Local baker adjusts to new gluten-free lifestyle
Joanne Svoboda was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease and is holding an Oct. 24 meeting for those interested in gluten-free diets. (Press photo by Molly Moser)
By Molly Moser
Guttenberg resident Joann Svoboda has spent hours upon hours in the kitchen, baking breads and cookies as flour poufs into the air. Her husband claims to have married her for one of her delicious cookie recipes, and on early Saturday mornings, shoppers would gather around her farmer’s market booth for loaves of her fresh-baked bread.
But Svoboda can no longer make the bread she once did, or even the cookies her husband so loved. In June, she was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. She can’t eat or breathe the airborne wheat flour commonly used in baking.
“Celiac Disease is a gluten intolerance. Your immune system tries to get rid of gluten, and in the process it wrecks your small intestinal track,” Svoboda explained. “It can cause all kinds of things; number one, colon cancer. My mother died of colon cancer, and my uncle died of colon cancer, and they probably didn’t know that they had Celiac’s.”
Svoboda was diagnosed after a routine doctor’s visit revealed she was becoming very anemic. She was sent to a hematologist, who referred her to Dr. Joseph Murray – the leading researcher on Celiac Disease at Mayo Clinic. There, she underwent several tests which showed high levels of antibodies and damage to her intestinal villi. Doctors told her that the villi should be like a shag carpet, absorbing nutrients like iron, calcium, zinc and vitamin D. “Mine looked like a tile floor,” Svoboda said.
Before her diagnosis, Svoboda says, she felt bloated and miserable by the end of each day. Now, she’s taking vitamin supplements and probiotics. Her villi will eventually return to health as long as she maintains a gluten-free diet. Svoboda is already feeling better. “My hair is growing. I’ve never had long fingernails,” she says, outstretching fingertips now topped with white crescent nails. “I can tell I’m getting healthier. My color is better, I’m not so white,” she chuckles.
Svoboda joined a research study group conducted by her doctor, which means she has to give extra test samples at each appointment. “If I can help in any way, if my body will be a cure for this someday, I’m all for it,” she told The Press. Her sister, son, and granddaughter all have the disease, making research all the more important to her.
“You have to read every label and be careful you don’t get cross-contaminated. I try not to have any gluten in my house whatsoever,” Svoboda explained. The hardest part, she says, is trying to find food she can tolerate at restaurants.
Despite the obstacles she now faces in the kitchen, Svoboda still enjoys baking. “I make the best gluten-free banana and cranberry bread – you can’t tell the difference,” she said. She sells this bread, along with gluten-free cookies and other baked goods at the Guttenberg Farmers Market, and she often runs out. “I’m really having fun experimenting with the different flours. Just to make one batch of cookies you have to have three to four different types of flour,” the baker said, explaining how she replaced wheat flour in all her recipes. Her husband has chosen a new favorite cookie, the chocolate pixie, and Svoboda recently discovered a 1:1 flour that eliminates the need for multiple types of flour in a single recipe.
Svoboda has planned a meeting for those interested in gluten-free diets on Monday, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m. at Eagle Ridge Independent and Assisted Living. A dietician and a registered nurse (who also has Celiac’s Disease) will participate in the meeting, as will Svoboda’s own granddaughter, who cooks at a local restaurant. “She reads every label; she knows everything there is to know about gluten-free,” said Svoboda.
“The reason I’m doing this is because every week at the Farmers Market somebody new says, ‘Oh my gosh, you sell gluten-free?’ Every week, I’m hearing new people that have a gluten intolerance or have Celiac’s. It’s so exciting when you find something that is gluten-free, especially baked goods – you just cannot find them.”
The Oct. 24 meeting welcomes anyone interested in gluten-free diets, has Celiac Disease or is gluten intolerant. Participants are invited to bring their favorite gluten-free snack and recipe.
