6 weeks of gluten free living: Week 4
May 9, 2018
Week 4
Read Week 1, Week 2 and Week 3.
This week was supposed to be about experimenting with recipes and getting comfortable with the new diet but it turned into a week of survival because the Flu going around tackled me to the ground and sat on me, taunting me.
Rude.
As someone noted, I probably underestimated how long this diet trial has to last – I may not document beyond the six weeks, though, if there’s not much interest.
Day 1.
Breakfast: Bowl of two cereals – GF “honey nut O’s” and the weird maple ladder cereal. Yes to the Os again and no to the ladder cereal again.
Lunch: Grilled cheese and apple slices
Dinner: Grilled shrimp and cheesy buttery sliced grits
Pain/Discomfort: Less pain than yesterday’s weird night but my lower back is a mess.
Day 2.
Breakfast: Slice of seed toast, plain.
Snack: Protein bar, two honey rice cakes
Lunch: Leftover sushi rolls from Saturday night. I love ginger, I hate wasabi, I miss soy sauce. (I know there’s GF soy sauce, I’m just not ready to pay that price.)
Dinner: Leftovers! A big bowl of creamy polenta (that stuff reconstitutes wonderfully after the first cooking) with a side of grilled shrimp and a few bits of roast pork.
Pain/Discomfort: Dangitall! I’ve been germed and it stinks. It’s going to throw this week’s observations all to heck because there’s no good way to tell the difference between feeling sick and feeling glutened up.
Day 3.
Breakfast: A couple of clementines, scrambled eggs, peanut butter GF seed toast.
Lunch: Chocolate milk before I realize that’s bad for mucus production, creamy polenta and roast pork.
Dinner: Last of the polenta, shrimp, tilapia, with a side of sausages, broccoli, and brown rice
Pain/Discomfort: I am ALL of the aches. Probably because of the sick. This 6 week trial will have to be longer for enough data to decide if this makes a real difference, won’t it? Does anyone want to keep reading the weekly updates if I go longer?
The good thing is that NewPup is starting to do a little better with the sled-dog antics and my hands aren’t aching after every walk. It’s just the rest of me being a walking bruise. Still I’m happy to take what I can get!
Day 4.
Breakfast: Slice of seeds & grains bread with peanut butter
Lunch: 2 beef franks with sauerkraut and ketchup, slice of seeds & grains bread, two yucky snickerdoodle cookies because someone has to eat them and that someone is me.
Dinner: Made a delightful roasted veggies medley (diced potatoes, cauliflower that’s on sale!, onions) served with cubed chicken in masala sauce. Our signals got crossed so PiC came home with a whole rotisserie chicken from Costco as well. We set that chicken aside to be the base for several more meals.
Pain/Discomfort: Still coughing, sneezing, and miserable. No good for the purpose of this diary!
Days 5-7 were all a blur. Chicken masala tacos sound weird but it’s actually DELICIOUS. We had that a few times because I was in no shape to cook and our schedules don’t allow for PiC to do a lot of cooking, he’s more often the Royal Reheater of Cooked Foods.
We had friends over to dinner one night but had decided earlier in the week that, while I’d probably have just enough juice to hang out with them, I didn’t have enough to cook a big meal AND entertain. We ordered in and by that I mean, I heavily over-ordered from the local Vietnamese place because I have no idea how much normal adults eat and didn’t want to run out of food. We most definitely didn’t run out: soup, rice dish with grilled pork, noodle dish with steamed egg on the side, mochi for dessert. We had 3 full meals left over at the end. Not a bad outcome!
Mexican and Vietnamese seem like safe cuisines – is Indian and Thai as well?
Sorry you had a rough sick week. 🙁 Not sure how far back this was, but hope you feel better!
As summer hits, I’ve been getting more “light” foods like poke and salads. When I want something more substantial, I’ll often go for Sweetgreen, Tex-Mex-ish food, or some type of Asian cuisine (Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Indonesian). My stomach is sensitive to spicy food, so while I enjoy the taste of Thai/Indian, I can’t eat them that often.
Thanks. It’s not very far back, it’s recent enough I’m still sick. D:
I read “summer” and I looked outside – major fog, wind, and drizzles today. I think summer is still a while off for us, alas, though I’m getting summer recipes in email already.
Yes! I like reading these even though I am not GF. At some point I intend to do a trial like this (maybe) and I’m very interested in how this goes, what you eat, and if it makes a difference in your pain levels or not (I hope so).
I’ll think about adding some updates!
Mexican, Thai, Sushi are all decent take out options but really I can find something anywhere we go. Burgers without buns, grilled chicken unless soy sauce is in the marinade, salads etc. Even pizza places have GF options most of the time. (Meatballs are generally off limits though) because it’s gotten a lot more popular, I just tell them and they’re willing to help.
I had wondered about foods that I assumed were safe (like meatballs) because I didn’t realize they included bread crumbs. I’m just starting to get the hang of the things I should avoid. Around here it seems only one pizza chain has GF options, weird.
Sorry you had to deal with the ick, too. I *still* have a bit of cough and congestion and it’s been 3 weeks since I succumbed to it.
Some Indian food is certainly OK, but not all. Naan, chapati, and samosas are made with wheat; biryani dishes and dhosa are not. Main dishes like dals, cooked veggies, and meat curries should be fine. Desserts such as kheer, kulfi, and custards should be OK, but some of the others like gulab jamun (those little balls served in sweet syrup that are often offered at buffets) have wheat flour in them. I think halwa would be suspect, too, since it’s usually made with semolina which is a type of wheat, I believe.
(I’m amazing myself with my Indian food savvy! I happen to really like it, can you tell?)
I’m sorry you’ve been sick : ( That does kind of mess up what you’re trying to determine with the new diet, so frustrating on more than one level. Our take out discovery since going plant-based is Pita Pit where there are 3 vegan options. The one I always choose is falafel. I have also indulged in some vegetarian shawarma – with falafel as the pièce de résistance. Also vegan paid thai. (I clearly get too much take out – but not nearly as much as I want to.)
Sorry to hear you’re sick! Dining options really depend on how sensitive you are. We can’t do GF pizza from the restaurants around here because even if they have a premade GF crust, they use the same pans, sauces, toppings, and pizza cutters that they use with their regular pizzas – so gluten cross-contact like crazy! It can all come down to the little things like bread crumbs in the meatballs, a frier used for both fries and breaded fish, wheat as a thickener in refried beans, and soy sauce in the sushi. On a positive note we have had uniformly good experiences with Red Robins franchises, and I’ve run into a couple Asian/Thai restaurants (sadly, always in other towns) that used tamari instead of soy sauce so they were pretty safe. Steakhouses can be a good option too since they tend to have simpler options available. A good sign is if the restaurant menu or website talks about Why they are gluten-free and/or How they ensure it actually is GF. Like a café we ate at last weekend uses different colored plates to keep things straight, a restaurant in Seattle has a dedicated small kitchen within the larger restaurant solely for GF cooking, and at a nearby Italian restaurant (too expensive for us, alas) the owner’s wife has Celiac so he KNOWS the importance of cooking safe GF food. Findmeglutenfree is both a website and an app that can help you locate your local options.