I have started purchasing food items online that are gluten-free in hopes that we can soon make this change in our household. The first step is to find tasty items that we like that are similar to what we normally eat on any given day. I am starting with my regular items that I consume daily.

I am hoping to combat the severe eczema I have been plagued with my whole life, while also implementing a change in my children's diet over time to a gluten free lifestyle - if our test proves beneficial.

I have visited Whole Foods three times this past week checking out their aisles in trying to find suitable replacement food staples. On December 31, 2005 I placed a few online orders to merchants and have received them all this past week.

I ordered through Gluten Solutions Gluten Free Sandwich Bread at a cost of $4.95 per loaf. This merchant was the fastest order to arrive. They are located in San Diego while we are in Los Angeles. The small priority mail box was delivered on Jan 6th with two boxes of macaroni and cheese and a coffeecake mix I have to tackle one of these days.

Thus far we have tried the Gluten Free Sandwich Bread. This is vacuum packed and sealed with a packet on the bottom of an oxygen absorber that clearly states do not eat.

The loaf is pre-sliced with about 13 slices. I had a catalog and used that to help me order at www.glutensolutions.com. Out of all the merchants I chose this is the site that has the customer reviews that I found very helpful in making my choices.

There are a few varieties of the macaroni and cheese boxes, but two of them were sold out, so they seem to be very popular! It turns out that the Gluten Free Sandwich Bread comes from Sterl's Bakery in Ontario, Canada. I did check out their website - www.sterksbakery.com and found they sell only wholesale to merchants.

Besides the sandwich bread Gluten Solutions also sells cinnamon sticky bread, raisin bread, Italian sandwich bread, dinner rolls and bagels. I will be ordering with them again since they ship quickly and are on the same coast. One of the other merchants was in Seattle, one in New Jersey with one being in Canada - I did not realize until I saw a foreign fee charge on my bank statement that I had ordered from a site located in Canada.

The order subtotal was $15.38 with $9.43 in shipping, most likely due to the weight of the mix and bread. Gluten Solutions offers a discount if you order more than fifteen items. The label for returns goes to South Dakota though. You have sixty days to return unused contents for a full refund.

The Gluten Free Sandwich Bread contains water, corn starch, rice flour, whole eggs, corn, sugar, guar gum, salt and yeast. I was not thrilled with the scent of the bread once out of the plastic wrapping. I used clear masking tape to put the bag back together once I cut it open. It took longer than I expected for the bread to toast.

The first taste reminded me of a cross between an english muffin and rye bread. It was very crunchy, but the after taste was not pleasant. I gave Nicholas some toast with dinner one night and noticed one piece was half done and asked him how he liked it. He said it was good, but a little while later would not eat the second piece since he replied that it did not taste very well.

I did not tell Nicholas ahead of time about the bread, but neither of us were very fond of it and not used to eating gluten free bread. We are still experimenting with other breads we received and will most likely try the cinnamon sticky bread the next order I place at Gluten Solutins.

Gluten Free Beer

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Wheat-Free, Worry-Free