Hey
everyone, I wanted to share my experiences with living in a shared
kitchen and how to reduce cross contamination. After reading my experiences,
please share your thoughts and your own experiences in the comments section! It’s
much easier to control your kitchen environment if you’re a parent with
children, but once your child moves out, they may have roommates that are not
gluten free. Also, you may live in an apartment community that has shared grills
that will definitely have gluten on them. Here’s some tips for how to share a
kitchen and stay gluten free.
1.
Communicate. I believe that communication is key
with friends and family. They care and love you, so make sure to communicate
what you can and cannot do in terms of gluten with them. Communication is key
and will eliminate the vast majority of issues.
2.
Gluten Free specific tools. Define tools such as
knives, cutting boards, brushes, or colanders that are for gluten free only.
The easiest way to do so is to label or make them all the same color. And most
of all, communicate.
3.
Separate dips or spreads. For things such as
peanut butter or dips, use separate dips to avoid double dipping of breads or
other foods that may have gluten.
4.
Grill tools, especially if you are in an
apartment complex. The easiest way to do this is to have grilling baskets or
pans you can place onto the grill that you can put your food on. It’s the
easiest way of reducing cross contamination by providing your own cooking
surface.
Here's some additional recommendations and tips from Twitter:
@CeliacAwareness "Good Tips! Toasters are a big source of cross-contamination too. We always say buy a dedicated #glutenfree one if you can."
I hope these help, and please add your own experiences and
thoughts in the comments!
