Living life without gluten!
Living a gluten free lifestyle takes time to assimilate and is a big decision if medically necessary. It requires an understanding of what gluten-free means and then spending the time learning about various gluten free products available and more importantly finding products you like. To me the most important part of living a healthy gluten-free lifestyle is navigating cross contaminants when dining out or visits with friends and family. Buffets and shared dinners can be hard if not everyone is gluten-free or sensitive to gluten-free people.
I cannot tell you how often people have said to me, ‘well it’s only this one time’ but it is every time. Consider the time you spend in the food stores, restaurants, home cooked dinners outside of your home with friends and family, and all the special occasions in between those everyday occurrences. Except for time spent at home in ones’ own kitchen, there never is a time when living with allergies and food sensitives that one is not vigilant.
Being vigilant does not mean life is harder it simply requires more navigation and education of others within your circle. Becoming gluten free takes time, even after 25+ years I still am learning how to make substitutions and experimenting with different ingredients, my latest being Buckwheat noodles, more on that later. Gluten Free breads and pastas have come a long way since 1995, the year I started eating gluten-free. In hindsight I’m grateful for the change, I would have continued to eat a highly processed diet of carbohydrates and the Standard American Diet (SAD) but as luck and life both happen the options were cardboard and more cardboard at the time so instead of suffering with pasta that melted or bread that tasted like cardboard I ventured into cuisines from countries around the world.
I began to learn how to cook African, Asian, Chinese, and Mexican dishes, all naturally gluten-free. Later adding the delicious flavors of the Caribbean, Indian and Mediterranean diets to my skillsets in home cooking, while still maintaining my affection for Italian, Polish and Irish cuisines venturing out into the world through cooking helped me learn about other cultures and experiences I wouldn’t have tried before. I learned that gluten free living doesn’t have to be boring and unhealthy. The internet today is full of options for gluten free recipes, and I highly encourage people to break out of the ‘Standard American Diet’ and start living a colorful and flavorful healthy lifestyle with or without gluten.
When it comes to good food there should be no regrets! Life is too short for bad food and with lifestyle changes living gluten free can be a blessing.