FoxersArtist
08-25-2008, 03:05 AM
I certainly hope that this is not the case as I have really been getting into the groove of cooking exotic new dishes, especially the kind that are sweet, doughy, and satisfying. And besides all of that, I was just getting to a point where I felt I had mastered the art of defending my kitchen accessories against the evils of the garbanzo mafia. Unfortunately, I fear that it is true. My world of ingredients has come crashing down, become worthless - layer by layer - like a masterpiece lasagna in the hands of the lover of Mexican cuisine. Ok, forgive me, that was overly dramatic and a bit cheesy, wasn't it? I did try. Ok, ok, let me start over.
When I first realized that I would have to vow to abstain from all gluten containing products for the rest of my life in order to save my life, my future of cooking was in a state of crisis. I had just perfected my skills in cooking every day foods as well as many tasty pastries (if you don't believe me, please see my previous post regarding how to make a pear pie). Admittedly so, I was wildly addicted to candy or any sweet thing and found myself stashing away mounds of goodies so that I had a variety of deserts to choose from after every (single) meal with room for snacking between.
Somehow, I thought that God had graced me with the amazing ability to process the number of calories in any given meal as if each item was the low-fat Atkins menu option. I could order a side salad at my favorite restaurant OR a triple cheese pizza, with 4 different types of pork topping, and 3 lbs of tomato paste, garlic, onion, preservatives, & RED # 40 all heaped onto a deep fat fried crust and served with sugar loaded cinnamon bread sticks and a 64oz soda and the results would be the SAME either way!!! For those who may not know...the red paste found on pizza does not actually contain a REAL tomato ingredient! That's what the RED # 40 dye is for!!! Ok, well - maybe that's not entirely true, but I bet it's at least partially true for some food items. Ingredients should be required to rate for content the way movies do! Rated "E" for Edible or "P" for Poison. Better yet, "P" for Poo - as in, don't eat this, it will surely kill you.
All of this to say, I was rather shocked by the changes my body started to make when I began cooking those healthier gluten free dishes with less fat, less calories, less preservatives & dyes, and less highly processed miscellaneous flours, sugars, and starches that seem to be lurking in everything. If we couldn't pronounce it in a single try, we refused to consume it. I started losing weight along with my bodies tolerance for these inedible items. Was it possible for this already thin girl with the athletic build to lose weight? The very same girl who could not gain an ounce during pregnancy even after scarfing down entire deserts such as brownies, bread pudding and ice cream on a daily basis? Now keep in mind, I did gain some weight here and there over the years and did not lose that weight easily, but this is very typical in adults with my type of build. Either way the weight was minor and seemed to hide itself well both on the scale and on my body.
When I was a kid, I was almost always the top choice among my peers for receiving abuse of all varieties for being the "nerdiest" looking classmate in school. When they were not focused on my visual impairments, one of their secondary targets was directed toward my rear which has always seemed to protrude a little farther than might look natural to a pack of insecure 10-year-olds. This was by all means an unfair topic to tease about, especially since I never considered myself to be large anywhere and was always an active kid. My parents had explained to me that my spine was curved in such a way that it caused my bottom to stick out but it had everything to do with my spine and nothing to do with my weight. I had always looked that way. Now, back to present day, and with all respect to mom and dad's theory, I looked into the mirror several weeks ago after losing a considerable amount of weight and lo-and-behold my spinal deformity was healing! AND to top off that discovery, I had recently noticed while sitting in church that the pews were feeling a bit harder these days. Heck, the sofa was feeling a bit harder. My insta-padding was gone! The secret was officially out today when I took Peggy Sue to a friend for her monthly beak trim. My friend always teases me about my "spinal deformation" or "continental shelf" as she calls it, but today (in shock) she wanted to know where it went and why the world was ending! After all of these years, I have learned something new and amusing about myself. I finally know where all of that childhood candy went!
As is a habit of mine, I have strayed quite a ways off topic here. What I was trying to say is that going gluten free had been a very big shift for us and had changed our eating habits, as well as some other things, in ways we could not have imagined. But what is even more unimaginable is that the changes did not stop there. Shortly after my diagnosis, we learned that Andy was not as healthy as we had previously thought. Dry itchy skin, rashes, acid reflux, bad breath, weight gain, frequent gas, short attention span, forgetfulness, excessive sleepiness at inappropriate moments, moodiness - sorry sweety. I thought these were all pre-requisites for being a man. Was I wrong! These are all things that MANY people suffer from in today’s age and are considered to be such minor ailments that they might as well be normal. At the very least - they did not seem like much to either of us in the wake of all of my own health concerns so many of them had been placed on the back burner (poor guy!) But once Andy went gluten free they ALL improved and I was shocked to learn that I was NOT in fact, married to a gorilla! A major bonus for both of us since Andy had also been convinced that he was some sort of uncivilized primitive creature. I was even more accepting of the role that diet plays in our entire wellbeing after reading one man's story about how his grandfather would become so enraged several hours after eating gluten and corn that he would become homicidal. Further research taught me that his story was far from the only one out there and we have experienced similar rage attacks with our son, Gabe, when he has been "Glutened."
