A Bakery with a purpose...
I broke out in hives constantly as a child, for which I received daily allergy shots. I often vomited for no apparent reason. I became anemic. In my early adulthood I struggled with infertility. I am a living statistic: according to the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Center, 97% of those with the disease are currently undiagnosed; it takes the average Celiac symptomatic American more than four years to gain a diagnosis. It took me much longer: over the span of a decade, I had doctors tell me (wrongly) that I had pancreatic cancer, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, clinical depression, anorexia, and, worst of all, nothing at all wrong with me. "It's all in your head," one doctor said. I knew the doctors were wrong. I just kept praying they would figure it out before it was too late. Finally, after withering down to 80 pounds, my doctor tested me for Celiac Disease. My blood test came back positive. There was no medicine to be prescribed. The only solution was changing my diet. I was relieved that my prayers had been answered and I had a diagnosis, but where did I go from there? By the time I was diagnosed my anemia was so severe that I had several emergency blood and iron transfusions that I had to undergo weekly. I knew that I had to learn everything I could about this disease and fast.
Fresh in my mind is the first few months my family (also diagnosed as Celiacs, one by one) and I ate gluten-free. We thought all enjoyment of food was over. The simple pleasures of biting into a fresh piece of bread for breakfast or a slice of pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving were only going to be memories for us. There was only going to be the gritty taste of sand. Only Celiacs can really appreciate that last statement, I think.
I thought my days of loving to bake were over. I dreaded the thought of baking or cooking, and lamented the fact that my two favorite pasttimes were now something I constantly wanted to avoid. But eventually I started baking one item at a time. There was a lot of trial and error, but soon I was starting to bake desserts so good that my family had to look twice at my ingredients strewn about the kitchen to be sure that what they were eating was actually gluten free.
As I refined my ingredients and methods, food began to taste good again. Then, after a time, started to taste great. I was baking sandwich bread that tasted the same or even better than before. I was baking danishes, cupcakes, muffins, pies, scones, and even birthday cakes. The joy of taste returned to our lives. Now, I won't say I have perfected all of these, but only because I am constantly trying to make them even better. That's what I do now, my lot in life: I have tried each day since my diagnoses to prove that people with food allergies and intolerance don't have to shrug off the joy of taste -- they don't have to live without the simple pleasures of warm bread or pumpkin pie.
At Kneaded Specialties our facilities are dedicated peanut, tree nut, and gluten-free, and our products are also available free of soy, dairy, and casein, (these are also allergies of mine). I know better than anyone that the right ingredients can be a matter of life and death. I began Kneaded Specialties for this purpose.
