Cheat Foods

A Gluten-Free Survival Guide for the Newly Diagnosed

The store-bought treats and products I found so you don’t have to taste all the disappointing ones first. 😉

So many of you are freshly diagnosed — or have a child who’s newly “gluten intolerant,” navigating a wheat allergy, or living with celiac disease. First of all: welcome. You’re going to be okay, and you are not alone. Here are some survival items to reach for as needed.

One honest heads-up first: most of the things below are not in my kitchen right now. Many I haven’t eaten in years — I buy them only for birthdays, holidays, or every once in a great while. I’m sharing them so I can take the pain and guesswork out of finding the occasional gluten-free treat, since I already tasted all the sad imitations for you. Use them with judgment and joy.

Please read this before you trust any brand below. This list started years ago, and here’s the truth every celiac has to live by: companies reformulate constantly. A product that was safe last year can change, and a “safe” brand can add a not-safe flavor. So treat everything here as a starting point, never a guarantee — and always confirm the current label yourself, every single time. Look for a “certified gluten-free” seal, scan the ingredients for wheat, barley, rye, malt, and non-certified oats, and when in doubt, contact the manufacturer or check a trusted celiac app or forum. This matters most for candy, chips, soda, and gum, which change the most often.

Birthday cakes

• Betty Crocker makes a gluten-free yellow cake mix (plus chocolate chip cookie and brownie mixes). I bake the cake, whip my own cream (cream + a little maple syrup), and layer it with sliced strawberries — slicing the cake in half horizontally for a strawberries-and-cream middle. A guaranteed hit.
• Namaste Spice Cake Mix (I find it at Good Earth) — if you love carrot cake, follow the add-ins and prepare to swoon. I made four dozen cupcakes for the kids and neighbors and they vanished in two days.
• Charlotte’s Bakery (a Utah company, available at Good Earth stores) makes amazing pies.
• Cookies
• Health food stores carry lots of options, but by far the best sugar cookies I’ve found are Charlotte’s Bakery — they truly taste like the real thing.

Bread

The best bread mix I’ve ever made is Namaste (the brown-paper-bag package with purple and black writing, in the health-food-store gluten-free aisle). I’ve never been disappointed — but follow the directions exactly. If it says egg whites only, trust that there’s a reason.

Doughnuts, pizza dough, muffins & cinnamon rolls

Check the frozen gluten-free section for Kinnikinnick (kinnikinnick.com if your store doesn’t carry it). Their doughnuts, muffins, pizza dough, and cinnamon rolls are about as close to the real thing as I’ve found — I sent them to my grandmother (also celiac) for Christmas and she loved them. The Kratz brand is also amazingly good.

Pasta

Someone told me The Old Spaghetti Factory had a gluten-free menu, so my husband and I went, bracing for “pretty good.” I was blown away. Still doubtful, I asked, and the good-humored cook brought out the packaging to prove it: Tinkyada. You’ll find Tinkyada at most health food stores and even some regular groceries — spaghetti, spirals, macaroni, all of it delicious. We don’t keep it in the house only because my kids would want it every meal; I buy it every couple of months as a treat.

Puddings

Kozy Shack makes lovely rice, tapioca, and chocolate puddings, available at most grocery stores.

Soups, sauces, dressings & frozen entrées

You’ll get to know Amy’s well. Not everything Amy’s makes is gluten-free, so read each label — but we stock up on the ones marked gluten-free (the coconut soup, lentil soup, and their wonderful chili are favorites). Health food stores also carry plenty of gluten-free-labeled spaghetti sauces, dressings, and frozen entrées.

Bulk-bin caution: be careful with open bulk bins where everyone scoops their own. Cross-contamination from shared scoops (or a scoop landing in the wrong bin) is really common. When you can, buy bulk items that come already packaged.

Our Costco run

Turkey slices (labeled GF)

Almonds, walnuts, pine nuts

No-salt seasoning

Garlic

Frozen fruit (re-bag into smaller portions)

Organic carrots & spinach

Strawberries, mango, pineapple, pears, kiwi, applies, oranges

Onions in bulk

Potatoes & tomatoes (organic when we can)

Avocados

Brown Cow yogurt

We also buy crab and lobster just once or twice a year (Christmas and Easter).

Sour cream, cream cheese, kefir & yogurt

We buy dairy at Real Foods Market or the health food store. A few rules I live by:

• Stick with full-fat — skip low-fat versions.
• It should not list “modified food starch.”
• If you buy sour cream or butter at a regular store, look for a clean label — ideally just cream and salt.
• Avoid pre-shredded cheese — the anti-caking starch can be a problem, and shredded cheese makes me sick almost every time. Buy a block and grate it yourself. We love Redmond Heritage cheese, but any that’s clearly labeled gluten-free works.
• Your new best friend: how to verify anything
• Get in the habit of looking things up. A quick search of a product plus “gluten free,” or a peek in a celiac forum or a gluten-free app, can save you a miserable few days. Once I looked up Smarties and learned they’re repackaged so many different ways that you have to match a tracking number on the wrapper to the maker’s site to know if your box is safe. When in doubt, the manufacturer’s phone number on the package is gold.

The tricky aisle: candy, chips, soda & gum

This is the category that changes the most, so I’ll say it again — confirm the current label before every purchase. A couple of my own (sometimes comical) lessons:

I once nibbled a mini dark chocolate bar and thought I’d “gotten away with” eating gluten — then confidently ate a different bar in the same line and ended up bedridden. Turns out the first one just happened to be gluten-free. The lesson isn’t “that brand is safe” — it’s “check that specific product, every time.”

One New Year’s I tried a new root beer and was flat on the floor before midnight. Soda is not automatically safe — look it up first.

With corn chips especially: do not assume. Only eat them if the package says gluten-free, even if nothing “bad” is listed.

Gum and mints are sneaky too. I once called a gum company that assured me it was fine — but after they changed the look and taste, my grandmother and I both stopped buying it anyway. Trust your own body over any label.

S’mores & holiday candy

For s’mores, use any certified-gluten-free graham-style cookie you love, with chocolate and marshmallows (most marshmallows are gluten-free, but glance at the label). For Easter and Christmas, we head to the health food store for gluten-free candies — and we lean on fruit leather, little juice boxes, fresh fruit, and string cheese in place of a lot of the junk.

Jello, jams & pie fillings (make your own!)

These are so easy and pure to make yourself:

Jello: thicken fruit juice (or concentrated juice) with pectin.

Pie filling: add tapioca to fruit and water.

Jam: smash fruit with a little juice, then cook with pectin. Or reach for St. Dalfour, which sweetens with concentrated fruit juice — so delicious.

Sneaky one: double-check that any frozen juice concentrate is gluten-free — some cans have historically been dusted with flour so the juice slides out easily.

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If you have a question I didn’t cover, leave it in the comments and I’ll answer it and add it here. And remember — most of these are occasional treats in our home, not everyday staples. But everyone’s journey is different, and there’s absolutely no judgment here if some of these are staples for you. We’re all just doing our best in a gluten-filled world. You’ve got this.

With love,

Steffanie