Gluten-Free eating
I assumed this would be easier. This was based on the assumption that eating 90% Asian cuisines and living in Seattle would make this change relatively pain-free. That I could eat gluten-free without sacrifice.
That was 100% wrong.
Thursday was challenging since I had no idea what was available that I could eat on the UW campus. I ended up with fruit, yogurt and salad. Then I had to conquer dinner. We had purposefully let the cabinets get quite bare in preparation, just in case I might be diagnosed as Celiac so eating out was the only option. Cafe Flora is well known for having a large selection of menu options that are vegan, so off we went.
And it was so completely depressing. I was excited to see most of the menu items could be requested gluten-free. I opted for summer tomato GF pizza. They brought me a piece of cardboard with cheese slices and half-tomatoes perched on top. Not only was it pathetic to look at, but it tasted the way it looked. So we went off to Madison Market to check out the selection of gluten-free foods available. There was a good selection of cereals, breads, frozen foods, cookies, etc and I selected a few things to keep from feeling too sorry for myself. I have two cereals, some Annie's Bunny Cookies, bread, and soy milk all for $40. This illness is going to break us! Well, if we were to only shop at Madison Market anyway.
Friday was more encouraging. I walked to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to have lunch and they do always have options other than salad that are gluten free. By Friday, I was definitely feeling hungry. This is the strangest change thus far. I'm hungry. Hungrier than I have ever been. I ate my piece of steak and generous serving of mashed potatoes with chinese broccoli and after was still starving. I have never eaten that volume of red meat and felt at all hungry after. I've never even managed to finish that much food in one sitting. This is the change that hasn't gone away. I'm always hungry now.
I brought my Annie's Bunnies with me as an afternoon snack and for dinner, Nate made steak tacos. Yummy as always and totally gluten-free as always, just not quite as satiating as I remembered.
Yesterday, the plan was to clean the gluten from the condo. This was a horribly depressing task. All of the noodles, sauces, condiments, grains, and breads were wiped from our kitchen and I wanted to cry as I poured bottle after bottle of things down the drain. There are so many things that I will never taste again. No more Korean food. No more Chinese food. No more spaghetti. No more pizza, dim sum, bao, onion pancakes... I was in complete despair. And by 2 PM, I was completely famished. I had been hungry all day, but by 2, I was shaking and having trouble mustering the energy to move. But Nate drove me to the best bowl of pho in all of Seattle and for probably the first time ever, I killed it. Every noodle, and scrap of beef, along with most of the broth in my suddenly happy stomach. I even helped Nate finish his rice noodles.
We then marched downtown to have Nate's suit altered for Renee and Kiya's upcoming nuptuals and then to the bookstore for books on Celiac baking and Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Then it was off to do our grocery shopping at Uwajimaya.
But at this point, two hours had passed since lunch and I was again starving so we had to detour for bubble tea. That actually stuck with me for a few hours and we didn't have onion tofu with garlic sprouts for dinner until 9 PM.
Today, I'm still having lots of hunger pangs. But Nate believes that I will eventually either become used to feeling hungry or it will improve as my intestines heal. I've also noticed that I'm much happier than I've been in ages, despite shedding a lot of tears over things I never get to eat again (bagels, Top Pot doughnuts, CAKE). So now, today, I have plenty of food in the condo so now my goal is to keep cool and write an abstract for an upcoming meetinig............ ON A PROJECT THAT I KNOW LESS THAN NOTHING ABOUT..... So I get to learn I guess and maybe use my imagination.
And on the bright side, I found a gluten-free product that is marketed at gluten free that is AWESOME. Woodchuck Hard Cider. This stuff is really, really yummy.
That was 100% wrong.
Thursday was challenging since I had no idea what was available that I could eat on the UW campus. I ended up with fruit, yogurt and salad. Then I had to conquer dinner. We had purposefully let the cabinets get quite bare in preparation, just in case I might be diagnosed as Celiac so eating out was the only option. Cafe Flora is well known for having a large selection of menu options that are vegan, so off we went.
And it was so completely depressing. I was excited to see most of the menu items could be requested gluten-free. I opted for summer tomato GF pizza. They brought me a piece of cardboard with cheese slices and half-tomatoes perched on top. Not only was it pathetic to look at, but it tasted the way it looked. So we went off to Madison Market to check out the selection of gluten-free foods available. There was a good selection of cereals, breads, frozen foods, cookies, etc and I selected a few things to keep from feeling too sorry for myself. I have two cereals, some Annie's Bunny Cookies, bread, and soy milk all for $40. This illness is going to break us! Well, if we were to only shop at Madison Market anyway.
Friday was more encouraging. I walked to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to have lunch and they do always have options other than salad that are gluten free. By Friday, I was definitely feeling hungry. This is the strangest change thus far. I'm hungry. Hungrier than I have ever been. I ate my piece of steak and generous serving of mashed potatoes with chinese broccoli and after was still starving. I have never eaten that volume of red meat and felt at all hungry after. I've never even managed to finish that much food in one sitting. This is the change that hasn't gone away. I'm always hungry now.
I brought my Annie's Bunnies with me as an afternoon snack and for dinner, Nate made steak tacos. Yummy as always and totally gluten-free as always, just not quite as satiating as I remembered.
Yesterday, the plan was to clean the gluten from the condo. This was a horribly depressing task. All of the noodles, sauces, condiments, grains, and breads were wiped from our kitchen and I wanted to cry as I poured bottle after bottle of things down the drain. There are so many things that I will never taste again. No more Korean food. No more Chinese food. No more spaghetti. No more pizza, dim sum, bao, onion pancakes... I was in complete despair. And by 2 PM, I was completely famished. I had been hungry all day, but by 2, I was shaking and having trouble mustering the energy to move. But Nate drove me to the best bowl of pho in all of Seattle and for probably the first time ever, I killed it. Every noodle, and scrap of beef, along with most of the broth in my suddenly happy stomach. I even helped Nate finish his rice noodles.
We then marched downtown to have Nate's suit altered for Renee and Kiya's upcoming nuptuals and then to the bookstore for books on Celiac baking and Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. Then it was off to do our grocery shopping at Uwajimaya.
But at this point, two hours had passed since lunch and I was again starving so we had to detour for bubble tea. That actually stuck with me for a few hours and we didn't have onion tofu with garlic sprouts for dinner until 9 PM.
Today, I'm still having lots of hunger pangs. But Nate believes that I will eventually either become used to feeling hungry or it will improve as my intestines heal. I've also noticed that I'm much happier than I've been in ages, despite shedding a lot of tears over things I never get to eat again (bagels, Top Pot doughnuts, CAKE). So now, today, I have plenty of food in the condo so now my goal is to keep cool and write an abstract for an upcoming meetinig............ ON A PROJECT THAT I KNOW LESS THAN NOTHING ABOUT..... So I get to learn I guess and maybe use my imagination.
And on the bright side, I found a gluten-free product that is marketed at gluten free that is AWESOME. Woodchuck Hard Cider. This stuff is really, really yummy.