About : Goodie Goodie Gluten-Free®

Certified Holistic Nutritionist, Certified IIN Health Coach, Gluten-Free Food & Wellness Blogger, and Founder of the Blog: Goodie Goodie Gluten-Free®

"Every person is different and requires a different kind of wellness."

Hello, lovely soul,

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I'm Julie, the creator behind the food and wellness blog: Goodie Goodie Gluten-Free®. GGGF is a wellness website that is devoted to gluten-free recipes & wellness. In addition, all recipes are also dairy-free. Many, if not most, are paleo & vegan. Most are refined sugar-free, but always delicious!

I founded my food blog Goodie Goodie Gluten-Free® in 2010 as a hobby after years of leading the Celiac disease foodie life and having no one to talk to about it, desiring a community to feel connected. Years later, I developed many chronic health conditions, such as SIBO, Candida, gut dysbiosis, Leaky Gut, high cortisol levels, insomnia, acne, hair loss, and about 30+ food sensitivities, all the while attending the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Going back to school for nutrition that created the wellness coach in me, and I decided to take my little celiac food blog to the next level. The rebrand was to make the blog wellness-focused. After years of creating sugary sweets, I started creating healthy desserts and breakfast recipes using clean, wholesome ingredients that I could devour with this new way of living. Life could be delicious again!

While in Nutrition school (IIN), I started to hone in on changing the way I ate and approached a healthier lifestyle, and dove into clean eating, raw foods, smoothies, and healthy vegan treats. In 2014, I spent many months on the Whole 30 Diet to reduce chronic inflammation and get to the root causes of my chronic conditions beyond Celiac Disease that Western Medicine could not fix (doctor's orders). I stayed on the paleo diet for years, and eventually tried many other elimination diets. From this experience, I learned so much because I was personally going through all of the hardships that lifestyle transitions can create. Instead of looking in from the outside, it was me dealing with every single bump and triumph healing threw at me. I am still healing. Throughout my 10+ years of chronic health conditions, the decision to incorporate holistic and spiritual practices into my life was a blessing! And it still is to this day.

While I don't follow a strict Whole 30 diet now, being 100% gluten-free, dairy-free, and egg-free (and many others) is life right now. I incorporate many of the Paleo principles along with core principles from other diets, such as the clean eating diet, whole foods diet, real food, and low sugar/no refined sugar diet. And above all, my plate usually has more plants on it. I lean towards whole foods that are nutrient-dense and nourishing. I now have an understanding of how we live and what we eat can change everything.

My Mission

My mission is to show you how to live a delicious gluten-free, dairy-free, free-from life, by dishing up deliciously clean eats and dessert recipes, and transformational wellness tools to help you create a (celiac safe) gluten-free lifestyle you love.

Lifestyle transitions can be really difficult, especially when the changes have to occur fast to help heal your body from chronic health conditions and Autoimmune Diseases. I want you to fall back in love with your wellness journey; gluten-free and beyond.

The Recipes

You may notice that all of my recipes are 100% gluten-free, 100% dairy-free(there is one cookie recipe on this blog that uses dairy), and special diet-friendly, while many are also paleo and vegan. plant-based. To be exact, my recipes are gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free, soy-free, corn-free, mostly nut-free, and refined sugar-free. This is for 4 reasons:

I have Celiac Disease and therefore eat gluten-free for my health.
In the last decade-plus years, I developed several severe food sensitivities due to Leaky Gut, MCAS, histamine intolerance, and allergies, including but not limited to dairy, eggs, soy, most nuts/seeds, green beans, pineapple, broccoli, walnuts, peanuts, cashews, pumpkin seeds, sesame, ginger, eggplant, and about 15 others. You will find that my recipes are free of what I cannot consume. For example, I couldn't tolerate bananas for over a decade, and I finally got to add them back in 2025. My recipes will reflect this. Many are banana-free.
Because of my food sensitivities, I got creative and started experimenting with plant-based and vegan baking instead of feeling like I couldn't enjoy anything. After all, I do have a very large sweet tooth! And now I LOVE creating this way, I find healthy vegan baking to be an extremely creative process. The idea of vegan anything started in 2013 and has flourished ever since.
NO, I am NOT a vegan or a vegetarian. I stopped dairy in 2013. And eggs completely in 2016.
In general, I think everyone can benefit from adding more whole foods and plants to their diet. Whole foods and plants feed our mind, body, and soul, and that's why I promote the message of clean eating, especially in the gluten-free community.

