Living With Celiac Disease: A Life Without Wheat If You Can Imagine Such A Thing

Living with out gluten is not easy, nor is it very fun. If you’re like me, and you live for fun, family, friends and great food, then finding out you have celiac disease can make eating a major bummer.

Take away everything exciting, and delicious in your diet like: breads, pasta’s, most packaged and processed foods and casseroles, most foods at restaurants, cakes, cookies, donuts, and pies, and you will see what I mean. (And that is just scratching the surface.) So long, social lunch hour with my BFF’s, or eating out with my hubby. It really isn’t fun for me to sit and watch everyone else at the table indulging in fabulous cuisine while I eat a plain salad. (“Just water for me, thanks!”)

I’m not saying that I’m against salad, it’s just that once in a while it would be wonderful to choose something delectable off of the menu and have it be ‘ok’ for me to eat.

Gluten is one of those things that is found in almost everything. If you are allergic to it, it seems like it is everywhere. It is a sticky, stretchy, strong protein composite that gives warm bread and wonderful pastas their deliciously chewy texture. Some foods need a lot of gluten: bread and pizza dough for example. While too much gluten in foods like pancakes, biscuits and other baked items will give them a rubbery consistency that screams ‘leftovers’. Gluten is also used in many sauces and seasonings, and to help thicken gravies and soups. It can have sneaky names like maltodextrin and modified food starch, among others, so get out your reading glasses and look for the fine print.

Whether you are choosing to eat gluten-free, or you must eat gluten-free, it’s very important to read the label on everything, and learn some of the other names that are used for gluten.

If you look on Wikipedia, you will find that celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine. This disease is caused by the body having an adverse reaction to the gluten protein found in wheat, barley and rye (—specifically: rice, oats, tapioca, potato starch, coconut and nut flours are all ‘A-OK’).

Because of the way celiac affects the small intestines, a person with celiac disease is no longer able to absorb nutrition from their food. You might find yourself losing weight,… or gaining weight (of course I found more weight!). Either way you are most likely dealing with malnutrition. So take great care in cooking and preparing your own foods. Celiac disease can also be a catalyst for other genetic diseases you are pre-disposed to. You don’t want to end up with diabetes or osteoporosis, so take this condition seriously!

In the coming months I’m going to share some stories, recipes, a few tears and some good laughs. To get you started, here is a recipe from my sister, Val: A yummy, nutritious, gluten-free granola. Enjoy it with milk, throw on some yogurt, or eat as a snack while you’re reading my next post. —Happy Baking!

Recipe: Val’s Most Awesome Granola

4 cups gluten-free oats
2 cups pumpkin seeds
2 cups sunflower seeds
1 cup sesame seeds
2 cups flaked coconut
2 cups chopped cashews
2 cups almonds
3 T coconut oil
1 cup honey

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl. Spread out on two cookie sheets and bake at 350 for 10 to 12 minutes. Delish! (here are some photos to prove it…)

Measure and combine all your dry stuff. Add some extras like dried cranberries, raisins, etc; whatever you want so long as it is gluten-free, or you’ll blow my cover.

Next; add the oil and honey. Go ahead; taste it on the way in!

Spread it all out on a cookie sheet or two. Put it in the oven and set your timer for 10 minutes. Don’t forget to take them out of the oven when the timer goes off; I forgot for almost 15 more minutes. Still not too bad!