I've heard mixed reviews on Clan Thompson's gluten guide. Anyone feel like offering their personal experience/advice on this? Is it just for grocery stores, or restaurants too? (I'd have to buy a PDA for it, so don't want to make an impulsive buy:).

http://www.clanthompson.com/celiacstore/

Thanks!

For the first couple of years after diagnosis I used it a lot - it covers grocery store foods and restaurants. I bought the cheapest PDA (Palm Z22, $99), which is also useful for games when I'm bored waiting in line or stuck in a meeting. I noticed that over time (2 -3 years) I didn't use the Clan Thompson list as much as I got used to which grocery store foods I bought and didn't buy. Now I mostly use it for restaurants, on the rare occasions I go out. It was helpful in the beginning for things like finding out which chain restaurant at the food court had something I could eat when I was out with the family, or for finding soups and brands in grocery stores. I would recommend getting a year's subscription (download new info 4 times a year) and get to know what it says about various products and restaurants, then decide whether it's worth keeping. I still use my PDA more than I thought I would - I keep addresses and phone numbers, passwords, reminders, calendar, calculator, games, etc. I think the list is helpful for a beginner or someone who must eat out a lot. I still like my PDA, too.

Forgive me if this is a silly question, but what happens after the first year? Do you have to make a new, full purchase every year?

Yes, from Clan Thompson it's like a subscription. You pay a yearly fee and then several times a year you can download an updated version. So after a year if you don't want to renew you still have the old version - it just won't get updated.

Seems like the price for subsequent years ought to be less, since you're getting the software the first time around and just updates in subsequent years, right? Or am I completely out of my depth, here?

Well, in a perfect world it would work that way, but in a perfect world we wouldn't need it. Think of it more like a subscription to a magazine. They do put a lot of work into updating the database, so I don't begrudge it. They do the work so I don't have to.