Gluten Free... It's POSSIBLE!

As most of you know, within the last year and a half I became aware that I have an allergy to Gluten. Though it seems to be a difficult thing to navigate and figure out, the more I learn the more I feel I can prevent myself from feeling sick. I've learned over the past few months that in order to feel good I need to be very careful about where I eat, what I eat, and make sure I know how the meal was prepared. AND read labels, read labels, and did I mention reading labels???

Gluten is hidden in so many unexpected foods and ingredients, that many people would never expect. It is not simply just flour or wheat that I have to be careful of. Did you know that gluten is in (certain brands of) ketchup, peanut butter, cooking spray, chocolate, dressings, BBQ sauce, soups, and obviously pasta, breads, cookies, cakes, etc.?? Beacuse I sure didn't! You could say that it is in EVERYTHING that actually tastes good! My whole lifestyle of eating and grocery shopping has COMPLETELY changed. Now I have to make sure the that brand I use for all my foods says or is naturally gluten free.

Being 100% careful seems pretty much impossible! ESPECIALLY when going out to eat at a restaurant, or even eating at someone else's home. Because not everyone is aware of all the foods and ingredients containing gluten and how easily cross contamination occurs, it is hard to make sure that even with their BEST intentions... the food they cook is truly gluten free. Not everyone thinks to wash their hands after touching regular bread or gluten and then touching something that is supposed to be gluten free. It is as easy as that! Something so tiny and little, and yet it makes a difference! Even though fruits and veggies are gluten free, if someone made a sandwich before cutting up the fruit and forgot to wash their hands, that fruit now has gluten on it. So my question has now become... were their hands cleaned and washed when they prepared this food? Is it TRULY gluten free and will I leave with a stomach ache?

Though restaurants are gaining MUCH more knowledge about gluten, it is still a risk of not knowing what they cooked on the burner before placing my chicken on it. Or possibly what they touched before preparing my salad. So if I have a choice, I will almost always choose to cook at home rather than going out to eat. I have also learned to be extremely careful about what I eat when I go to other people's homes. Sometimes I bring my own food if it is an appropriate setting and will not be considered ruid. But I never want to make it a huge deal; if I am invited over for dinner, I will not be picky and I will eat what is put in front of me. If they were not aware of my allergy, or even if they were and may have accidentally cooked gluten in it somewhere, I will eat it and try to eat the least amount of gluten I can. My allergy is not deathly severe or extremely severe by any means. It causes me much discomfort, but I would choose to have my stomach hurt rather than skipping out and missing having dinner and fellowship with friends and family for fear of eating something with gluten.

Plus I have to admit... I'm GUILTY.... since I am still quite new at this, I do sometimes say "forget it"... and I eat the cake that looks WAY too delicious to stand and watch everyone else enjoying it without me. And brownies?? Seriously... I am a dessertaholic if there is such a thing! I LOVE LOVE LOVE desserts, bars, cookies and anything that is gooey, chocolatey, caramely, (are those even words??) and DELICIOUS! And all of those thing now scream at me "I HAVE gluten!!" Against my better judgement at times, I still eat it. But through those impulsive decisions to eat it... and the pain I have endured afterwards, I have begun to slowly realize that most of the things I end up eating because it looks TOO good to pass up, really ends up NOT being worth the pain it puts me through in the following days!

With that being said, when I CAN choose, I will always choose to eat healthy and stay away from anything that could possibly have gluten in it. When we are at home, I cook MANY meals and experiment with many things that are gluten free! It's easy and I can literally have anything that I want and it can be gluten free. Sure, it may take some trial and errors, but in order to be healthy, keep my body away from the things that hurt it and still enjoy the foods I love.... I MUST experiment, try new things, fail sometimes, and come to find things that there truly are gluten free foods that Ben and I can both enjoy together! AND the good news...?? I have found and made many different types of brownies, cookies and other desserts that are gluten free:) WOO HOO!

I suppose I can say I am extremely lucky to have this allergy now. Almost all grocery stores and restaurants DO have gluten free options. More than ever before, they label the foods "gluten free" which makes my life so much easier!! The fact that I have a supportive, loving, flexible, caring and AWESOME husband who is a rockstar helps like non other as well:) I suppose you can call him my "test dummie" for my gluten free experiments! He says I havent disappointed him so far, but we are still within our first year of marriage (as everyone calls it our "honeymoon stage", which for the record....I'm going to make it my goal and my life long ambition to make our entire marriage the "honeymoon stage"...), he's probably just still trying to impress me and not make me feel bad!

So, what is my point in telling you all of this???  Well, I would love for you to join me! Beginning very soon I will begin to post the different recipes I have tried and I will tell you honestly what Ben and I thought of it. Ben probably hates this, but after every meal I cook I ask him to rate it 1-10. Once he does, I take a picture of the food, and I write the recipe and his rating, along with my rating down. So the next time I look at that recipe I will know whether or not we liked it and if I want to make it again. I tell him that he MUST be honest with me, and that he wont make me feel bad if he doesnt like it. I also tell him that if he tells me he likes it when he doesnt, he will be the one to suffer for the next 60 years when I make it for him over and over again thinking that he likes it when all along he was only trying to be nice:)

So you can be sure that you will get our honest opinions on how the recipe turned out! Again.. I'm not a professional blogger by any means, so I will try to figure out a way and a sort of organized fashion as to how to post these recipes... but I will post them I promise!

And PLEASE feel free to share recipes that you have tried with me too! I love to try new things and I would love to hear stories and experiments that you have tried as well! And then if I try them, and you dont mind me sharing them with others...who knows, your recipe could be on the next blog as we rave about how delicious it was!:)

So stay tuned! Recipes are coming...