Tag: gluten free

When My Husband Asked: What’s Wrong with Gluten?

I was asked the most bizarre question today by the Passenger Prince.
He asked me, “What’s the problem with gluten?”

In a regular household, this question might not seem strange. But in our house—where three of us have Celiac disease—it was downright shocking.

I, the Passenger Prince’s wife, was diagnosed when I was thirty-nine, almost twenty years ago. Two out of our three kids received the lovely Celiac gene as well.

I was driving the Prince to work when he asked me this question, and I almost stopped the car in astonishment.

The man saw what I went through before I was diagnosed. He saw our daughter’s health deteriorate until she was a shadow of herself. And yet, he still asked that question.

After I collected myself for a mini second, I asked him where this was coming from. Apparently, Dr. Google had suggested that going gluten-free could help with seizures.

As much as I appreciate Dr. Google’s extensive medical training, I told him he should talk to a neurologist—or at least a nutritionist.

I’ve been gluten-free for many, many years now. But every once in a while, I miss a normal-sized slice of bread, good pasta, and the freedom of eating anywhere without reading labels or worrying about cross-contamination. I still get excited when I discover new gluten-free pizza options at Costco.

So back to his “silly” question: Gluten is great—very tasty, even. But for us Celiacs, gluten is the enemy and even after twenty years gluten-free, the learning never ends — especially in our house.

Bread Trucks and Blood Pressure: Finding Humor in Life’s Challenges

funny. You see, I’m a Celiac — I can’t eat gluten because of an autoimmune disease. I was diagnosed with it as a “birthday gift” on my 39th birthday, and as a former carb-lover, giving up bread and pasta wasn’t easy. Back in the day, gluten-free options were hard to come by and, frankly, not very tasty. And, let’s be honest, gluten-free bread is still the size of a postage stamp.

Life these days is hectic, crazy, and sometimes full of stress. Lately, work has only made it worse. My cardiologist told me I need to lower my blood pressure. I asked him how to do that when people around me constantly annoy me and drive me crazy. I’m still waiting for a solid answer to that question.

I try not to take everything too seriously — not because I think life is a joke, but because we’re all dealing with serious things. We need to find humor in what surrounds us. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to help much with my blood pressure.

Losing my hearing was tough. I went through the stages of grief because losing such an important sense impacts my quality of life and everyday well-being. But five years later, when people ask how it affects me, I joke that it’s actually a blessing for my husband — I don’t hear any of his annoying remarks anymore.

So, having a bread truck full of gluten following me around was pretty funny. Who knows, maybe it’ll even show up in my dreams tonight.

#GlutenFreeHumor #CeliacLife #FindingTheFunny #LaughThroughTheStruggles
#CeliacWarrior #HealthWithHumor #BreadTruckChronicles #AutoimmuneLife #GlutenFreeJourney #StressAndLaughter

The joy of gluten free finds

I was diagnosed with Celiac back when the dinosaurs ruled the earth. Regular stores had absolutely nothing for me and eating out was impossible. I drove 30 minutes to Mrs. Gooch’s just to find something beyond rice cakes. We have grocery stores on almost every corner in my town so driving 30 minutes seemed like a big hassle even if it was a needed one. My husband found a bakery in Los Angeles and would stop there twice a year to get me some bread. 

I used to walk through our local Costco, crying, feeling like I will never be able to buy anything from a normal grocery store and will be doomed to a life of rice, rice cakes and brown rice, barely edible pasta.

Those days are gone, I don’t know when or where eating gluten  free became fashionable, and even though I am GF by need and not by choice, I am thankful. This created a market full of options and choices for my fellow celiacs and gluten intolerant partners in crime.

This weekend I went grocery shopping with my husband to Costco. I was glad to see many gluten free options, several pizza options, snacks, bread, frozen meals, instant pho and soy sauce. 

Those who have no food restrictions might not understand the feeling of finding ready made food you can eat at a mainstream store and not needing to go to a speciality store anymore.

And even though these gf finds are not the healthiest it is still nice to see them available.

