Apparently this has been a topic of some discussion lately between two of my relatives. I can't have gluten so just what do i eat?!
The simple answer is this: i eat food.
Ok, ok, maybe that's too simple of an answer, but it makes sense to me. It almost seems easier to tell you what i eat in a given week and let you decide if it's 'weird' or not. (i got a little long-winded here so brace yourself)
Breakfast:
- cereal (Rice or Corn Chex) with banana and milk
- sausage link (Meijer brand)
- juice and/or tea
- leftovers OR
- peanutbutter and crackers (ok tortilla chips but that's just b/c i'm weird) OR
- sandwich (Udi's bread or my own homemade, Meijer lunchmeat, baby spinach, mustard) OR
- rice and lunchmeat wrapped in seaweed and sliced to look like sushi (what?)
- AND a piece of fruit
- Yogurt (Stoneyfield Farms - the probiotics help my digestive system heal)
- Tortilla Chips (Meijer brand)
- Potato Chips (Lays)
- Cottage Cheese (haven't yet found a brand that wasn't gluten free)
- hummus (Cedar brand or homemade - since we can't eat w/ pita i either make gf pitas or we eat with tortilla chips)
- tortillas (usually homemade)
- cookies (usually homemade but there are several brands of tasty GF cookies available)
??? i dunno i just come up with different ideas/recipes so we don't get bored
nearly every dinner contains either:
- rice OR
- potatoes (oven potatoes, baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, potato soup, potato latkes)
- Enchiladas (i've been making my own tortillas since i could reach the countertop so making from scratch isn't anything new)
- Meat, fish, poultry
- burgers (though i usually have mine sans bun b/c they are a lot of work to make)
- vegetables (fresh or frozen - some canned veg are not safe)
- pasta (there are gluten free pastas available, not all are palatable, some are wonderful. Philip gets to have his gluten-y pasta (cooked in his gluten pan) and i have my GF pasta. This is one of the few meals we have that is cooked separately)
- beans (from dried - many canned beans are not safe)
- cheese (we eat a lot of cheese)
- Pizza (rare but fun, i've developed a crust recipe we both really like)
Alcohol:
Between the reality that alcohol is expensive and the fact that my fiance can't drink, i don't drink very often. However, wine and distilled liquors are naturally gluten free. Anything with 'malt' in it is not safe (beer, whiskey, etc). Not that i liked beer much before, but there are several GF beers now available. note: Bailey's is GF as is Captain Morgan.
Microwave dinners:
Many grocery stores carry a growing number of gluten free frozen dinners for those times that i'm just too tired to cook etc. The types of food available range from your typical micro-meal fare (rice with chicken, enchiladas, asian style 'bowls') to comfort food (mac and cheese, pizza, etc). Brands that are solely marketed to the Gluten Intolerant/ Celiac market are generally easier to know they are safe but much more expensive.
pita with spinach rice topped with celery reduction
Dining Out
Thanks to some online resources we were able to make a list early on of restaurants that had a gluten free menu. However, we have had to remove some of these from our 'safe' list because they were unable to account for cross-contamination. Here is what we are currently working from:
Placed we have tried and things went well:
- Thai Cafe in Broad Ripple
- Baskin Robbins
- Carrabba's Italian Grill
- Kincaid’s
- Maggiano's
- Macaroni Grill
- Monical's Pizza
- Uno's Chicago Grill
- Red Robin -- had issues, is close to going on the no longer trusted list
- Chili's
- Adobo Grill
- BD's Mongolian BBQCheeseburger in Paradise
- Chipotle
- Jasmine Thai Restaurant
- Longhorn Steakhouse
- Mitchell's Fish Market
- PF Changs
- Ted's Montana Grill
- Thai Cafe
- The Tamale Place
- Weber Grill
- Old Spaghetti Factory
- Outback Steakhouse - got seriously glutened here (croutons underneath my salad!!! >_< )
- Qdoba -- per regional management, no longer safe
Besides the fact that i'm stressing out about it, this also means you don't get my full attention during dinner. Does this mean i never want to go out to eat? No! But it does mean that if i'm feeling uneasy about the food i'm more likely to say no and miss out on seeing you altogether, which sucks. Please don't ever think that this means i just don't want to get together!!!
Where I shop:
- Kroger (many kroger brand products are GF and will say it on the bag)
- Meijer (nearly all Meijer brand products are GF, also has a huge GF section)
- Whole Foods (small but growing selection of GF food, largest selection of GF beer)
- Nature's Market (a few key items here that i can't get elsewhere)
- Georgetown Market (a few key items here that i can't get elsewhere)
- Marsh (not many GF products, poorly marked)
- Target (not many GF products, poorly marked)
- Trader Joe's (beware of their shoddy "gluten free" labeling system! - their items that claim to be gluten free are not, they simply have no gluten ingredients)
How i decide if a food is 'safe' or not
For prepackaged items there are a lot of factors that go into the complex mental algorithm that is the question, "is it safe?" If the answer is "i don't know" it is best to just abstain.
So how do i find out? There are a few companies that make it their policy to always disclose any gluten whether from an ingredient or from the facility the product was made in. These companies have wheat as their only source of gluten, so in the allergen statement all i have to look for is 'Wheat.'
