Mindset - Part I

[helwen]

When you're trying to remove something from your life, whether it's a food or a habit, instead of focusing on what you can't have, try to figure out all the things you _can_ have!

For me, talking about going gluten-free has led to friends sharing neat foods, some of which I didn't know existed. Chinese radish pancakes and plain roasted chickpeas are two of these, and while they may sound odd, they're really quite tasty!

Physically, armored combat is now out, so now I'll have more space in active storage and can focus on other pursuits like archery. I like archery, so it's all good :)

Here's a semi-random assortment of thoughts and experiences I've been having....

***
One person I was communicating with commented that it's a good idea to _not_ try to find substitutes for all the foods you used to eat. Now, if you're really set on sandwiches, toast, cold cereal, it's certainly quite possible and there are more choices than there used to be. We have some of the cereals here, which I usually have with soy or rice milk (I alternate between two containers so my soy intake is moderate). Occasionally, if we pick up some raw milk from Sidehill Farm, I'll have that.

I'm not much of a toast person, although once in a great while English muffins appeal to me, so I guess I should look into trying to make some at some point.

Meantime, what are my other current breakfast choices? Eggs (over easy or as an omelette), buckwheat pancakes (light flour), and oatmeal.

Now, the oatmeal we have more than once a week, especially in cold weather. At its plainest L puts in sweetener, cinnamon, & ground flax. Sometimes instead of honey or maple syrup he puts in some fruit preserves, and I know a lady who chops up some dried fruit and throws it in to cook with the oats. The ground flax is for the omega-3, not flavor (doesn't change the taste). With all of these we sprinkle some sliced almonds on top, for a little more protein.

***
We end up stopping at Dunkin Donuts for coffee (L) and tea (me), going to and/or from kung fu -- we have travel mugs, but we may want to consider making up a couple of thermoses for the car... anyway, there's all that sugary goodness staring at me, and it's all wheat! And lots of sugar!! Fortunately I don't like the large cube sugar they use on a lot of things, but I did ask them about their corn muffins and they use only corn meal in them, no wheat. So if I'm hungry, there's still something there for me.

***
At Applebee's in Hadley, I asked one night if the chicken in one of the dishes was breaded, and the waitress asked if I'd like to see the gluten-free menu. Okay, it wasn't a huge menu, but there were definitely choices, and I was delighted that it even existed!

***
A couple of times now I've had a wrap from a pizza place, without the wrap. I like to have pastrami once in a while, but I wanted to be good and not have the wrap itself. So I ordered a wrap without the wrap -- they stick all the things that would be in a wrap, lettuce and all (per my request), into one of the metal tins they use for things like salads or pasta dinners, and then I had it heated, just like when you have your wrap toasted. Yeah I know, sounds weird, but it was good. Think of it as Italian stir fry :D

Our local pizza place also usually has soup or chili, and so far I've found that the tomato and red pepper, cream of mushroom (if I'm up for dairy), beef stew, and veggie chili are all excellent. I've also had their meat chili, but I think their veggie is tastier and I really like it. They have salads too, and it's easy to ask them to leave things out (like croutons!)

***
Our friends who host Concentus practice were apologetic last night because since it's a potluck and so what shows up for food is anyone's guess (we've tried organizing, it doesn't work), they're not sure where the shortfall will be. I said to not worry about it -- after one of the practices a week or so ago when the only thing that didn't have wheat in it was the apple cider L and I'd brought, I've tried to get something to eat before we go to practice. Yesterday I had ginger tea (made with freshly cut up ginger one person brought), and some stir fry kale (L and I brought the kale). So I had tea and kale. I'd had a handful of nuts at home and a corn muffin on the way there, so that really was fine.

I did cave in at the end of practice and have some ice cream, which did have some wheat in it -- cookies and cream -- fortunately some forms of wheat don't seem to affect me as badly as others, and it was a fairly small amount. I'm grateful that I'm not as sensitive to it as some folks are. But if I were, and I really wanted to have a little dessert, my hosting friends usually have some fruit on hand.

***
A friend of ours can't have berries of any kind - he's mortally allergic to them. The rest of us love berries and at the time we found out about it we thought it was a very sad thing... but he said he doesn't miss having something that he knows is going to kill him.

***

If you're trying to go gluten-free, it might pay to look at some of the snacks that are available - granola, dried fruit, nuts, some types of corn chips, whatever, and get in the habit of having them available to you at home and when traveling. Give yourself a choice, wherever you happen to be. As long as you're not starving, it's all good!

