How Aldi is helping me stay gluten free

Some of the gluten-free products from Aldi in my kitchen

As you probably know if you’ve been following along here for a while, around the start of last fall I decided to severely limit my gluten intake to see if it helped my thyroid issues and gave me more energy. I’m happy to report that it has indeed.

You may recall how in the beginning I was reticent about gluten-free substitutes for all of the wheat-based foods I enjoyed. Flavor was one concern, but a bigger concern was cost. Up to that point, all the GF breads, cookies and the like that I’d seen were on the pricey side.

As luck — or Providence — would have it, right around the time I decided to avoid gluten, Aldi started rolling out their own line of gluten-free foods, Live G Free. Now, you should know that I love Aldi. It’s not perfect — Lord knows the produce section at the one we frequent leaves a lot to be desired — but back when we were on a rice-and-beans budget, this store made us feel like we could eat like kings.

Their gluten free stuff is just as affordable, for the most part, but it still took me a while to get around to trying it. This is partly because at first they didn’t offer that much, or at least not that I noticed. But it must’ve proved popular enough for them to expand the line, because now there are quite a few items in the line. This include:

• Pretzels
• Cookie, brownie and pizza dough mixes
• Breakfast/snack bars
• Crackers
• Pasta – spaghetti, rigatoni and penne
• Mac & cheese
• Bread – white and whole grain
• Frozen foods including pizza, breaded chicken nuggets, waffles, and Hot-Pocket-style sandwiches

The other reason it took me a while to get around to trying the stuff was concern about flavor. But you never know if you’ll like something until you try it, so a few weeks into my GF venture I bit the bullet. The first thing I tried was the crackers, made primarily from rice flour. They don’t taste like wheat crackers, no, but they’re quite tasty in their own right, and great with tuna or egg salad.

The second thing I tried was the fudge brownie flavored breakfast bars. These are actually quite delish, but they’re not very substantial. I keep a couple in my purse for when I have low-blood sugar attacks and start to get hangry while I’m out, and they work in a pinch, but they don’t tide me over very long.

Since then I’ve also tried their pasta (the rigatoni), bread and chicken nuggets. I’m actually quite a fan of the whole grain bread and the pasta. The chicken nuggets take a little getting used to, but they’re starting to grow on me.

I plan to try out some of their other fare in the coming weeks. I’ve mainly got my eye on the waffles. I’d like to try the Mac & Cheese, but I’m also avoiding dairy, so that’s going to be a real indulgence when I do. At any rate, adding some of these products into my rotation has made it a lot easier to stick to my new GF lifestyle, and if you’ve made a decision to give up gluten in the new year, you could definitely do a lot worse.

What about you, reader? Have you ever shopped at Aldi? Do you love it as much as we do? How is your relationship with gluten working out? I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!