Debra’s Story: Orchestrates the Meals

Here is Debra’s personal story via her answers to my list of gluten free questions for the Mary’s Gone Crackers contest.

1. What are your favorite restaurants? Are these different than before you followed the diet?
I’ve always liked different ethnic foods so many of the same restaurants are fine (e.g., Indian, Mexican, Japanese, Thai). I now also go to steakhouses since they tend to have the fewest dishes with gluten.

2. Are food industry workers knowledgeable about Celiac disease?
Not very many are but I always ask for recommendations from the chef and often the chef will even come out to ask about my meal.

3. Do you trust that the food you receive from restaurants/friends/family members is gluten free?
I trust restaurants more than friends, simply because I expect that chefs will have some knowledge of ingredients and what is and is not gluten free (although in a recent restaurant experience, the chef told me a dish contained soy sauce but it was gluten free so I asked him to check the ingredients on the soy sauce and he was surprised to see it contained wheat).

4. What were some things you believed about Celiac disease that have proven false?
I can’t think of any at the moment.

5. What precautions do you take when eating at family and friends’ houses?
I always go over ingredients in dishes with friends and do not eat dishes which might be questionable. At my parents house, we always cook gluten free and my sister and I orchestrate the meals to be sure that they are gluten free.

6. What is the biggest difficulty with having Celiac Disease?
Eating out with friends and family.

7. What are the foods you missed the most?
Pretzels and beer, especially dark beer.

8. Does your significant other/friends eat gluten free with you?
My husband has been wonderful and he went mostly gluten free at home from day one. The one exception was bread; we needed to find a bread he would like since he eats most of the bread in our house. Once we did that, our house is now only gluten free.

9. If you initially did not follow the gluten free diet. What made you change your mind?
I have followed it since I was officially diagnosed with celiac and felt better within 2 weeks.

10. Has Celiac Disease affected aspects of your life other than your diet and health?
Yes, I dislike always having to explain to coworkers, friends and family about celiac and what I can and cannot have. I would just like to go out and order whatever I wanted and not think about the ingredients.

11. Why did you start your blog? What are your goals with the blog?*
I don’t blog but I do tweet! (Follow Debra on Twitter)

12. What are the most common topics on the blog?*
I tend to tweet about exercise and food!