I also can NOT eat lettuce

The easiest way to begin a GF diet is to start with meats, eggs, fish, fruits, and vegetables (all fresh and unprocessed)--basic, simple meals. From there you can branch out. Also, I bake from scratch. There are lots of great recipes online. You can start with Pinterest, or just doing a simple search for "gluten free (whatever you want to make)". Betty Crocker, Bob's Red Mill, King Arthur, Full Circle, Goodbye Gluten, and others have a big selection of GF mixes and products. Hope this info helps.

Almost forgot--My favorite GF pasta is by Heartland. My local grocery stores carry it, along with my local Walmart. If you don't want to use GF pasta, you can use spaghetti squash in place of spaghetti pasta. Just don't over-bake it. Also you can use slices of zucchini in place of lasagna noodles.

Welcome to our forum. In our house we like Udi's bread products best. Hopefully where ever you live some of these products are available. We like the fresh pasta from Whole Foods because everyone in the house will eat it, so i don't have to cook two meals. All of the sauces from Classico are gluten free. And Whole Foods has frozen baguettes that make good garlic toast.

I have bought gluten free flour and labeled my kitchen with big markers on the Tupperware which flour is which. You can make most recipes just change out the flour to gluten free. There is a gluten free Bisquit now too so you can make a lot of things with that for the whole family. Marking your gluten free containers is really important. Have a gluten free shelf in your pantry if you have room.

I think if you can cook for everyone, one meal, as much as possible, it will be much easier on you. I think the hardest thing to replicate has been bread crumbs. Right now we crumble up gluten free garlic and Parmesan bagel chips and add them to gluten free bread crumbs. They aren't bad for meatloaf or coating chicken.

It is a matter of keep trying. Remember that at the beginning your stomach is healing and you need to eat soft foods for a few weeks. Like scrambled eggs and gluten free toast, steamed rice, applesauce, yogurt, etc. You can starting more foods when you start feeling better. It takes 6-8 months to totally heal your insides after going gluten free. But you will feel better sooner than that. This is a serious problem if you let it go.

I hope this helps. Message me if you have any questions. Good luck.

A really good cookbook is the first thing you will want to invest in--or go to the various websites. Ready-made gluten free foods are so expensive and you will find it's much easier to just cook gluten free for everyone. I use a combination of 1/3 c. cornstarch, 1/3 c rice flour and 1/3 c. potato starch in place of flour for a cup with 1 tsp xanthan gum ( per cup of mixture). When I'm lazy or sick and don't bake bread, I use corn tortillas for sandwiches. It gets easier as time goes by and believe it or not, you will reach a point where you don't miss it very much at all, especially when you feel so much better! Good luck to you.