I continually preach: Keep it simple! Especially, for those of you who are just starting out.  If you can stick to basic foods, whether you are at home, or out to eat, then it isn’t so bad.

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Image from pattymemorial.org

Think about your usual grocery store layout.  Shop the outside walls of the grocery store. That is a little trick I learned that applies to eating healthy and unprocessed foods.  This also applies for us gluten free folks- just skip the baked goods, obviously.  Pick up some vegetables, fruits, nuts, meat, cheese, milk, and eggs.  Keep it simple.  You know these items are naturally gluten free!  If you want to get crazy, wander to in the inner isles of the store for some condiments or rice… or maybe your store’s gluten free section is also in the middle.  Build your meals around these basics, then start adding in other things you know are gluten free.

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When cooking at home, for me, everything revolves around those simple foods. For example: I was suddenly starving this afternoon, so I quickly defrosted, cut, and cooked some chicken.  Then put tomato sauce on some corn tortillas.  Melted some cheese on them.  Since I was really hungry, I scrambled a couple eggs.  I put them all together, and in 10min. I had a great lunch!  I was so tempted to go to Chipotle and spend $8, but I liked this more and it maybe cost $1.50.  See, it doesn’t have to be hard or expensive.

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A while back, I received some great sauces and dressing from San-J and Wild Thymes.

They both make some great gluten free products.  These have been a life saver when it comes to making it feel like I am eating a new meal every day.

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Does eating the same foods get boring?  NO. Remember Bubba from Forest Gump… “shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried…” (I love that movie)

I have found some easy ways to cook just the same few foods many different ways to keep it interesting.  Add soy sauce and make a stir-fry.  Add hot sauce for buffalo chicken.  Add BBQ sauce.  Add some rice, corn tortillas, and hot salsa to make Mexican.  My favorite: use corn meal to bread your chicken!  I could go on forever… “…pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich…”

This is the same for Miller Light, Budweiser, Coors, Coors Light, Corona, Corona Light, Corona Extra, Heineken, Natural Light, Busch, Busch Light, Michelob, Michelob Light, Michelob Ultra, Miller High Life, Guinness, Becks, Labatt Blue, Sam Adams, Fat Tire, Pabst, Stella Artois, Molson, Dos Equis, Sol, Tecate, Bass, Newcastle, O’Douls, Keystone, Milwaukee’s Best, many more, & BUD LIGHT!

Please see my article on Gluten Free Beers and leave a comment about the ones you have tried.  Some examples of gluten free beer: Redbridge, Bard’s Tale, Green’s, New Grist, Messagere, Sprecher, & Woodchuck.

I have been asked this question a lot, and never covered it specifically, because I thought it was pretty self-explanatory.  After getting the question twice today in my live chat feature, I figured it was time to set the record straight.  NO, Bud Light is not gluten free.

Being freshly out of college and my old business catering to the summer vacation crowd, beer was one of the hardest things for me to give up.  On a daily basis, I was offered beer by customers and friends.  It was always hard to turn it down, led to lengthy conversations about celiac, and left them feeling very sorry for me.

Today, almost a year of 100% gluten free, I still miss normal beer only a little, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t.  It was very hard in the beginning, but the desire is much less now.  Now, I choose something different and don’t sweat over it.  The gluten free beers taste much better now than they used to, probably because I am forgetting the taste of Bud Light.

I have gluten beer in my fridge that has been there from before I switched to gluten free.  It has helped to have it in there, so that I can pass the willpower test every day.  I even threw some gluten free awareness wristbands around a few to always remind me.  It has worked.

Here is a before and after photo… of the beer I am drinking, not my weight, hahaha.

Before: In college drinking a Bud Light.

After: Recently holding a Woodchuck.

It hasn’t been nearly as hard as I had thought.  It is all about mindset.  Once you have it in your head that you are not going to eat gluten, and you accept that you never will again, it isn’t so hard.  Like anything you do in life, you have to do it 100% to be successful!

I was diagnosed a few years ago, but I was living a fast-paced life and didn’t have any symptoms as daily encouragement to switch to a gluten free diet.  At the end of 2008, I noticed I was always tired and didn’t feel great.  My diet, not only containing gluten, wasn’t great overall.

I made the switch on my own.  I didn’t have a doctor or anyone setting the date for me.  I did it myself.  I think this helped me mentally prepare.  At that time, I started this blog and got involved in the gluten free community.  Immersing myself daily into the gluten free world really helped me stay motivated.  Start a blog, get on Twitter, search the internet, or connect with gluten free people on facebook.

I honestly can’t say I’ve been 100% gluten free.  If you step outside your house, I doubt anyone can honestly know they have not ingested any gluten.  There are lots of times I make my best effort to know what I am eating, but sometimes you are only 90% sure and you eat it anyway.  It is next to impossible to be 100% gluten free.  I can only count a few times, where I have suspected that something might contain gluten and eaten it anyway.  If I have an alternative, then I always pick that, but sometimes you don’t have a choice.  Only once, have I knowingly eaten gluten.  I was in a tough situation, with someone I had just met, and to save time, confusion, and other complications, I ate it anyway.  Looking back, I regret it.  Don’t cheat!

