Some of the spice brands I use are:

• McCormick single herbs and spices
• McCormick Italian Seasonings
• McCormick Seasoned Pepper
• Kroger single herbs and spices
• Lawry's Seasoning Salt
• Shur Saving single herbs and spices
• Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning Mix
• Mrs. Dash Herb and Garlic Seasoning Mix
• Lighthouse Dill Weed

I reacted very badly to Hidden Valley Ranch seasoning mix in bulk, from Costco, due to either the dried buttermilk or xanthan gum.

Simple Condiments

Mayonnaise is Best Foods or Hellmann's.

Catsup is Heinz, including their reduced-sugar or organic variety, but I don't use very much of it.

We use Gulden's spicy brown mustard only.

Soy sauce is San-J tarmari sauce. It comes in several varieties. We like the low-sodium one the best.

The only barbecue sauce we use is Sweet Baby Ray's, but Kraft varieties are also gluten free.

Generally, I mix the sauce with sugar-free raspberry spread from Costco and season it with Chipotle pepper because Sweet Baby Ray's Raspberry Chipotle sauce only comes in a tiny bottle now.

When my blood glucose is out of whack, I make my own sugar-free sauce out of Heinz sugar-reduced catsup.

We also use Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce occasionally.

Boullion

I was using Better than Bouillon paste in Utah, chicken and beef, but when we went to Texas on vacation, a year before we moved here, my oldest son used Kroger chicken bouillon cubes, and I was fine with those too.

Currently, I'm using Knorr Swiss powders because I can get them in super-giant containers for 4 bucks at our local Hispanic store here in Texas.

Sweeteners

I react to beet-based sugars. They make me quite sick to my stomach, so I try not to eat too much of it.

For my own cooking, we only use pure cane sugars. White sugar, brown sugar, and powdered sugar were C&H in Utah, but our local Costco here in Texas sells U.S. Company pure-cane sugar, and so far, I'm been doing okay with that brand too.

When my blood glucose is out of whack, I cut way back on sugars. Currently, I'm using Splenda Zero (a liquid) and a bit of Erythritol (a sugar alcohol). I've also been doing okay with Cary's sugar-free maple syrup.

However, if I were overreacting to something, I wouldn't be using much sweetener until I figured it out.

Most of the honey we use is Kirkland Signature pure-honey that we pick up at Costco.

Molasses is Grandma's brand.

Oils and Fats

Oils are very tricky for me. I don't do well with standard vegetable oils, if I eat them all the time, although traditional Crisco shortening in very small amounts is okay. I mainly only use shortening to grease the inside of my custard cups to make gluten-free hamburger buns.

I have a couple of cookie recipes that use shortening, but if I were overreacting, I wouldn't be making cookies anyway.

We stick with peanut oil with a high monounsaturated fat content, Pompeian grapeseed oil, Kim Kum Kee pure sesame seed oil, or Nutiva organic extra-virgin coconut oil mostly.

I have problems with some brands of olive oil, but cheaper brands cut their olive oil with vegetable oil. Same with sesame oil. We picked up our last bottle of olive oil from the oriental store, and I've been fine with that.

Make sure you read the label. You don't want to pay a premium price for mostly vegetable oil.

I occasionally use bacon fat, but not a lot, since fat is where animals store their toxins.

I also use Manteca lard.

Vinegar

Vinegar is problematic for me. Although most within the gluten-free community will cry fair ball when it comes to white distilled vinegar, I can only tolerate it in very small amounts.

I can use organic apple cider vinegar or Mitsukan rice vinegar with no problems.

Coffee and Creamer

Many people react to Folger's coffee, but that's the brand that hubby prefers. I cut my consumption in half and am now doing much better with it. We can get huge containers of it at Costco.

We tried Great Value, and I did react to that coffee, before I learned that coffee can be contaminated due to the way it's harvested and processed, so now we stick to the Folger's.

Sometimes, it makes me sick to my stomach, so I cut my coffee consumption in half and now do fine. I just limit myself to 1 to 2 cups a day. Many times, I do not drink an entire travel cup full, anymore.

I'm doing much better with the Folger's that way.

For creamer, we used to use Coffee-Mate chocolate caramel creamer, which is no longer dairy free I noticed. It now contains milk derivatives.

Currently, my blood sugar cannot handle sugar in the morning, so I'm using Torani sugar-free syrups to flavor my coffee (caramel and chocolate) and using real heavy cream that we get from Costco.

Dairy Products

When I'm using this gluten-free food list to get the immune system to calm down, rather than as just a gluten-free foundation, I stay away from dairy as much as possible.

Thai Kitchen coconut milk or Pacific Foods organic almond milk have been fine for me.

