Becoming Gluten-Free -- Where Do I Start?

Getting Started With Gluten-Free Cooking

Gosh it's difficult. When I started I kept thinking, "Okay they have all this gluten free stuff, but holy cow it's expensive! How do you know what to buy? Isn't there a list somewhere?  Which cookbooks are decent? Which sites should you visit?" I had a million questions. I'm going to do my best to answer them for others.

If you're going to go gluten free and you figure you'll do some baking without buying all the fancy stuff, here's what you need to know. You can't replace wheat flour with just one gluten free flour -- there's going to be a mixture. You must have a gum to hold your food together. You absolutely must read labels because even tomato soup is off limits (campbells and the generic knockoffs thicken with wheat flour. You will someday have money again and you'll get the hang of this I swear.

The one cookbook I currently own is Carol Fenster's 1000 Gluten-free Recipes. Everything I've made to date turned out really good, especially the pineapple upside-down cake. So the following shopping list is formed based on her favorite flour.

Things you should buy right away:
White Rice Flour
Tapioca Flour
Corn Starch or potato starch (you'll want the latter later, but since you probably have corn starch in the house, start there)
Sorghum Flour
Brown Rice Flour
Xanthan Gum
Guar Gum
Rice
gluten-free pasta (we like the quinoa-corn the best)
Tomato Sauce or Paste
Eggs
Gluten-free yeast
Any gluten-free breakfast cereal (chex has 4 kinds, Post's cocoa pebbles are even gluten free)

Why the non-baking items? Well you see, you will not just eat baked goods and the thing is that these items will help you get along.

What should you watch out for? Dude, this list is long, but I'll try to boil it down for you:
Pre-made soups
Terriyaki
Regular soy sauce
Any pre-made Chinese food
Wheat (duh)
Barley
Rye
Some oats (sorry but there's a lot of transfer here)
Anything in a bakery glass
Birthday parties (alas)
Meatballs and meatloaf