More and more gluten-free options, y’all

In the past two months, two restaurants have opened that prominently feature gluten-free items. The first is Pizza Fusion, which is trying to appeal to people with food restrictions. The second, as KC Lunch Spots pointed out, is Daniel’s Bar-B-Q, in all other ways a normal Kansas City barbecue restaurant.

Andee Hindery of gluten-free bakery Astrocakes has a gluten allergy herself. She says most gluten-free restaurants are found through the grapevine. “It’s a small but tightknit community, and the word spreads very quickly about new places.”

The amount of gluten an allergic person can handle varies widely. Gluten is present in all strains of wheat, which means bread, pasta and cookies are out. “When the Atkins Diet was big, it was easy to eat out because it is very close to a gluten-free diet. Basically you avoid carbs, which really limits choices, so you end up going to the same places,” Hindery said.