When not using this list to track down gluten, I use Amish Roll Butter, Challenge butter, or Land 'O Lakes butter, but I've been reacting to something lately again, so I'm switching from Land 'O Lakes to Challenge to see if things clear up for me.

Sour cream is Daisy or Kroger brands

I only eat Kroger cottage cheese.

Hard, aged cheeses are well-known name brands like Tillamock or Brandon. But I also seem to do okay with the Kirkland Signature brand, as well, which is much cheaper.

Cream cheese is Philadelphia. I'm okay with the store brand from Kroger, but it doesn't taste as cheesy as the Philadelphia does.

Sarah Farms is the heavy whipping cream brand that our local Costco sells.

However, I don't use a lot of dairy.

Gluten-Free Pasta

If I was tracking down a reaction, I would avoid all pasta, and just stick to white rice and potatoes, but when I'm doing okay, I eat gluten-free Barilla (white rice and corn), Le Veneziane (corn) pastas, or pure rice noodles from an oriental grocery store.

We also picked up some noodles made with sweet potato starch that I've been fine with, too.

We do not have pasta often, however. Most of the time, I couple meatballs and spaghetti sauce with summer squash or meatballs and cream sauce with green beans.

Miscellaneous Products

For gluten-free baked goods, I use traditional dry-active yeast or instant yeast, depending on which type of available. I also use Clabber Girl baking powder and just regular baking soda.

My favorite type of tea is Stash Chai Spice.

Beans are iffy, but my favorite type is Rosarita lime-flavored refried beans. I seem to do better with the refried variety because it's smoother. Lately, I made a pot of lima beans that I seened to do okay with. I made it using frozen lima beans.

Recently, we also found a brand of gluten-free crackers that we really like: Simple Mills Almond Flour crackers. I do well with those, too.

Gluten-Free Cereals

I eat Cocoa Pebbles cereal by Post and Crispy Rice from Malt-O-Meal, but cereal isn't really kind to my blood sugar, so I only have it occasionally. I think it might be a morning thing, but haven't tried eating it for lunch in a very long time.

I react to Chex cereal, so avoid General Mill's products as much as possible.

I have also recently learned that Nature's Path is using mechanically sorted oats in their products, so I just avoid their corn-based cereals, as well.

Hubby does eat Chex, though.

Mechanically Sorted Oats

In fact, a huge majority of gluten-free manufacturers are starting to do this, if they haven't already.

Manufacturers were using mechanically sorted oats long before General Mills made it a popular way to cut costs. They just didn't tell anyone that's what they were doing.

And the practice doesn't just affect cereals.

Bringing mechanically sorted oats into a gluten-free facility or running products made with mechanically sorted oats on the same line as gluten-free products contaminates the line and the entire facility.

This makes all gluten-free products suspect from manufacturers that use mechanically sorted oats in any of their products. I have completely stopped using Bob's Red Mill products for this reason.

Once You Have a Safe Gluten-Free Foods List, Expand Slowly

Your own list might be longer or shorter than mine, and contain different brands that are safe for you or even different products.

The idea behind creating a safe gluten-free foods list isn't to literally copy what I eat, but to create a solid foundation upon which you can build.

Use your own favorite gluten-free brands.

I've been working on this list for several years now.

And while it doesn't contain everything that is safe for me to eat, it does contain what I eat when I'm tracking down a hidden source of gluten, which makes it a great list for beginners, as well.

This is why I call it a CORE gluten-free list.

When your intestines are inflamed, there are many foods that you won't be able to eat, even though they don't normally bother you when you're not reacting to something, so don't automatically assume that every ache and pain is caused by gluten contamination.

It's not.

Stress or even your everyday emotional state can create chemical imbalances in the body. If new to being gluten free, your swollen intestines might be sore and raw. For that reason, you'll want to increase your food list super slowly.

I cannot emphasize that point enough.

Add one food at a time, only after you have done extensive research on the product.

While you don't have to limit yourself to products marked gluten free on the package, if you add more than one food at a time to your core diet, you won't be able to tell which ingredient is giving you trouble.

Also, keep in mind, that gluten cross-contamination is not consistent.

Gluten contamination will vary from batch to batch, as well as how the product was handled at the grocery store.

The gluten in your house, work environment, car, or someone else's home or car will all contribute to your overall gluten load and make tracking down viable suspects extremely difficult.

The amount of gluten in a single breadcrumb is so high that realistically, cross-contamination from your environment poses a greater threat to your health than your diet does. For example, hubby works with drywall materials and drywall is not gluten free.

However, creating your own personalized list of gluten-free foods can be a safe haven that can protect you from unnecessary gluten exposures because it's the total load of diet and environment that sets off the autoimmune system reaction.

While staying mindful takes practice, patience and good detective work are key in designing a gluten-free diet plan that works each and every time.