However, because of my high sensitivity, i can't just go by the ingredients for most food. If a good has no gluten ingredients but was processed on the same line as a gluten-containing product i can still get sick from it. Gluten is a sticky sticky protein and will happily stick to a rice cracker that is packaged in the same facility as a ritz.
Call. That's right, those little 1-800 numbers listed on nearly every food product out there now are actually useful. You may have to sit on hold for 20 minutes but if you're standing there in the store going, "i really want ___ but it doesn't have an allergen statement" you can call the company and find out. (gluten intolerance/ celiac is not an allergy, but it is handled by food manufacturers as if it is)
A lot of it is that after hundreds of hours of research i know what 'safe' foods/brands are available, so i stick to those. (By "I" i really mean "we" because Philip is my greatest help and defender. i am so very lucky.)
Cross-Contamination
Please don't ever be offended if i don't eat something you offer me. I have become deathly (literally! ha!) afraid of food whose source is unknown to me. If you offer me chips from a bag that says 'gluten free' on it but the bag has already been opened, i likely won't eat it. Does this seem extreme? yes. Is it logical? YES. read on if you dare...
The current level of allowable (by certification companies, there is currently no government regulation) gluten in manufactured food that claims to be gluten free is 20ppm. That's 20 parts per million. That's pretty damn tiny. That's less than 1/10 of the amount of Chloride allowed in tap water (per stats from EPA.gov).
So, thinking of how teeny-tiny of an amount of gluten it takes to make me sick and knowing that gluten is a sticky little protein, imagine that you eat a sandwich in all of its bready goodness and then open your bag of chips. You reach into the bag and grab a handful of chips. Nom, nom, nom, yummy! right?
But tiny little proteins were stuck to your fingers the whole time. Some of them rubbed off onto the outside of the bag. Some of them stuck to the chips inside that you didn't eat. Some of them stuck to the inside of the bag and will later be scooped up by the chips still inside. For me, the bag and all of the chips inside are now poison.
Baked Goods??
While there are some available fresh or frozen GF baked goods and a ton of mixes now available i still usually make my own. It's usually cheaper and i like being able to control the flavor and texture of my food. What can i say, i think there is a hint of 'i miss Chemistry lab' in there as well... :P My list of odd ingredients:
For prepackaged items there are a lot of factors that go into the complex mental algorithm that is the question, "is it safe?" If the answer is "i don't know" it is best to just abstain.
So how do i find out? There are a few companies that make it their policy to always disclose any gluten whether from an ingredient or from the facility the product was made in. These companies have wheat as their only source of gluten, so in the allergen statement all i have to look for is 'Wheat.'
However, because of my high sensitivity, i can't just go by the ingredients for most food. If a good has no gluten ingredients but was processed on the same line as a gluten-containing product i can still get sick from it. Gluten is a sticky sticky protein and will happily stick to a rice cracker that is packaged in the same facility as a ritz.
Call. That's right, those little 1-800 numbers listed on nearly every food product out there now are actually useful. You may have to sit on hold for 20 minutes but if you're standing there in the store going, "i really want ___ but it doesn't have an allergen statement" you can call the company and find out. (gluten intolerance/ celiac is not an allergy, but it is handled by food manufacturers as if it is)
A lot of it is that after hundreds of hours of research i know what 'safe' foods/brands are available, so i stick to those. (By "I" i really mean "we" because Philip is my greatest help and defender. i am so very lucky.)
Cross-Contamination
Please don't ever be offended if i don't eat something you offer me. I have become deathly (literally! ha!) afraid of food whose source is unknown to me. If you offer me chips from a bag that says 'gluten free' on it but the bag has already been opened, i likely won't eat it. Does this seem extreme? yes. Is it logical? YES. read on if you dare...
The current level of allowable (by certification companies, there is currently no government regulation) gluten in manufactured food that claims to be gluten free is 20ppm. That's 20 parts per million. That's pretty damn tiny. That's less than 1/10 of the amount of Chloride allowed in tap water (per stats from EPA.gov).
So, thinking of how teeny-tiny of an amount of gluten it takes to make me sick and knowing that gluten is a sticky little protein, imagine that you eat a sandwich in all of its bready goodness and then open your bag of chips. You reach into the bag and grab a handful of chips. Nom, nom, nom, yummy! right?
But tiny little proteins were stuck to your fingers the whole time. Some of them rubbed off onto the outside of the bag. Some of them stuck to the chips inside that you didn't eat. Some of them stuck to the inside of the bag and will later be scooped up by the chips still inside. For me, the bag and all of the chips inside are now poison.
Baked Goods?? While there are some available fresh or frozen GF baked goods and a ton of mixes now available i still usually make my own. It's usually cheaper and i like being able to control the flavor and texture of my food. What can i say, i think there is a hint of 'i miss Chemistry lab' in there as well... :P My list of odd ingredients:
- Xanthan Gum
- Sweet White Rice Flour
- Corn Starch
- Tapioca Starch/Flour
- Potato Starch
- Potato Flour
- Amaranth Flour
- White Rice Flour
- Brown Rice Flour
- Millet
- Ground Flax Seed
- Montina
- Molasses
- Buckwheat Flour (not actually related to wheat!)
- Sorghum Flour
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