Comments

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Ummm... those Dunkin Donuts corn muffins -- loaded with wheat flour:
INGREDIENTS: Enriched Bleached Wheat Flour (Wheat Flour, Niacin, Iron as Ferrous Sulfate, Thiamin Mononitrate, Enzyme, Riboflavin, Folic Acid), Sugar, Water, Eggs, Degermed Yellow Corn Meal, Soybean Oil, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Contains less than 2% of the following: Leavening (Baking Soda, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate, Aluminum Sulfate), Modified Corn Starch, Salt, Gelatanized Wheat Starch, Mono and Diglycerides, Sorbitan Monostearate, Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, Polysorbate 60, Propylene Glycol, Soy Flour, Milk.

I looked into them a while back when I was cooking a gluten free Thanksgiving dinner. I ended up making cornbread from scratch using a gluten free flour along with the corn meal.

I have to watch oatmeal -- much as I love it, it really spikes my blood glucose, even when I eat it absolutely unsweetened, just with butter or cream.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the catch! Odd that they don't seem to give me any grief -- at least not noticeably. Probably if I had one a day I'd notice though. So much for that idea...

Interesting about the oatmeal - I had no idea it could do that. I don't have to watch my sugar levels that closely, so I guess that's an individual thing. At this point I'm hoping that I can avoid being in that situation. I eat a lot of (I think) non-sugary veggies, nuts, some fish, chicken, eggs, occasionally beef, and rarely lamb and pork. Kale is my friend! Maybe it's just as well I don't have oatmeal every day though, eh? The cold cereals have sugar too, of course, although the Chex varieties we get are pretty low, relative speaking.

So.... what sorts of grains can you have? And are the sugars in milk are problem? Diabetes management has always been foreign territory for me.

[oakmouse]

You're spot on; when going GF it really is important to look at what you can have. Later on you can work out what gluteny foods you can make good GF versions of and what you have to just let go.

There areplenty of choices. Wraps can be wrapped in lettuce (or paper, depending on how wet they are) or served in bowls or on plates. (Check processed meats for gluten, though.) Cereal? Try hot cornmeal mush, or Bob's Red Mill cream of brown rice, or millet porridge. At a not-fast-food sandwich place, you can get the fillings served without the bread or the burger without the bun. One of our local restaurants is used to serving burgers wrapped in lettuce and tomato because so many local people use the Atkins diet, and they go out of their way to make it esy to eat.

Some GF things are better. Mochiko (sweet rice flour) makes better gravy than regular flour. Pancakes made from a mix of brown rice and garbanzo bean flours are just as good as or better than regular pancakes. If you want tempura, garbanzo bean flour makes a wonderful batter (or just have pakora, which is made with garbanzo bean flour to begin with). Cornbread made with all cornmeal is yummy. (Want my recipe? I'll share!) Cookies made with half sorghum flour and half brown rice flour are awesome and nobody will know they're GF. (I too cut down on the sugar, and also on the fat sometimes.)

And, of scourse, meat, eggs, legumes, fruits, and veggies are all GF and CF.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing! Sure, I'd love your cornbread recipe, that would be great.

Processed meats... like hot dogs or sausages? I'm not much into processed meats in general.

Hamburgers w/out the bun I've definitely done at places like Friendly's -- I think it tastes better that way.

I have a bag of chickpea (garbanzo is same, yes?) flour, but no ideas on how to use it, so that'll be interesting. I was also thinking that if corn muffins can be made with wheat, they could also be made with other flours mixed in?

Thank goodness for all the other foods!

[oakmouse]

Cool! I'll email the recipe later on, with some additional stuff you may find useful. You're always free to toss anything that doesn't work for you. ;)

In the context of sandwiches, most deli meat is processed to one degree or another. Anything that's not an identifiable hunk-o-dead-critter has been pureed, texturized, flavored (sometimes with milk protein), reconstituted with either gelatine or starch, gooped up with various additives and then shaped into a loaf. Even the ones that are identifiable hunks-o-dead-critter can have flavored coatings that may be gluteny or dairyish or otherwise nasty. So that's what Imeant by processed meats. On the other hand, hot dogs and sausages can contain fillers too, and British style bangers by definition contain gluten.

Yes, chickpea and garbanzo are the same thing. it's a nice flour with a lot of uses; I'll mention some of them and include a couple recipes in my email. One of the things you can make with it is quick and easy hummus, although I haven't tried that yet.

