Passover Foods for Glutenfree Diets

Passover Products for Glutenfree Diets

Many think of Passover as a holiday when you are asked to give up many of your favorite foods. However, now that we are using a gluten free and soy free diets, we see that during this time we can obtain many prepared foods that our kids enjoy and are not available during other times during the year. Observing Passover has become popular with the glutenfree community since there is a tremendous variety of almost any kind of food that you could want and many of the big grocery chains carry a large selection, which means these foods are easily available.

A few years ago Nadine Gilder from New Jersey became active in getting information out to parents so they can take advantage of this time of year. Items are on shelves and freezers ecause no grains ae allowed during the Passover season except for matzo and its derivatives uch matzo meal, arfel, matzo cake flour. In 2007, Passover starts on the evening of April 2. But many stores already have their Passover products out—so it’s a great time to stock up.

When you check the ingredients on a Passover approved food, you know that any product that does not any of these specific items (matzo meal, arfel, matzo cake flout) is most likely to be gluten free. There are chicken nuggets, stuffed cabbage, meat balls in tomato sauce as well as full meals such as pot roast, baked chicken, or even brisket. It can make mealtime much less stressful when you buy a whole meal ala ready for the oven. There are also many other sensitive ingredients that have been eliminated from products that are only available this time of year.

During Passover no legumes or other grains are allowed other than the ones I have already mentioned. Normally desserts such as ice cream can be made with soy or milk but this is not the case during Passover. There are also cake mixes ,margarines, milk and cream substitutes that really can be used in so many different ways. In my next posting I will give some examples of how these recipes and products can add to meal variety.

Welcome to Great to be Gluten Free Blog

Welcome to the Great to be Gluten Free Blog. I'm Lillian Galler, a professional dietitian, who has been working in the Gluten Free area for over ten years. I enjoy helping others who need to find alternatives recipes due to food allergies and other conditions such as Celiac or Autism. I'll be sharing information, resources, and recipes that I've developed and would be glad to address questions on Gluten Free living.