Recently I attended the Gluten-Free and Allergen Expo in Lisle, IL,  founded by the awesome Jen Cafferty.  I was so in awe of all the different vendors, bloggers, authors and gluten-free experts I got a chance to talk to. It really was a cornucopia of gluten-free goodiness!

Here I am with Jen Cafferty.....Jen ROCKS

The Expo ran from Friday April 29, 2011 to Sunday, May 1, 2011.  On Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting a lot of the vendors and sampling a lot of new products I hadn’t tried and visiting some of the vendors I am very familiar with and whose products I absolutely love. Continue reading →

I was SO excited to meet “The Pamela” from Pamela’s Products and had a lot of fun hanging out with her too! Pamela’s Products puts out the most awesome cookies (they’re addicting!) and I sampled some of her cheesecakes. You really need to try her products!

Here are "The Pamela" and Marion from Pamela's Products

I recently posted a product review of Crunchmaster‘s crackers on Examiner.com (click here to check it out!) and really really LOVE their crackers! I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Dani and Lisa and got to have dinner with them on Friday night too when a few of us went to Maggiano’s.

Loved meeting Dani and Lisa, "The Crunchmaster Gals"!

Tried the best oats from Gluten Free Oats! It was great meeting Forest and hanging out with him too!

Forest really knows his oats!

We all know how much I LOVE Rudi’s Gluten-Free Bakery! It was so great meeting them and at the Expo they were handing out some awesome grilled cheese sandwiches….yummy!

Vanna White....eat your heart out!

SO glad I got the chance to meet Lee Tobin from Whole Foods Gluten-Free Bakehouse. Lee was instrumental in helping with the “World’s Largest” Gluten-Free cake for the “1 in 133″ event I posted about last month.

Go Lee for helping with "1 in 133"!!

So many great bloggers attended the event too! On Saturday, after volunteering, I was fortunate enough to be included at the VIP Party with some awesome gluten-free bloggers,  authors and other fantastic gluten-free people.  A great time was had by all!

We all rock the Gluten-Free World!

I was able to attend some of the presenter’s demos on Sunday as well. Here is one of my favorites, Carol Kicinski. Carol was just on QVC recently in their inaugural Gluten-Free episode selling her new cookbook, “Simply….Gluten-free Desserts”. Carol is a professional recipe developer, food writer and America’s first gluten-free (only) TV chef. She is currently on “Daytime TV” monthly as “The Gluten-Free Cook”. She creates simple recipes that are absolutely delicious and just happen to be gluten-free. I am proud to announce that I have a copy of her cookbook that I will be giving away very soon! Please watch my Rockin’ Gluten-Free Facebook page for details. Check out Carol’s website at simplygluten-free.com

Carol makes it so simple to be gluten-free!

Stay tuned for more featured bloggers on my site during the month! They will be making some outstanding contributions and have some amazing stories to share.

I would like to close this post with bringing back my friend Lauren-Lucille aka “The Celiac Diva” with two videos she shot while at the Expo. She always knows how to put a fun spin on anything and you may recognize someone in the one of the videos . Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/-rhVFVU5Elg

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In case you have been wondering what the “1 in 133″ badge on my website has been all about….on May 4, 2011 at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Washington D.C., there is going to be a Gluten-Free Labeling Summit called “1 in 133″ to call on the FDA to mandate gluten-free labeling. This is something that is long overdue. The event will be a V.I.P. reception, bringing together federal lawmakers, concerned members and friends of the gluten-free community and leading gluten-free food manufacturers.

On August 2, 2004, the FDA was tasked with developing and implementing standards for gluten-free labeling as part of the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA). On Jan. 1, 2006, the FALCPA act went into effect. As a result, the presence of eight allergens including dairy, eggs, fish, peanuts, shellfish, soy, tree nuts and wheat are now declared on ingredient lists. The problem with this for those of us who need to eat gluten-free is it did not also require disclosure of barley and rye, which, in addition to wheat, also contain gluten. On January 23, 2007, the FDA published a proposed rule about defining the term “gluten-free”, allowing 90 days for public comments. Now four years later from when the FDA published the proposed rule and almost seven years later from the date originally tasked to the FDA, the standards have yet to be completed and have left millions of Americans with Celiac Disease and Gluten Intolerance at risk of illness from contaminated food. This is inexcusable!

Approximately 1 in 133 Americans have Celiac Disease, thus how the event was named. Celiac Disease (also known as celiac sprue, coeliac disease, non-tropical sprue or gluten sensitive enteropathy), is a chronic and permanent sensitivity to the food protein gluten, found in the grains wheat, barley and rye. Developing the disease requires three things: a genetic predisposition; exposure to gluten through digestion; and a trigger to start this atypical immune system response. It can occur in people of all ages once exposed to gluten, and is the most common genetic disorder in North America and Europe, although it is found in populations all over the world. Celiac Disease is classified as an Autoimmune disease.

In addition to those that suffer from Celiac Disease are those, like myself, that suffer from Gluten Intolerance. People with Gluten Intolerance can have the same overt symptoms like those with Celiac Disease but do not rise to the level of having an autoimmune disease. There are approximately 18 million Americans that are Gluten sensitive.