Gluten Free trip to Japan – Part 1

I am a Celiac who loves to travel, this is not always easy especially when I travel to countries that love wheat. I returned from a trip to Japan last week and yes, I was hungry. For me being a GF with a mostly vegetarian diet was not easy, I also avoided pork for religious reasons which made my trip a little harder.

This was part of an organized group tour so I did not have an option to cook for myself. Thankfully, all the hotels had a refrigerator so I had somewhere to keep yogurt and fresh produce that I bought at the convenience stores.

Japan loves gluten, gluten is in many products. The hotels we stayed at (3 star budget hotels) all had their breakfast clearly labeled with all allergens which helped immensely. As I mentioned before, Japan loves gluten, which is why I could not even eat the eggs at breakfast as they had gluten in them as well, still for the life of me I can’t figure that out.

I researched my food options before we left and knew what to expect mostly. There is an excellent group on Facebook called Gluten- Free Expats Japan. The group has many posts and tricks on how to figure out what and where is safe to eat and has a list of restaurants and recommendations that were extremely useful. I also carried a GF card and used google translate during the trips as many Japanese did not speak English.

In the suitcase I took bread with me, several GF brands like Schar and BFree have vacuum sealed smaller bread packaging and GF instant oatmeal, granola bars, GF soy sauce packets and my favorite chocolate covered rice cakes from Sprouts (trust me, they are so good it’s scary). Convenience stores are on every block in Japan, this is also excellent as they all have clean bathrooms and trash cans, there are no public trash cans anywhere on the streets and you need to carry the trash with you. 7-11, Lawson’s and Family mart are everywhere. In them I bought drinkable yogurt, rice snacks and onigiri. I did research beforehand what onigiri I can eat and went to our local Mitsuwa ahead of time to get familiarized. In Japan, packaging is labeled with all allergens, however not always in English and you need to recognize the Japanese symbol for wheat. Most of the 7- 11 rice and potato snacks had English wording and that made it easy for me and now I am addicted to the waffle potato ones, they are so good and not greasy.

The only reason I did not starve completely was the many Indian and Nepalese restaurants we found, we always found an English speaker in them so my allergies were easy to explain and for me this food is mostly safe and usually Halal so pork free. Using the restaurant lists we also found a great ramen place with gf ramen in Tokyo Station, Soranoiro Ramen. This was a complete joy for me as all my group could eat together and not look at my sad eyes while they ate dinner and I was stuck with plain rice and edamame.

Living In a Food bubble

I love cooking books, I love cooking shows, love kitchen gadgets and I really love to watch my country’s Master Chef. The only problem with what I wrote in the previous sentence is that I hate cooking but I really love eating. I don’t come from a line of cooks or mini chefs, I come from a line of those who find short cuts. When my kids were young stir fries were eaten frequently as was pasta, pizza, quesadillas and tacos, all foods that were easy to make with 3 young children.

The last 3 pandemic years when we were all home kinda changed my love hate relationship with the kitchen, I started cooking more and trying new foods and flavors. When I watched Master Chef I discovered foods I have never heard about before that apparently are commonly eaten in my country, foods that I have never heard about. When I say this my husband keeps reminding me that we have not lived there for 30 years so that might be it. But in reality when I researched this I discovered these foods were there always. I apparently have been living in a food bubble.

Technically food bubbles are not bad thing if this is what you like, we all have our go-to comfort foods that we can eat all day and every day. I do have to add that I am a Celiac, which means I do not have the food freedom that most people have. But during the pandemic I decided to expand my food range and try new things or even convert some interesting menus to become gluten free.

I have succeeded on some and failed miserably on others. My baking skills have improved and I can make a mean gluten free Brioche and focaccia bread that are not hard as a rock the following day. I also discovered more ethnic north African foods I like and figured out how to make them. My fails were on foods that were foreign to me and I had no intrinsic feel of what they taste like, just how they look like on TV or on paper. But my food journey is not over and I am continuing on my mission of breaking my food bubble.