My Awakening

My journey has been a rocky one, but I'm willing to bet most awakenings are. I used to be a gluten-free sugarholic party girl while working in the Manhattan fashion industry as a Women's Fashion Designer and by night a Celiac Food Blogger. When I wasn't working, I partied a little too hard, had one too many dirty Martinis, and more than my quota of gluten-free cupcakes, designer handbags, and Jimmy Choo's. I burnt myself out in the process. The concept of self-care and self-love was so foreign to me and the furthest thing from my mind, except for remaining gluten-free after my 2006 Celiac Disease diagnosis.

But guess what?! I wouldn't trade those experiences for the world! There was a time in my life when I enjoyed that type of lifestyle, and I believe it was all part of the self-discovery journey I was meant to experience. However, I did have to wake up and look at the way I was living my life, the way I was eating, and the way I was taking care of myself because I started to develop chronic health conditions on top of Celiac Disease that took my world by storm. And this forced me to look at my life from a different angle. When I did, I chose to create a space filled with self-love, wellness, self-care, and healthful living so I could heal my body. And I learned that this is not a quick fix, but a lifestyle choice.

This is why I gave Goodie Goodie Gluten-Free® a complete makeover with a (dot) com. I used to have my blog on Blogspot. Lastly, we are finally trademarked! A lot has changed, and I wanted my site to reflect the changes that I have created in my life. I kept the same name because whole foods, healthy gluten-free living, clean eating, and mindfulness are also goodies- just a different kind.

My gluten-free story

During the first 7 years of my Celiac diagnosis, I would have told you I healed myself through the gluten-free diet. But after 7 years, I suddenly developed a multitude of mysterious symptoms. Full-body chronic inflammation in the form of hair loss, brain fog, rashes, digestive issues, severe vitamin deficiencies, allergies, sensitivities, Anemia, nutrition malabsorption, Seborrheic Dermatitis (on my scalp! Say goodbye to highlights! - Hello Grays!), muscle spasms, acid reflux, insomnia, adult acne, rosacea, and migraines to name a few. My immune system totally crashed! My whole world came crashing down on me. And what felt like the darkest time of my life became the beginning of my transformation.

Coincidentally, I was already enrolled at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And despite what was happening to me medically and emotionally, I devoted myself to studying Holistic Nutrition, Eastern Medicine, spiritual self-care, and healthy eating, which all play a major role in mind/body healing. I learned that there is a big difference between eating a gluten-free diet and living a healthy, clean, processed-free gluten-free lifestyle. But by the time I tried to adopt this, my body was too compromised to reap any benefits, and Western Medicine could only take me so far.

Thankfully, while studying holistic nutrition, I was guided toward Integrative Functional Medical Doctors who focus on treating the root cause of illness rather than just the symptoms. My first prescription was the Whole 30 Paleo diet, plus eliminating high-sugar fruits, and overnight, I eliminated what felt like everything! Processed foods (which even meant anything in a bag that had more than 3-5 approved ingredients), alcohol, wine, coffee, white potatoes, corn, refined sugar, and natural sugar with the exception of low fructose fruits, all grains, soy, legumes, peanuts and dairy on top of my already gluten-free diet - hoping this would heal me. With the diet came rounds and rounds of herbal supplements to heal a yeast overgrowth in my intestine, which was believed to be my underlying root cause.

But, like the gluten-free diet, the Paleo diet worked...at first. Within a few short months, everything seemed to correct itself, except the acne, but I was still ecstatic! But then at the 4-month marker, all of my progress plummeted, and I developed new complications like more vitamin deficiencies, inflammatory cystic acne that was so bad I considered acne medication (and even went on it for a bit), and food sensitivities that caused a left side facial numbing reaction to almost 80 percent of what I ate on a regular basis. I began to fear food. Every food that caused this reaction, I avoided like the plague (and that list was long). I was petrified to even reintroduce these foods, in fear that these reactions would persist and escalate. I was so devastated, stressed out, and frustrated.

But I didn't give up. I couldn't give up because there was no going back. I knew I couldn't go back to my old lifestyle with so many food sensitivities and health issues. The only way out was forward. So I went through every medical test possible, every specialist, including a Homeopath, and the Mayo Clinic. My life was spent at the doctor's office. I began to understand that, like everything else, this experience is also a journey, and finding the right way to heal takes time.