The “1 in 133″ event is the brainchild of Jules Shepard, noted gluten-free author, baking expert and celiac community advocate, and John Forberger, a winning gluten-free triathlete and active blogger. How this came about, according to John Forberger, is he was sitting in the hospital for 14 days, after being contaminated by gluten, and he talked to Jules about putting this all together because it was about time someone did something to finalize this task. At first they discussed making the World’s largest gluten-free cookie but then Jules decided it would make more of a statement to bake and build the World’s tallest gluten-free (and dairy-free) cake which is now estimated to be around 12 feet tall. The companies involved in helping with the baking and building of the cake, in addition to the Embassy Suites in Washington DC, include Jules Gluten Free, Oxford Communications, Whole Foods Market, Earth Balance and Dari Free. The advocates include the Gluten Intolerance Group of North America, University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, The University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, Living Without magazine, in addition to many others.

Ways you can help:

1. Please donate. I am proud to be included among the list of many sponsors, which also include Rudi’s Gluten-Free Bakery, the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness, and Bakery on Main . You can be included on the list too if you donate $133. Otherwise, they suggest donating in $11.33 increments – $11.33 for each member of your family who eats gluten-free and would benefit from clear gluten-free labeling laws. Please click here to donate.  If you are on Facebook, you can also donate through Facebook causes.

2. Please sign the petition.  Please join myself and others in signing the petition to raise our voices and help make a difference! Spread the word too, we need to be heard! Please click here to sign the petition.

3. Please send a letter to the FDA. Please join me in sending off a letter to the FDA. If the FDA gets enough letters sent to them, that will grab their attention as well. The letters are already set up for you, just click here to add your name and send it off.

4. Please spread the word online by adding a badge to your website or blog. They have the HTML code already set up for you to copy and paste onto your site.  Please click here to get the code for the badge.

For more information, please visit the “1 in 133″ website at www.1in133.org.

Showing your support can make a difference! We need this to happen.  It is a BIG DEAL!

Thank you SO much for your time and consideration.

Yours truly,

Andrea

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Hello everyone! It was over 80 degrees here in the Chicago area last Sunday and I was loving every minute of it. Back in the 50s now but that is Chicago for you…

I feel very blessed to be devoting myself  to the Gluten-Free world on a full-time basis. I hope to be posting many more blogs in the near future and would appreciate if you could help by spreading the word about my site. Would love to add more subscribers! In addition to my Rockin’ Gluten-Free website, I also am the Chicago Gluten-Free Food Examiner for Examiner.com. I have a link to my articles here on my website and would love subscribers there too. I generally keep the articles local to Chicagoland but I do a lot of product reviews so it is still worth checking out!

April and May are shaping up to be very exciting months here in the Chicago area.  I will be attending and volunteering at the Gluten-Free andAllergen-Free Expo at the Wyndham Hotel in Lisle, IL from April 29-May 1st. This is going to be an exciting (and overwhelming I’m sure!) event with over 70 different vendors at the vendor fair as well as some top names from the gluten-free and allergen-free world. They will have 2 days of cooking classes and fun activities for kids in an allergen-free area. If you live in the Chicago area you definitely don’t want to miss this. They still have tickets available for the cooking classes but they are selling fast. Tickets for the vendor fair are $10 in advance and $15 at the door. Tickets for the cooking classes are $175 for the day. For more info please go to www.gfafexpo.com and also check out my article on Examiner.com…here is the link..

Gluten-Free and Allergen-Free Expo

The other event I am very excited about is the University of Chicago Spring Flours (yes, that is spelled right!) Annual Benefit Dinner taking place on Friday, May 6th at the Swissotel in Chicago. Doors open at 6pm. Tickets are $150 and this event is expected to sell out as in previous years. Many big restaurants and bakeries from the Chicago area that offer gluten-free options are expected to contribute to this wonderful event.  The list is pretty extensive but here are some on the list:  Ben Pao, Bistro 110, Bob Chinn’s Crabhouse, Cooper’s Hawk Winery and Restaurants, DaLuciano’s, Deerfield’s Bakery, Fogo de Chao, Maggiano’s, Mity Nice Grill, Mon Ami Gabi and Cafe’ Ba Ba Reeba, Wildfire, Rose’s Wheat-Free Bakery and Sweet Ali’s Gluten-Free Bakery.  There will also be a silent and live auction and an opportunity to hear the latest about the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center’s programs and services as well as the progress on their quest toward the cure for Celiac Disease while enjoying delicious gluten-free Tiramisu provided from the wonderful DaLuciano’s (YUM!).  Should be an exciting event for sure! Gail Pierce, Event Chairperson and University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center Board member,  says that what is so wonderful about this event is “for those who have Celiac Disease or Gluten Intolerance, it is the one big event where we can truly enjoy a delicious meal, without any worries about it being safe. For us, it’s like being a kid in a (gluten free) candy store.”

For more details, please visit the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center’s website at http://www.celiacdisease.net/annual-benefit.  For the full scoop, please check out my article in Examiner.com. Here is the link:

University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center Benefit

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