Gluten Free Anniversary

We have a few anniversaries to honour in December, first Toby moved here in December from Hong Kong 6 years ago and its also been 2 years of blogging at this address. Although I blogged for years at aprevious site. It also marks my first anniversary of being gluten free. I did go on and off a gluten free diet a few times last year but got my final coeliac biopsy results and committed to being gluten free in Dec last year.

I thought it might be helpful for those who have recently found out they are coeliac or gluten intolerant to talk about my experience. I was miserable when I got my first blood test results, friends and family tried to be supportive by saying focus on what you can eat, how lucky you are to know what was causing issues etc. In the beginning I couldn't be 100% positive about it, I was grieving all those foods I could never eat again like crumpets, amazing sourdough bread, and so much more. I'm happy to report that was a phase and I didn't stay being grumpy about it. It's so much easier now that I have a routine at home, recipes all sorted, friends who make amazing gluten free dishes and know half a dozen restaurants where I frequent. However, I do on rare occasions get cravings and miss the convenience of take away sandwiches but being gluten free just means being a bit more organised about meals.

I've strict about the gluten free diet. I've been glutened a couple of times this year with sometimes small amounts of gluten and its not pretty, my stomach bloats so much that I look pregnant,  I have horrible sharp pain on one side (generally left) and other bowel related issues that I'm sure you don't want to hear about on a food blog. It generally takes me about 24-48 hours of feeling horrible and up to a week til I feel back to normal. The longer I'm gluten free the worse the symptoms seem to get. Thankfully it has only happened a few times. I know some people cheat because they don't have many symptoms but its so not worth the possible long term health issues such as bowel cancer. I also find it easier, because I start to forget how amazing gluteny crumpets, pastry, bread etc can be. So don't do it guys!

I'm definitely felt healthier this year, not just stomach and bowel related but also with less colds and other viruses and my body seems to be able to fight viruses and infections better. I've also had more energy. My body is finally been able to absorb vitamins and minerals properly but with that have also come a small amount of weight gain. Although that might be a coincidence or my age as many people report weight loss after going gluten free.

I found the process of going gluten free so much easier thanks to a couple of coeliac friends who talked me through it, talked to me about good brands, answered so many questions about ingredients and just  agreed that it can be bit shit sometimes. So I'm more than happy to answer any gluten free/coeliac questions, not from a nutrition standpoint of course but in terms of the above. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email.

Here is some advice which I found useful in the beginning and which people often get confused about:

• There is wheat in regular soy sauce.
• Spelt products are NOT gluten free.
• Most buckwheat noodles contain regular wheat.
• Most fresh rice noodles contain wheat, but dried varieties are generally fine.
• Barley is part of the gluten family, everyone forgets about this one.
• There is barley in some brands of soy milk and some miso paste.
• Products can contain wheat and still be labelled gluten free as it depends on the way the wheat is processed. So the gluten free label overrides everything else.
• In Australia, caramel and glucose syrup derived from wheat are gluten free as no gluten remains after processing it. Does this apply in other countries too?
• Basically the only alcohol you need to avoid is beer, ale, lager, stout and Guinness. Although spirits may be derived from wheat, rye or barley they are distilled in such a way that there is generally no gluten remaining in the final products.
• If any ingredient in a product is derived from wheat, rye, barley or oats, then this must be declared on the label in Australia. 
• Watch out for for wheat in some corn starch and icing sugar varities.
• Check out Coeliac Australia website for more details: http://www.coeliac.org.au/coeliac-disease/index.html 

Coeliac rant

Thank you all of your supportive comments below but there are a few things that I want to clarify, not necessarily with any of you but just because I keep repeating the same conversations with lots of people. Being coeliac and vegan are not really similar, I seriously never found going vegan hard because it was a choice I made, and there were many reasons that I went vegan, that I am passionate about. This isn't something that I am passionate about, I'm not helping the environment, animals etc and it's not really a choice, it's something that I sadly have to do but really don't want to. Also, to everyone who says that I should stop being vegan to make it easier, I'm not going to do that, so don't even think about it.

