change is good

Part of being happy is being healthy, so it seems fitting to share the story of how I ended up on a path that has completely changed the way I relate to food. As I have mentioned before - I LOVE food! I love to eat food, I love to cook food and I love to share food! That has not changed, what has changed is the sort of food I can put into my body.

A few years ago I started to notice some strange things happening to me that seemed to be directly related to what I was eating. It actually started out with what I was drinking and how my body would react; I brushed it off as self-inflicted punishment for having had too many drinks. Then when it started to spill over into food, I knew I needed to figure out what exactly was causing me all this discomfort; so I went on a mission and a year and a half ago with the help of a nutritionist and my doctor I discovered it was gluten!

What is gluten even? Gluten is a protein found in wheat (durum, kamut, spelt) as well as barley, triticale and rye. So just stop eating it, stop eating bread and drinking beer – easy.  

Not really. 

It is found in so many things! Things that you would never even think of, soya sauce, lunch meats, worcestershire sauce, flavoured alcohol, salad dressings, certain vinegar, and the list goes on and on and on......

Where to start? I started by talking to a man I work with that I knew was Celiac. He steered me to the local chapter of the Canadian Celiac Association website. He recommended the pocket dictionary and so I bought four, one for my purse, my pantry, my husband and one extra because I was a Girl Guide and we are prepared!  What a fabulous resource, they should be charging triple what they are for them! I would seriously be at a loss without it! My mom works with a woman who has a daughter that is celiac and my friend's father-in law is also celiac and lucky for me all these people were happy to share some tips!

Armed with all this advice, guidance and the support of my husband, I picked up my pocket dictionary and got started on the pantry. A lot of food was donated to friends and local food banks to make my house gluten free. I went through the fridge and freezer and once I was satisfied I had found all the hidden gluten in my house I started this journey. I have experimented in my kitchen with modifying my favorite recipes so that I can continue to eat the food I love and I am happy to say that so far there have been more successes than failures!  I may even post a few on this blog!

It was a year in February and I feel great! There have been some surprising positive changes that I wasn’t even aware of!  It hasn’t been easy and there have been some very painful nights after inadvertently ingesting some of this gluten that my body has deemed poisonous. Overall I feel good, I feel optimistic and I feel a lot more confident than I did a year ago! 

I am able to say “no thank you” to an offering of food now without worrying about hurting someone’s feelings...and that was a big step for me!