I have been able to find substitutes for almost everything I used to enjoy eating or drinking.  Yes, it is frustrating to watch friends eat pizza or chicken tenders, but I know I can go home and make it better the next day.  Beer has been the hard thing to replace and it costly to find alternatives.  This is one case where you just have to buck up and buy more expensive beer.

My advise for people starting out: Get your mind right.  After you have yourself convinced you will never eat gluten for you and that it is “poison” to your body, get involved.  Daily, read about what is going on in the gluten free community.  Get your family and friends behind you.  Once they know you are going to fight to the death over not eating gluten, they will willing accommodate to your needs.  Get your wife, husband, significant other, kids, or whatever on your side and maybe have them eat gluten free at home also.  Having my girlfriend eat gluten free at home has been a big help.

JUST DO IT!  In the end you will feel much better, and that is the biggest motivation of all.

Mike

Have you ever played Russian Roulette?

Do you pray for cancer?

Do you eat gluten? Yes or No?  Simple question.

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Terina, the author of Gluten Free Reality, recently wrote an article about cheating on a gluten free diet.  Check it out HERE.(I’ll call that one- Chapter 2)  To say the least… it got me a little fired up at 2:30AM, so I decided to write a Chapter 3.  Her recent article was actually a follow-up on one of her previous articles: HERE.  (Chapter 1)

Here are a few excerpts from Terina’s articles:

• “I’ve been relistening to the CD’s from the 2009 CF Conference and Dr. Peter Green says that he surveys his patients with celiac disease and that American’s with CD cheat 80% of the time.”
• “We risk long-term permanent damage if we cheat. In America only 14% of us regain full villi growth as adults. Children do (because adults don’t let them cheat!) That means most of us are risking all of the diseases from malnutrition.
• “This is why there are no good long term projections for Americans with celiac disease. Why do we feel it our constitutional right to eat whatever we want? Statistics project that most celiac patients are going to die early and do it miserably.“
• “Dr. Peter Green says that when CD patients cheat, incurable diseases ensue. America has tremendously high rates of contributory disease due to malnutrition and our inability to control our GF diets. Diabetes, Cancer, Crohns, Arthritis and Osteoporosis to name a few.”

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This is serious people! Really!  Why the fcuk would you cheat????

Answer that and I’ll argue with you all day long.  Actually, I should probably just end it by putting you out of your future misery now, as a favor to you and your children.

Someone once asked me: “Would you knowingly eat poison?”  That question seems a little extreme or exaggerated, at first, but it really isn’t!

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How do you want to die?

Personally, I’d like to die comfortably at a really old age and not die young and suffer from years of diseases and various complications.  You have a choice to make.

UNFORTUNATELY, we are a select group diagnosed with Celiac disease and daily must make tough, uncomfortable, embarrassing, and inconvenient choices and ALWAYS pick the hardest one!

FORTUNATELY, we were diagnosed with a curable disease.  It is curable by our own choices and not with medical help.  It doesn’t cost you a penny or need some Obama-failure plan to save your life.

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80% of you cheat! WTF People!  You have a sick side that likes torture and death!  Just the word “miserably” scares me enough!  I don’t want to pay for your health care, especially if it was your choice to put yourself in that situation.  Don’t get a “contributory disease” and “die early and do it miserably.”

My story:  For a few years after I was diagnosed, I didn’t stick to the diet.  I had NO symptoms whatsoever.  So, I continued to live the college life of beer, pizza, and McDonalds double cheeseburgers.  At the time, I didn’t really realize the future consequences, and I was too cheap and fast-paced to think about alternatives.  Now I know it was stupid, and I have changed.  It hasn’t been a fraction of how hard I thought it was going to be to eat gluten free.  It has been little, or no, inconvenience to friends or family.  Actually, it has made them reconsider their diet and eat healthier.  It isn’t that hard to do.

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OK- All right-wing and potty-mouthed joking aside… this is serious business.  This article was intended to be a little(or big) wake-up call.  Help spread gluten free awareness and make the right choice for yourself.  And do one thing for me… when you see someone cheating- slap’em in the face!

Goodnight!

Mike

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PS:  I appreciate all types of comments, questions and conversation(good and bad).  If you are going to repost or write a follow-up on my article(thank you), all I ask for is credit and a link back to my original.  Keep spreading awareness!

Like I frequently say, I don’t really buy the gluten free “imitation” foods in the stores, and rarely do I splurge and go to gluten free restaurants due to the high cost.   So, it may appear that a lot of my foods resort back to chicken, vegetables, and fruits, but I am able to do infinite variations of these to keep it interesting and usually healthy.

Here is a little recap of the past few months of the things I took photos of….