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Kristens Gluten Free Food is honored to receive a "BEST FOODS IN AMERICA" Award from "COOKING LIGHT" Magazine. In the magazine the writer, Cindy Hatcher, says of our Cherry Muffin & Coffee Cake, "GLUTEN-FREE DONE DELICIOUSLY RIGHT" Click on the article image to go to the CL website to see our review.
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Tekamah couple makes business of gluten-free mixes.
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by LaRayne Topp
Published Cover Article from the April 2009 Rural Electric Nebraskan Magazine
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Kristy Johnson was losing weight, and she wasn’t happy about it. Aside from that, her wrists hurt, her knees ached, and her feet were too tender to meet the floor, all accompanied by the painful symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. After unproductive visits to the doctor, a friend suggested that Kristy might be suffering from Celiac Disease, a genetic disorder often misdiagnosed or undiagnosed. The friend suggested that Kristy try a diet free of gluten, and that has made all the difference.
Kristy and her husband, Mike, reside near Tekamah, Nebraska, where he works as a carpenter and cabinet-maker by day, and where they’ve taken up their new calling as entrepreneurs, bakers and marketers.
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For people with Celiac Disease, eating certain types of protein – known as gluten – sets off an autoimmune response that is damaging to the small intestine, leading to malnutrition and a host of other complications. Abdominal cramping and bloating, mouth sores, constipation or diarrhea, dry skin, weight loss or fatigue, are just some of the symptoms that Celiacs experience.
Gluten that offends Celiac patients is found in wheat, barley, rye, and to a lesser extent, oats. After about six months of strictly following a diet primarily eliminating wheat, Kristy found a return to mobility and was re-introduced to a healthy life once again.
“Our society finds it easier to take a pill. To change a whole diet is – on the surface – overwhelming,” Kristy said. But change it she did.
The removal of gluten from the diet is easier than it sounds. Fortunately, the Celiac Sprue Association has served as an informational resource for the Johnsons, with its national headquarters in Seward, Nebraska. Wheat is the primary ingredient in breads and cereals, and its replacement with a combination of flours – potato starch, rice and tapioca flours to name a few – is complicated at best. Plus, gluten-free foods and mixes aren’t easily found on the grocers’ shelf. In response, Kristy and her husband, Mike, began experimenting and creating their own recipes for gluten-free foods.
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“It’s overwhelming to cook that way,” Kristy said. “I was very lucky to have the support of my spouse and family, my mother and grandmother.”
Not only breads and pancakes were among the foods that Mike and Kristy have had to re-create, but other staples such as pasta, biscuit mix, pie crusts and batter coating for deep fat fried foods, along with foods that are listed among most people’s favorite snacks and comfort foods: graham crackers, brownies and chocolate chip cookies.
“Trial by fire,” is how Mike and Kristy describe their first attempts. They began with rice flour, but soon learned that by using rice flour, everything they baked had the same rice flour taste. In addition, gluten adds the “stretch” factor in baking. Once gluten is removed it needs to be placed with a leavening ingredient such as xanthan gum or guar gum. Experimentation followed experimentation, and Kristy soon found room for Mike in the kitchen.
“We are trying to create normal-tasting mixes, because when Kristy was unable to cook five years ago, I took over the kitchen, having never done much cooking,” Mike said. “I tasted the food that we started with and felt that I could do better than that!”
Today they use a variety of flours –buckwheat which is high in fiber and protein, sorghum and tapioca flours – as basic ingredients, adding ground flax seed for its health benefits, spices for desired flavor, and natural sweeteners, plus herbs that they raise themselves.
Although gluten-free foods are a necessity for Kristy, Mike eats them as well.
“I thought that if Kristy was going to eat that way, so was I. That is what the covenant of marriage is about; we go through all things together,” Mike said.
Plus, people who aren’t Celiac enjoy the foods as well as those who are, Kristy explained.
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As each recipe is perfected, Mike and Kristy offer the resulting baked goods to their Celiac support group, where members gladly volunteer to conduct taste tests. In fact, it was Kristy’s support group who encouraged the couple to go on even further, and as a result, not only have the Johnsons devised foods that are healthy and tasty, but they are marketing their mixes to the public.
In the past year, the Johnsons have focused their marketing efforts on food demos in groceries and health food stores, as well as at food shows and Celiac Sprue Association conventions. At one of the conventions, Kristy’s Kitchen graham crackers were sampled by a fellow Celiac. “He almost cried,” Kristy said. “He hadn’t had a graham cracker for so long. He could count the days.”
A secondary market for their products are parents of children diagnosed with autism, as some reliable, anecdotal studies have shown that autistic children do well on a gluten-free diet.
Because of the importance of pure ingredients for people needing a diet free of gluten, without a smidgen of wheat, oats or rye, each new ingredient used in Kristy’s Kitchen mixes is tested at the laboratories in the University of Nebraska for quality and purity. Once a certificate of assurance is received from the UN-L lab, the ingredient from its specific company is added to the list that the Johnsons use in the business’s certified and dedicated gluten-free kitchen.
The kitchen is an all electric kitchen with power supplied by the Burt County Public Power District.
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Mixes are made 50 at a time, and triple-sealed for tamper-proof packaging. Recipes for food variations are included on each package, along with a list of ingredients, nutritional and caloric information.
Although the recipes the Johnsons have devised is extensive, they have selected the best mixes to produce for public use – those that are unique but also basic and can be used for a variety of results by adding additional ingredients or changing baking methods. The mix for graham crackers can also be used to make pie crust, for instance, and the blueberry sour cream muffin mix can also be made into a coffee cake.
The Johnsons continue refining and perfecting more recipes as their product line grows. Today, their product line includes a sandwich bread mix, blueberry coffee cake, and a variety of pancake and waffle mixes, in addition to other tasty gluten-free breads.
The mixes can be purchased in many fine stores in the Omaha and Lincloln area, as well as on the Johnson’s website: www.kristyskitchen.com.
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