Celebrate Celiac Awareness Month with NFCA

The National Foundation for Celiac Awareness (NFCA) is celebrating Celiac Awareness Month with several social media activities. In April, they collected approximately 500 photos of people with celiac disease and compiled them in this amazing mosaic. If you are in the Facebook photo, make sure you tag yourself. Also on Facebook, answer the weekly question. "What's one thing you can do now that you couldn't do before going gluten-free?"

On Twitter, NFCA is sharing signs of celiac disease in their #youmighthaveceliac tweets. Join the #gfchats about gluten-free nutrition every Tuesday night in May at 8 pm ET, beginning on May 10. The chats will be led by the Ask the Dietitian Experts.

Each day in May, NFCA will profile a blogger in “A Blogger a Day, the Gluten-Free Way”. I will be profiled on May 6. For a great list of gluten-free blogs, visit NFCA’s celiac bloggers list. Many of these bloggers will be profiled during May. Happy Celiac Awareness Month!

For more NFCA news, visit these links:

NFCA’s Kids Central

What We’ve Been Up To

Where We’re Headed

Top 10 Gluten-Free Blogs for News

There is so much gluten-free and celiac disease news each week that it is hard for any one blogger to keep up with it all. While I hope you will continue to rely on the Gluten-Free Optimist for gluten-free news as well as my tweets, these blogs do a fantastic job of covering news, including information about new products.

1. The Savvy Celiac

2. Celiac-Disease.com

3. Gluten-Free Living blog

4. About.com Celiac Disease

5. Celiac Princess

6. Gluten-Free Is Life

7. Gluten-Free Works

8. Gluten-Free Fun

9. Sure Foods Living

10.  Gluten-Free Philly

With hundreds of gluten-free blogs, I am sure there are some blogs that I missed that do a great job blogging about news. Thanks to the above blogs, gluten-free Examiners, and the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness for keeping us informed of the latest gluten-free news.

My New Gluten-Free Blog and Lessons Learned

Back in November, I had the idea to start a new gluten-free blog to help build my career in freelance writing and social media as well as to share my knowledge. Instead of linking it to this blog and using my name, I thought it would be interesting to do it anonymously for a few months to see how easy or difficult it is now to start a new gluten-free blog and get blog traffic.

On my new blog I identified myself as being from the Mid-Atlantic and provided a description of myself.

“I am a freelance writer, Examiner, and a gluten-free product reviewer, who uses social media daily. I blog frequently at a popular gluten-free blog I started one year ago.”

I chose a blog template that looks completely different than the Gluten Free Optimist. I used a dark background and header tabs. I quickly learned that header tabs are much easier in Wordpress.

Perhaps you followed gfsocialmedia on Twitter or Facebook, became a fan on my Facebook page, or joined the bloggers group I started on Gluten-Free Faces. Are you surprised?

I quickly got many Twitter followers and 34 fans on my Facebook page, but sadly, no followers on my blog and still not much traffic. The biggest obstacle I ran into was that despite several emails I was not added to the Gluten-Free Aggregrator. Mike assures me I will be eventually added, however he is so busy with life changes, that he simply can’t keep up. So, for people starting a new gluten-free blog in a time when the web is already flooded with gluten-free, patience, persistence, and connections are essential.

Visit my new blog, Gluten-Free Social Media Tips. Please become a follower, subscribe via email, become a fan on Facebook, and share your comments!

Seven Things You May Not Know About Me

I was tagged by Amy Leger at The Savy Celiac to reveal "Seven Things You May Not Know About Me". I have enjoyed reading these posts from other bloggers and I hope you will enjoy mine.

1. I have never been glutened. I just got the results of my latest blood test, which confirm I am eating gluten free. Before I was diagnosed over two years ago, I had many symptoms. I wonder how I will react if I accidentally eat gluten. I guess that is why I still dream about eating gluten and having no reaction, instead of the nightmares others report about eating gluten.
2. I have been through a lot of personal changes in the last year. I will be moving again this summer and then looking for a job later this year. I would love to find a job combining my two passions – writing and increasing celiac disease awareness.
3. I love Jif peanut butter! I put peanut butter on so many things, including Dove chocolate, Nut thins, bananas, English Muffins, and bagels. I don’t like jelly with my peanut butter. I like jelly alone, but when I eat peanut butter, I only want to taste the peanut butter.
4. My favorite TV show is “Grey’s Anatomy”. I would love to see a story about celiac disease on it!
5. I can’t stop craving eggrolls. I hope PF Chang’s will add them to their gluten free menu. I am not skilled enough in the kitchen to try to make my own.
6. I need very simple and fast gluten free dinner recipes.
7. I have a BA in psychology from the University of Maryland and I used to work in human resources.

Here are the seven people I am tagging. They are all people I follow on twitter and they follow me. I like their tweets and blogs. There are so many wonderful gluten free people on twitter. You can view my daily gluten free tweets (updates) here.

1. Amy Ratner at Gluten Free Living
2. Alison at Sure Foods Living
3. Kristen, creator of gluten free fox, at Naturally Dah'ling
4. Stephen at Gluten Freeway
5. Amy Feldman at Gluten Free Gossip
6. Stacy at Guaranteed GF
7. Heather at Celiac Family

“The rules are simple. Link to your original tagger and list these rules in your post. Simply share seven facts about yourself in the post. Tag seven people at the end of your post and let them know they’ve been tagged. And have fun!”