This Blog Is Going Gluten Free!

Hello!  In my last post I brought up going gluten free.  Well, turns out I feel about a million times better when I'm not eating gluten.  Things that I thought were "normal" like cramping, bloating, and extreme fatigue after meals became non-existent after a month of being gluten free.  I'll admit I had some suspicions about gluten for quite some time before I did anything about it.  I just didn't want to give up bread!  But once my system cleared out and I started feeling the real "normal" sans gluten I found that I didn't even want the stuff.  Why eat something that was obviously making me feel like crap?  And finally, my decision to go gluten free was validated yesterday....

That's me, in Astoria, about to visit the Goonies house!  I grew up on the Oregon coast and have 2 friends that lived in the Goonies house at different times and I was a huge fan of the movie when I was a kid.

Do you recognize it from the movie?  Anyways... what does this have to do with my gluten free experience?  Well, while in Astoria we ate lunch at a cute little cafe that offered vegan and gluten free options.  Finding a place along the coast with vegan options isn't always easy, let alone vegan and gluten free.  What happened next is totally my fault.  I ordered something that I assumed was gluten free even though it wasn't advertised as such because I didn't want to annoy the person taking my order with more questions. Part way through eating we guessed that the injera (Ethiopian flat bread traditionally made with gluten free teff flour) was made with a combo of teff and whole wheat flour.  Like I said, I should have known better and I could have saved myself a lot of pain if I would have just inquired about the ingredients.

My second mistake was finishing the bread, but can you blame me?  Look at that pretty plate of food!  I kept eating, thinking "Ok, so I'll be a little bloated after this".   And sure enough, the bloating happened, plus more.  Waaaay more.  To the extent of missing the next day at work.  It was a miserable experience and a valuable lesson.  First of all, I'm committed to staying gluten free.  No bread is worth having to go through that again.  And second, I really should have just asked about the bread.  Sheesh.  Another thing I've been pondering is this:  If having gluten made me feel this terrible, what has it been doing to my body all of this time?  I'm happy to be rid of it.

So, from now on this blog is going to be gluten free too.  The food nerd in me is super excited to experiment with new ingredients and see what I can come up with that's tasty and makes me feel the best.  A good handful of my blog friends and blogs that I read are already gluten free, but if you know of any awesome blogs, books, or websites please leave me a link in comments.  I'm soaking up all the info I can get my hands on right now.