Andy's food allergies seemed to match my own at first and we were really thanking God for creating us with similar special needs, despite the low odds that we might BOTH be Celiac and ended up together. But after several months adjusting to our new diet, Andy's symptoms returned and brought some new, much more sever symptoms along with them. Like me, he had really been clinging to many of the "normal" foods that we had been used to before, like Mountain Dew and Snickers bars but after some begging on my part and an unreasonable amount of time spent in the bathroom on his, Andy was practically crying out for me to restrict his diet. So out went dairy. Things returned to normal for what seemed like only a few minutes, until an even louder voice had the opportunity to cry out. So out went corn – after all, this is the magical food item that could quite possibly be at least partially responsible for our rising crime rates. There will be no corn-induced rage-a-holics in this family if I have anything to say about it! HA! The bathroom visits only increased and even though I had been going through these same issues right before my own diagnosis, I felt horribly sorry for my sweet, suffering husband (and a little bit guilty for getting him tangled up in this whole food allergy mess when his digestive system seemed to be working at least reasonably fine before.)
In desperation I quickly removed all traces of soy, many other grains, nightshade veggies like peppers, tomato, and eggplant, any remaining thing with preservatives or dyes, and after much stubborn clinging from both Andy and I - rice and nuts. (This final realization came, of course, right after I had made Andy a delicious rice noodle dish that tasted like a mild curry and looked like someone had dumped an entire bottle of yellow food coloring into it - it was beautiful. I am forever awed by the flaming yellow power of Turmeric.) To say the least, the bathroom torture finally stopped after about a week of eating nothing but meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies and as a bonus, Andy started shedding pounds that may have matched the tears we were shedding over our lost love of these food items.
And so, this brings us to the present. Andy says we are living like the cave people of our past and that it feels refreshing to eat such a simple diet. I have survived, if only by clinging to my evil garbanzo flour, because after all, a bean is vegetable enough to fit into this crazy diet, right? I made garbanzo pancakes several mornings ago because I was motivated with the fear that I might forget all together what bread felt and tasted like in my mouth. Andy was delighted (and it did settle with his tummy) but he insisted that this was something he only wanted to eat every once in a while.
To be continued...
When I first realized that I would have to vow to abstain from all gluten containing products for the rest of my life in order to save my life, my future of cooking was in a state of crisis. I had just perfected my skills in cooking every day foods as well as many tasty pastries (if you don't believe me, please see my previous post regarding how to make a pear pie). Admittedly so, I was wildly addicted to candy or any sweet thing and found myself stashing away mounds of goodies so that I had a variety of deserts to choose from after every (single) meal with room for snacking between.
Somehow, I thought that God had graced me with the amazing ability to process the number of calories in any given meal as if each item was the low-fat Atkins menu option. I could order a side salad at my favorite restaurant OR a triple cheese pizza, with 4 different types of pork topping, and 3 lbs of tomato paste, garlic, onion, preservatives, & RED # 40 all heaped onto a deep fat fried crust and served with sugar loaded cinnamon bread sticks and a 64oz soda and the results would be the SAME either way!!! For those who may not know...the red paste found on pizza does not actually contain a REAL tomato ingredient! That's what the RED # 40 dye is for!!! Ok, well - maybe that's not entirely true, but I bet it's at least partially true for some food items. Ingredients should be required to rate for content the way movies do! Rated "E" for Edible or "P" for Poison. Better yet, "P" for Poo - as in, don't eat this, it will surely kill you.
All of this to say, I was rather shocked by the changes my body started to make when I began cooking those healthier gluten free dishes with less fat, less calories, less preservatives & dyes, and less highly processed miscellaneous flours, sugars, and starches that seem to be lurking in everything. If we couldn't pronounce it in a single try, we refused to consume it. I started losing weight along with my bodies tolerance for these inedible items. Was it possible for this already thin girl with the athletic build to lose weight? The very same girl who could not gain an ounce during pregnancy even after scarfing down entire deserts such as brownies, bread pudding and ice cream on a daily basis? Now keep in mind, I did gain some weight here and there over the years and did not lose that weight easily, but this is very typical in adults with my type of build. Either way the weight was minor and seemed to hide itself well both on the scale and on my body.
