Triumph Dining Gluten-Free Guides Review

I have been eat­ing pri­mar­ily gluten-free (GF) foods for about eight years. I am Ital­ian and used to live on good pasta and great bread, so a GF lifestyle has been a sen­sual chal­lenge and, an often dis­ap­point­ing quest.

For­tu­nately, I also work in the gro­cery indus­try and select new prod­ucts for a large nat­ural foods super­mar­ket. Need­less to say, I get lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to try new things. Over the last ten years, the GF prod­ucts cat­e­gory of gro­ceries has exploded. Unless some­one dis­cov­ers a mir­a­cle cure, the demand for GF prod­ucts will continue.

With so many choices, and so much vari­ety in qual­ity, how is one to choose sat­is­fy­ing prod­ucts with­out bear­ing the expense of try­ing (and toss­ing) many dif­fer­ent, often high priced, new foods? Tri­umph Din­ing has pub­lished GF eat­ing guides to help gour­mands maneu­ver the GF scene.

The Essen­tial Gluten-Free Gro­cery Guide is an excel­lent resource for the per­son newly diag­nosed with Celiac and over­whelmed by the many dietary changes nec­es­sary. This book offers a com­pre­hen­sive selec­tion of many gluten-free nat­ural foods and con­ven­tional gro­ceries for con­sumers’ choice. The guide cov­ers every­thing from eggs and dairy to baby food.

The infor­ma­tion is self-reported by the com­pa­nies but the pub­lisher has done what it can to make the list as com­plete as pos­si­ble. There are even sym­bols to indi­cate the pos­si­bil­ity of cross-contamination. For accu­racy the authors also reviewed labels of prod­ucts that could be included in the guide but they did not receive infor­ma­tion from the com­pany directly. It is clear there was a lot of effort put into mak­ing these books.

While this is a good resource to know what you are look­ing for or what to ask your gro­cer to stock for you, be aware that the food indus­try changes very quickly. Some­times the newer prod­ucts taste more like the orig­i­nal prod­ucts they are try­ing to imi­tate. Ingre­di­ents lists can change quickly as well. It is the consumer’s job to stay on top of the changes and keep your gro­cer informed of brands and prod­ucts you would like to see on the shelves.

The Essen­tial Gluten-Free Restau­rant Guide is help­ful if you live in, or are plan­ning on vis­it­ing a big city like New York or Boston. Not only is it an exten­sive col­lec­tion of 6,500 eater­ies in 50 states, but it also offers tips to ensur­ing a pos­i­tive eat­ing expe­ri­ence. There detailed sec­tions on what to say in order to con­vey your order so the kitchen under­stands what you need.

Although, many eater­ies are aware of the need to have GF selec­tions on their menus, because of fre­quent changes in the food indus­try is it impor­tant to check with your server to be sure they are still offer­ing gluten-free menu items.

I am encour­aged that GF eat­ing is becom­ing more under­stood in the main­stream. That means more options for the ever increas­ing num­ber of peo­ple who need to remove gluten from their diet. As a mat­ter of fact, I recently heard that Sub­way was offer­ing GF sub­ma­rine sand­wich rolls.

Most impor­tantly, be informed and advo­cate for your­self when you are eat­ing out. You are the first line of defense when choos­ing your foods. Know what you can eat and make sure you talk to the right peo­ple about your food. The arti­cles in both of these guides will help you in your quest to ensure a gluten-free lifestyle.

Note: Indi­vid­u­als with severe gluten sen­si­tiv­ity should avoid restau­rants entirely. Unless the entire restau­rant kitchen is GF, cross con­t­a­m­i­na­tion is almost always present on some level.

Sarah Gianni is a con­tribut­ing writer to Seeds of Life.  She is a self-proclaimed foodie and loves to dis­cover new and inter­est­ing foods to try.  Look for more reviews from Sarah in the future.

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Dis­clo­sure: Seeds of life was pro­vided a set of Tri­umph Din­ing Guides to review for an hon­est opin­ion. No other com­pen­sa­tion was provided.