One of the first things I realized is that you must really read the labels to avoid wheat. Products that you would never even think have wheat in them. For instance, for whatever reason, frozen French fries have wheat in them.

The other thing you will also begin to realize is that almost all processed food has wheat. If you have a wheat allergy, you will now need to learn to cook whole foods and completely avoid processed foods. This is not only a healthier way to eat but for food allergy sufferers, the best bet for you.

In the last few years, the food manufactures have noticed that there is a niche in the market and are developing good tasting food without the wheat. With a little time and research you are now able to eat almost anything you like, minus the wheat.

You can now find dozens of different types of flour. They have rice flours, oat flour, and soy flour just to name a few. You can try using these in your favorite recipes. The thing to remember though is I have yet to find a substitute flour that will trade equally to wheat flour. That means if your recipe calls for a half cup of wheat flour you cannot use a half-cup of soy flour, you will have to do a little finagling. As you learn the different flours, you will learn how to mix them and get the same results. For instance, if you need a thickener for gravy try potato starch. It will thicken a gray just like wheat flour but you will need to use more of it. Just keep adding it until you have the results that you want.

You can purchase from some manufactures already combined flour combinations that will work for certain items. Take pancake mix. There are many food manufactures that offer pancake mix with no wheat in them; all you do is add egg and milk. And the best a part is they really taste just like a regular pancake.

What I have found is that if I use whole food, I can, after a little trial and error figure out how to make any recipe I want without having to have wheat in it. If you are not that patient a cook, take a look at either your local or internet health food store, there are now lots of pre-made mixes that have everything you need in them except maybe milk and eggs.

When I was first diagnosed with a wheat allergy my first thought was, what about dessert? I could not believe I was going to have to give up all sweets. But after researching the issue I have found, much to my relief that I don't have to give up anything.

The substitute baking products have come along way over the past ten or so years. If you had tried the wheat-free cookies fifteen years ago, you probably gave up sweets, they were that awful tasting. But more people are being diagnosed with wheat allergies so the market for wheat-less sweets has gained more attention. The products you can now purchase are far superior.

I have found that buying pre-mixed products are the easiest way to go when it comes to baking with out using wheat flour. If you love to cook and are very persistent, you can figure out how to bake without them but I prefer to buy the pre-made mixes.

On the Internet, if you put in "no wheat baking" you will dozens of very good web sites where you can buy these mixes. There are also web sites that you can exchange recipes with other wheat allergy sufferers.

The Internet health food stores really seem to offer the best selections. You can buy brownie mixes, cake mixes, and cookie mixes, just to name a few. Your baking instructions are a little different than you are probably use to but they will turn out looking like regular baked products, and they are delicious. They also offer a baking mix that is sort like a Bisquick that gives you the ability to have a general-purpose flour mixture.

So, if are allergic to wheat, you can still make all of your favorite foods and sweets, it is just going to take a little time and experimenting.