When I was a kid, I was almost always the top choice among my peers for receiving abuse of all varieties for being the "nerdiest" looking classmate in school. When they were not focused on my visual impairments, one of their secondary targets was directed toward my rear which has always seemed to protrude a little farther than might look natural to a pack of insecure 10-year-olds. This was by all means an unfair topic to tease about, especially since I never considered myself to be large anywhere and was always an active kid. My parents had explained to me that my spine was curved in such a way that it caused my bottom to stick out but it had everything to do with my spine and nothing to do with my weight. I had always looked that way. Now, back to present day, and with all respect to mom and dad's theory, I looked into the mirror several weeks ago after losing a considerable amount of weight and lo-and-behold my spinal deformity was healing! AND to top off that discovery, I had recently noticed while sitting in church that the pews were feeling a bit harder these days. Heck, the sofa was feeling a bit harder. My insta-padding was gone! The secret was officially out today when I took Peggy Sue to a friend for her monthly beak trim. My friend always teases me about my "spinal deformation" or "continental shelf" as she calls it, but today (in shock) she wanted to know where it went and why the world was ending! After all of these years, I have learned something new and amusing about myself. I finally know where all of that childhood candy went!
As is a habit of mine, I have strayed quite a ways off topic here. What I was trying to say is that going gluten free had been a very big shift for us and had changed our eating habits, as well as some other things, in ways we could not have imagined. But what is even more unimaginable is that the changes did not stop there. Shortly after my diagnosis, we learned that Andy was not as healthy as we had previously thought. Dry itchy skin, rashes, acid reflux, bad breath, weight gain, frequent gas, short attention span, forgetfulness, excessive sleepiness at inappropriate moments, moodiness - sorry sweety. I thought these were all pre-requisites for being a man. Was I wrong! These are all things that MANY people suffer from in today’s age and are considered to be such minor ailments that they might as well be normal. At the very least - they did not seem like much to either of us in the wake of all of my own health concerns so many of them had been placed on the back burner (poor guy!) But once Andy went gluten free they ALL improved and I was shocked to learn that I was NOT in fact, married to a gorilla! A major bonus for both of us since Andy had also been convinced that he was some sort of uncivilized primitive creature. I was even more accepting of the role that diet plays in our entire wellbeing after reading one man's story about how his grandfather would become so enraged several hours after eating gluten and corn that he would become homicidal. Further research taught me that his story was far from the only one out there and we have experienced similar rage attacks with our son, Gabe, when he has been "Glutened."
Andy's food allergies seemed to match my own at first and we were really thanking God for creating us with similar special needs, despite the low odds that we might BOTH be Celiac and ended up together. But after several months adjusting to our new diet, Andy's symptoms returned and brought some new, much more sever symptoms along with them. Like me, he had really been clinging to many of the "normal" foods that we had been used to before, like Mountain Dew and Snickers bars but after some begging on my part and an unreasonable amount of time spent in the bathroom on his, Andy was practically crying out for me to restrict his diet. So out went dairy. Things returned to normal for what seemed like only a few minutes, until an even louder voice had the opportunity to cry out. So out went corn – after all, this is the magical food item that could quite possibly be at least partially responsible for our rising crime rates. There will be no corn-induced rage-a-holics in this family if I have anything to say about it! HA! The bathroom visits only increased and even though I had been going through these same issues right before my own diagnosis, I felt horribly sorry for my sweet, suffering husband (and a little bit guilty for getting him tangled up in this whole food allergy mess when his digestive system seemed to be working at least reasonably fine before.)
In desperation I quickly removed all traces of soy, many other grains, nightshade veggies like peppers, tomato, and eggplant, any remaining thing with preservatives or dyes, and after much stubborn clinging from both Andy and I - rice and nuts. (This final realization came, of course, right after I had made Andy a delicious rice noodle dish that tasted like a mild curry and looked like someone had dumped an entire bottle of yellow food coloring into it - it was beautiful. I am forever awed by the flaming yellow power of Turmeric.) To say the least, the bathroom torture finally stopped after about a week of eating nothing but meats, eggs, fruits, and veggies and as a bonus, Andy started shedding pounds that may have matched the tears we were shedding over our lost love of these food items.
And so, this brings us to the present. Andy says we are living like the cave people of our past and that it feels refreshing to eat such a simple diet. I have survived, if only by clinging to my evil garbanzo flour, because after all, a bean is vegetable enough to fit into this crazy diet, right? I made garbanzo pancakes several mornings ago because I was motivated with the fear that I might forget all together what bread felt and tasted like in my mouth. Andy was delighted (and it did settle with his tummy) but he insisted that this was something he only wanted to eat every once in a while.
To be continued...