With the help of my current Integrative Functional Doctor (#15, 2nd Integrative M.D.), I began to try other elimination diets focusing on whole foods with a gluten-free base in order to regain some of the balance my body lost. After years of medical mysteries and many different types of testing and misdiagnosis, I was finally diagnosed with 4 different types of intestinal bacterial overgrowths, SIBO (which became chronic), 2 yeast overgrowths in my intestine (similar to Candida), chronic high cortisol levels (stress/fight or flight hormone), neurotransmitter deficiencies, multiple vitamin and mineral deficiencies, high mercury levels, high oxidative stress, Leaky Gut and over 40 food sensitivities! And that was just from one doctor! This was on top of Celiac Disease, on top of Cystic Acne, and on top of Telogen Effluvium (a form of non-scarring hair loss). Oddly, I felt so relieved by this diagnosis because at least I had some answers as to why I was feeling the way I felt!! But boy, was my body a mess!

For the answers I didn't have, I leaned on the Mayo Clinic (in Minnesota). I spent two weeks in 2015 getting a variety of testing done, from brain MRIs to blood work and everything in between. The Mayo Clinic focuses on a Western perspective, which I have come to learn has its perks. I thoroughly enjoyed being a team player when I met with these doctors and discussed possible solutions and healing perspectives. The best experiences are when we partake, ask questions, and discuss together what is going on, rather than sitting back and just letting the doctors talk. My biggest takeaway from the Mayo Clinic was the importance of the Stress Factor. We can say that certain types of stress never affected us before, but as we age, our bodies change. Stress causes anxiety. Anxiety drives Cortisol. Cortisol increases inflammation and causes chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation wreaks havoc on your body and your mind.

At the beginning of 2016, I decided to go for Chemical Allergy testing. I was recommended to a dermatologist who specializes in allergy testing for common ingredients found in the cosmetic industry. It took 4 recommendations for me to realize that chemical allergy testing was necessary. At first, I thought it was only food sensitivities, food allergies, and environmental allergies that plagued me, and that I didn't need chemical testing. But as time progressed, I took the plunge and decided it was necessary. When you have to eliminate almost all makeup and have a fear of trying new makeup brands, soaps, body lotions, and shampoos, it's time to take MORE action.

I did a panel of about 150 chemical allergens strapped to my back for a week in two rounds. I lived on Benadryl for both rounds, and I had terrible reactions to my skin and throat. I was an itchy zombie for the month of April 2016, as I was the year I got environmental allergy testing. I was honestly surprised I was able to be so fearless in tackling this experience head-on with the reactions I had been living with for so long, but the upside was that it broke the fear of trying new things. Prior to this testing, I was too afraid to try new foods, new products, or anything new. I finally stopped carrying around my Epi-Pen, understanding that my reactions never escalate to anaphylaxis. But I still carry Benadryl everywhere I go.

My quest for healing has not stopped. Even though we have gotten to the bottom of many of my chronic conditions, I still have to manage them, so I still see some doctors. I am consistently finding ways to aid in my healing spiritually, holistically, and nutritionally. I learned from Neurologist #3 at the Celiac Center in Manhattan that I have Trigeminal nerve damage on the left side of my face that gets activated when I eat food or put things on my body that I am allergic to. The numbing feeling extends to under my eye, my jaw, my ear, my neck, and the left side of my tongue and gland. This experience has brought me down on my meditation mat in tears because there have been so many allergic reactions that it has been a nightmare not being able to control them or manage them. It's this experience in conjunction with everything else that I learned the art of surrender. And in the act of surrender, I found self-care.

As of November 2018, I thought I was about 90% healed, and what I learned was that chronic health conditions, chronic illness, and autoimmune diseases need to be managed every single day. It is a lifestyle. And now, as of 2022, and checking in again at 2025, I can say my healing, and how I manage my conditions came from the immense work I did on myself with the help of other doctors, teachers, and gurus.

In the last decade, I adopted a spiritual practice to support my healing process because I became aware of the mind/body connection. Hello meditation, acupuncture, yoga, angel readings, tarot readings, and teachings from my spiritual Gurus: Gabrielle Bernstein, Kris Carr, Radleigh Valentine, Abraham Hicks, and Deepak Chopra. I have always been a deeply passionate partner in my own healing, but developing my spiritual practice is giving me the tools to seek gratitude in this transformational journey that continues to this very day! Spiritual self-help has been my rock, and without it, I don't know where I would be. The art of surrendering in itself has been a transformational experience that has given me the ability to move forward, and when I feel stuck, this journey teaches me on countless days how to move from that place more easily.

