Late last month, I heard of a gluten free bread I had not heard of before. The claims were that it was as good as "normal" bread. What is this miracle bread? It is called Udi's and it is a bakery in Denver, CO.
I jumped on their website ready to put in an order to try it out. Sadly, they require 2 day Fed Ex which is quite expensive just to give it a try. (Thankfully, they do give a hefty discount on the shipping. or at least when I ordered. Check to make sure it is still available.) So I stalled for a minute.
I headed over to Facebook and did a little searching. Facebook is where I like to search for everything, it seems. It really is the new communication choice of business (or it should be). Sure enough, they had an active page. So I posted a message, asking if there were any local distributors. They replied quickly that one of our local health food stores carried it. YEAH!!! Thanks to my husband, I called ahead. They didn't carry it. After digging a little and talking to the store's "order guy" I found that they were still in talks with Udi. :(
Gluten free bread is generally not very good. The only bread we tolerated in my house was from Sami's Bakery and everything I have read is that it is quite contaminated. We stopped using it after I read that in numerous internet places. Even that bread had to be toasted. Otherwise it was quite dry and crumbly. When Westin was first diagnosed with celiac disease, we spent a lot of money trying different breads. I couldn't really afford to taste test so many, but what choice did I have? In reality, my warning for all new celiacs, "Bread is just bad! Don't waste your money!"
So I researched Udi's gluten free bread a little more. I found not one bad review. So I took the plunge. I ordered a case (8 loaves) since I was going to be paying a lot for shipping anyways and I had hope that this bread was going to be good enough to be worth it. Unfortunately, I ordered on the first Monday of December 7th but it was back ordered. I was pretty bummed but Westin was really bummed. An Udi rep thought it would go out the first of the next week. We finally received it on the 18th.
Westin was so excited to try it. He is 12 and was diagnosed with celiac almost 5 years ago. He had been dreaming of a real peanut butter sandwich (without toasted bread) for some time. When Fed Ex showed up that Friday morning, we were all excited. The bread came out of the box very cold but I made a sandwich for him right away.
We ordered the white bread. (They also have a whole grain if I remember correctly.) It was airy, soft, delicious. It wasn't Wonder Bread by any means, but it was like no other gluten free bread we have encountered over the last 4 1/2 years. I would compare it to sour dough. We didn't need to toast it. We didn't need to warm it in the microwave. We just took it out of the bag and made a sandwich, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Westin ate an entire loaf that day. :)
The loafs are the smallest I remember seeing, a bit smaller than our Sami's Flax and Millet loaves. But the bread is delicious and worth every penny. I will be reordering, probably very soon at the rate he has been eating it! :)
As a mother of a child with celiac disease, it brought me so much joy to see my son excited over bread. Not many moms can say that...
Oh, we also ordered the pizza crust. Westin liked it. It was thin crust and Westin ate the entire pizza himself. I would say it compared to a small pizza. We both liked Sami's pizza crust better, as it was thick and filling, but again, contamination issues. If you generally like a thin crust, then you will probably really like Udi's pizza crust. Either way, we will buy it again, probably with our next order.
Udi's also offers a variety of muffins and granola.
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