So I might complain a lot for a little while, before I go back to being positive me. I will go back to being happy me I promise. Although I've read that even after I adjust, there will still be days that will be frustrating. It's seriously a lot harder that you might imagine and I know it will get easier but right now it's not good. It's mostly because I am discovering all sorts of stupid things that have gluten in them, and kind of grieving for all foods that I won't be able to eat. It's weird, I will be in the shower, or on the computer and then just random foods will come into my head and I will yell out to toby 'ohhh funky pies', or 'ohhh tofutti cuties' or 'puff pastry' and then sigh. It's also not the food, but the emotional stuff that is linked to the foods. Like being able to just grab a salad sandwich when I'm out in the middle of nowhere, and eating fry's sausages in hotdog buns when we can't be bothered cooking, or eating ninja vegan jelly beans in our work meetings and listing all my favourite coloured jellybeans in order because it keeps changing (white is my current fav), and making Oreo cupcakes for almost all of my family events several times a year because they get disappointed if I made any other variety and growing up eating BBQ shapes and then discovering the exciting fact that they are in fact vegan.

It is also looks like it might be expensive, I even read online that I need to get a new toaster. Also, I'm still sick, in fact I seem to be worse at the moment as my body slowly starts to adjust to my massive change in diet, I really used to eat a lot of gluten! I still haven't seen the specialist, but I have read it could take a while of eating g/f before my health is perfect. So it's not like I can see instant results. And you know when you are sick, you want comfort food and my comfort sick food is toast with vegemite, and vegemite isn't even gluten free. I've still got to have lots of tests including a biopsy and check that I haven't done any major damage to my bowel/intestines and see if I have any of the related coeliac problems. It's a lot more serious than I initially thought. And everything that I read online seems to say that I should never have even small amounts of gluten, because even small amounts can do damage to my body, so apparently it's not a case of having a little bit here and there, although some people do it. Also, people talk about being 'glutened' which sounds a lot like us vegans with dairy. Once you give up dairy, even if you are not dairy intolerant and you accidentally have a little bit, you body tends to overact. So after giving it up for a while, the reactions might be even more obvious to even small amounts of gluten. Also, I personally think having little bits here and there might be harder since I won't be able to forget how awesome regular bread is.

I read this good article online about the emotional impacts of being celiac and some of it has already resonated with me. It's a little alienating because I normally have lots of vegan and vegetarian friends who completely understand any eating issues that I have and I normally have vegan and very friendly restaurants where I can eat almost everything. Now when I chat with people, I feel like people don't really allow me to complain about foods that I can't eat, and keep wanting to talk about the positive stuff that I can eat, but I need to talk about both. I will get to a place where I just talk about the positive stuff, but I'm not there yet. It's all brand new to me, remember! Also, most of the omni places that I used to go to had vegan options that generally tended to not also be g/f. Also, I can't imagine many of my omni friends inviting me over to dinner anytime soon. If they thought it was hard feeding a vegan, now it's going to be extra hard for them. Even reading vegan food blogs, it a little sad right now, so you might not see that many comments from me because I still don't know how to adjust everything to be g/f. In same ways it actually seems easier to read g/f omni blogs because I don't crave meat than to read vegan blogs, isn't that weird?

On a more positive note, I really want to thank Steph for making me gluten free chocolate jam muffins yesterday. It was so nice to have freshly baked delicious gluten free things, I was so touched I almost cried but then proceeded to scoff 3 down in a very short period of time forgetting about my nausea and upset stomach and ending up with chocolate all over my face. They were delicious and it was extremely comforting!

Now I need some gluten free advice because I am don't want to spend another $60 on gluten free products that we both dislike. I'm looking for:

* a filling but nice vegan cereal, I love cocoa bombs but have found that 1 hour later I am starving

* vegemite replacement. There is 'vegie spread' and 'mightymite' that are both g/f but i'm not sure which one tastes good. I normally would eat sanitarium marmite because it contains b12 but neither seem to have it.

* tasty gluten free muesli type bars. I tried aribar's but they taste like fruit juice and not in a good way.

* are there any accidentally vegan lollies that are also gluten free that I can get at any supermarket?

* has anyone tried making the moist chocolate mud cake packet mixture?

Thanks for listening to me whinge, I think I needed to get a lot off my chest and now I better go back to my thesis world.