In 2022, I completed the Holistic Nutritionist Certification from AFPA in plant-based living because I feel so deeply passionate about plant-based foods being more incorporated into our diets. I re-certified in 2024.

Lastly, in 2025, I was diagnosed with a Histamine Intolerance and a Candida overgrowth in my intestines. This is why I now continue to say clean eating is a lifestyle and not a diet.

So I will say this! There have been times, and there will be more when I want to give up. Healing is a process, and it takes time, patience, compassion, and self-care. We have to manage our health daily. Healing is not a straight line. There are setbacks. Good health is essential to a happy life and is the key ingredient. Lifestyle matters. What you think of yourself matters. The Universe has tested my strength in ways I never thought possible. From this experience, my creativity has soared, my love for developing recipes free of so many ingredients has blossomed, and I LOVE talking to other people and helping them move through their health-related and spiritual roadblocks.

What I Have Learned...For Now

Accept where you are and use it as a starting point
Surrender to your process
There are pros and cons to both Eastern and Western Medicine
Our bodies thrive on moderation, not excess
Healthy excess can also cause problems
Not all "healthy" trends or "healthy" products are right for YOUR body
At any time in our lives, we can develop allergies or sensitivities from overeating any food
Chronic stress is a game-changer in a negative way
Leaky Gut can cause food sensitivities that are not always permanent - Leaky gut can be chronic
Sometimes it's more than Leaky Gut if your food sensitivities do not aliveate over time
Listen to your body
Don't downplay the role of stress, it has the power to destroy your body
A self-care practice is essential for lowering Cortisol and stress levels
A spiritual practice changes your perspective and provides hope and an abundance of support
Meditation is mandatory
If you don't like your doctor, get a new one - It is that easy
Be a team player in your healing! Always ask questions and have conversations with your doctors. Do not just sit back and let the doctors do all the talking. If you are questioning something, question it, and then talk about it as well as other options
Always ask for a copy of your test results, vitamin panels, and any other result that comes on paper or a C.D. (like x-rays). You need to educate yourself, rather than be told
Work towards self-love and self-care no matter what
Let your body guide you
Breakout and dance
Sometimes our stressors speak through our bodies - It's so important to listen and then take action
Heal yourself from within
There is always a way!
Learn to love yourself with your flaws
Be grateful for the people who support and love you
Be kind to yourself
Always trust your instincts, they are your guides
Negative thoughts breed a negative life
Healthy is sexy
Happiness is sexy
Never give up!
You are stronger than you think - You are a warrior!
You can always start again
Managing chronic health conditions, chronic illness, and autoimmune diseases healthfully is a lifestyle and requires a daily commitment

Credentials

My most recent training was receiving my certification in Holistic nutrition from AFPA. This program trains nutrition professionals to heal from a plant-based diet. I also trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City studying over 100 dietary theories, practical lifestyle management techniques, and Eastern and Western nutrition. The school is led by experts in the field of health and wellness including Dr. Andrew Weil, Geneen Roth, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. David Katz, Dr. John Doulliard, Dr. Mark Hyman, and David Wolfe amongst many others. I also trained under spiritual leaders Gabrielle Bernstein, Ra Goddess, Doreen Virtue, and Radleigh Valentine. My education has equipped me with extensive knowledge of holistic health and nutrition, spiritualistic practices, coaching, and preventative care.

Degrees/Certifications

Certified Holistic Nutritionist | AFPA | NYC | 2022 | Re-certified in 2024

Certificate in Holistic Health Coaching | Purchase College, SUNY | New York

Certified Holistic Health Coach | Institute for Integrative Nutrition | NYC

Health Coaching Graduate Program | Immersion | Institute for Integrative Nutrition | NYC

Bachelor of Science | Syracuse University | Syracuse, NY

American Association of Drugless Practitioners, AADP

Spirit Junkie Masterclass, Level 1 & 2 | Spiritual Coaching, Meditation | Gabrielle Bernstein | Massachusettes & NYC

Certified Angel Tarot Reader | Radleigh Valentine | Hay House University | NYC

Tap That, Level 1 | EFT Tapping | Gala Darling | NYC

B-School with Marie Forleo | Business Training for Creative Entrepreneurs | NYC

Certified Angel Card Reader™ | Doreen Virtue & Radleigh Valentine | Hay House University | NYC

last updated December 2025