Yes, corn muffins or bread can be made with non-gluten flours. I've seen a recipe for cornbread made with garbanzo bean flour, and another for cornbread made with rice flour.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Meats - thx. I gave up on most mixed meats some time ago, although I occasionally have one of those spicy dogs when we're on the road. The plain dogs are just not interesting. I'll have to take a look at some of the store-bought types. Oh, btw, there is starting to be some nitrite-free bacon for sale in stores!

Thanks for the coming email :)

[embermwe.livejournal.com]

My sister and niece have recently gone GF. They swear it helped the chronic off and on G.I. foo.
I have been starting to head that way, cutting it out wherever it is simple, and trying to research GF alternatives in prep for making a run at GF myself..
Thanks for posting and sharing about GF alternatives as this will be VERY helpful for me!!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Welcome - it's nice to have company on the adventure.

And helpful! Hugh_mannity let me know that the corn muffins at DD have wheat in them :( So tonight we stopped at a different convenience store on the way home from class, where they had a number of definitely wheat-free foods, and also they have green tea, which I prefer to DD's black tea. So, DD loses my business.

Of course, we _still_ need to work on bringing drinks and food with us, but it's nice to have options.

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

While I don't seem to have a problem with gluten, per se, I do know I have to watch how much bread/breading etc I consume on a weekly basis. Moderation, as we all know, is best.

Speaking of other allergies, though - that is what gives so many people around me problems. My allergies are, indeed, life-threatening. I joke that I really don't want to quit the habit of breathing, but my base reaction to RAW citric is pretty violent - my throat swells shut and I really can't breathe. So, anything in the citric family - and that includes tomatoes - as well as the hot peppers is right out. They all have long acid strings, and the longer the molecular acid string, the worse I react.

Once it is cooked or processed enough, though, I can handle it easily - I adore Italian foods like pizza, spaghetti and lasagna.

Still, given the propensity for people at feasts to do things like squeeze lemons onto the roast beef as it leaves the kitchen for service (that was a NASTY surprise, that night, for me) I have learned to be VERY VERY careful about feasts in general - and my household is VERY VERY protective of me, as well.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Glad you have folks looking out for you! Yikes, and one of the things I do for myself on a regular basis is add lemon juice to my water or tea -- I'm not a fan of plain water, at least not anywhere away from home. City water just isn't as good. It also helped me survive MT school, with the building's sealed windows and closed air circulation system. Hm.... what do you use for a natural decongestant? One of the reasons I use lemon juice regularly is that it helps with that. Although I guess actually you could have the stuff I use -- lemons are one of those things I don't want to deal with the work, so I get it in a bottle, which I imagine is cooked.

I used to cook for our choir, but the variety of allergies and food preferences got the best of me a few years back. A Chinese New Year party once a year was one thing, but to try to come up with different menus every week? Oy. Although I might be able to do it more easily now -- if practices were at our place, which they were when we lived in Holyoke.

I have a friend who can't do citric, raw or cooked, another who's allergic to peanuts, another to all fish and fowl,.... when I used to cook in the SCA I would joke that I might not remember your name, but I'll remember your allergies and your hobbies :D

[shaunacarrick.livejournal.com]

Decongestant? I wish! My other 'family' of problems is not a true allergy, per se, but is close enough to be a problem. When I was young, every year my pediatrician would increase the dosage of chlortrimeton for me to take in the summer, especially while at Girl Scout camp in the mountains. At a certain point, I over-reacted, as it had hit a near-toxic level. Since then, I have been basically overly sensitive to that whole family of meds - the pseudo-ephredine ones.

The generic cough syrup from WalMart that is similar to Robutussin - the one with guefensin (sp?) in it - is about all I can take if a cold or sinuses get too bad. Otherwise, I just keep the kleenex people in business year round. (chronic runny nose, basically).

Having survived 54+ years, I figure I am good for quite a few more, now that the metal knees are working as well as can be expected. :-) I just watch what I eat, and the various meds the VA Dr prescribes for me, and all is good. Just takes vigilance, really.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Nasty stuff :(

One thing I use for decongestant maintenance (not phlegm-eliminating, sort of anti-sneezing and preventive thing) is nettles. It works pretty well unless there's a crazy amount of mold and/or dust around. I put the dried stuff in soups or make a tea, or use the tincture. That last I take by itself though, since the alcohol in it doesn't really go well with soup or tea :D

It's fairly cheap to buy the dried nettle stuff too, if you have an herbalist shop in your area. It grows wild here but I keep forgetting to harvest it -- well, in my copious spare time :P