When my wife first told me about gluten-intolerance and celiac, my reaction was "What's that?" Like many of you, my wife had experienced a variety of health issues from complicated pregnancies to thyroid disease and low energy to irritable bowel. When our oldest son was born, he too seemed to struggle to get the nutrition he needed.
Using her background as a Registered Nurse (and general curiosity), my wife Tanya dug into some research and after many months of putting two and two together learned about celiac diease. Her list of symptoms matched almost perfectly! Within a couple of weeks, most of the symptoms she had learned to put up with throughout her life were gone. And the same thing happened for our oldest son as well as our next little boy.
Over the last 7 years, we have watched extended family members on both sides of our family tree experience a more active, enjoyable life upon learning about gluten-intolerance and removing it from their diet. The list of symptoms in both our families is diverse and the reality of gluten-intolerance is that its inheritance by our children means they, too, have a diet that must be monitored.
Though I do not fight with nearly as acute symptoms, I also must be careful to avoid gluten. It is out of our lifestyle that Gling, a Gluten-free living Social Collaboration Community, was born.
I am not a dietician, not do I share my wife's medical background. It is not my intent to be the one, unarguable source of gluten-free information. Our family is probably much like yours ... kids in school, errands to run and decisions to make every day about our diet.
The goal for Gling is to arm the gluten-free community with a tool through which they can communicate and collaborate with other people who know more than I do about avoiding gluten. During my career in technology I have enjoyed watching how the tools of technology can bring people together. In my opinion, the best source of daily, "What do I feed my family today?" information is all of you ... people who, like us, have made a difficult lifestyle choice. Together, all of our life experiences and varied backgrounds provide the skills to tackle Gluten-free living.
There truly is nothing like Gling ... a place that brings together people, recipes, food/product information and locations, along with a hefty social backbone to help all of us collaborate and live more healthy lives.
I hope you'll join us. Gling is a work in progress. We've built it with the hope that your participation will help us see where to take the community. We have big plans and ideas for the future, but we'd prefer to see how YOU use Gling.
Thank you for jumping on board!!!
Mike Lee, CEO/Founder Gling.com
