A World Without Wheat....Yes You Can!

Living GF is a crazy lifestyle change.  It is like I stepped into an alternate universe, one with no wheat.  At home my kitchen looks the same.  I cook mostly the same but all the wheat is gone.  I use white rice flour like I used to use all purpose white flour in gravies and sauces, to dredge meat and when a touch of flour is required by a recipe.  I have a mix of brown rice flour, tapioca flour and potato starch that I use for baking 95 percent of my recipes where it says flour.  I do have a lot of small bags of weird flours in my freezer and in some jars on the shelf.  I don’t use them all that much but sometimes a recipe can’t be made without some of them.

People who eat my cooking say they can’t really tell the difference. Sometimes they ask incredulously if this is really wheat free.  Like the French bread I make, my zucchini bread, my banana nut muffins and most of all: my brownies.  My daughter wants the brownie recipe regardless of its GF nature.  She agrees with others that they are the best brownies ever!  So I feel a certain measure of success in my GF cooking and baking.  It is rewarding to be able to create a meal that is safe for me and very tasty.  I remember how daunting it seemed back in February when I first tried to cook GF.  It has gotten far easier and less stressful than it was then.

But when I want to eat out, that is a different matter.  Most quick food places, I don’t even bother with.  Their food is served on wheat buns, like all the burger places.  Or it is pizza on a wheat crust or subs in the hoagie roll of wheat. 

Mostly though, it is tough to find anything gluten free but a salad at the majority of restaurants.  Wendy’s Baja salad is quite tasty.  And Panara has a few salads I can eat safely.  Red Robin has GF burger buns if you ask for them and I am so thankful they have done that.  A few restaurants say they have GF pasta.  But most of them do not make any provision for GF eaters.  And there is always a fear of cross contamination - of that tiny bit of flour that might be lingering on a counter where my food is being prepared.  I am always amazed by how little wheat flour it takes to contaminate my meal…..

Then there is grocery shopping.  The entire pasta aisle is unavailable to me.  Ninety five percent of the cereals are made with wheat.  All the premade meals, frozen or canned…full of wheat.  Pretzels…wheat.  Crackers and cookies….mostly full of wheat. Soups….made with wheat.  And it goes on and on.  Wheat is the ubiquitous ingredient of the twenty first century.  It is found in most processed foods available today.

There is a GF section in my local Giant Grocery Store, about 15 feet of shelf space in the health food aisle.  There are a lot of pretty tasty things there.  Still, it is a tiny percentage of foods considering what you who buy wheat products have available to you.   And it is very pricy, sometimes as much as three times what a similar wheat product will cost.  I am trying to get the manager to get corn tortillas bigger then six inches so I can made chicken enchiladas again. Now if only someone made GF cheese tortellinis or other filled pastas....then I would be really excited.

Yet, I feel it is best not to dwell on the negatives but to be happy at the good stuff.  Like losing twenty pounds, like not having my spring allergies, feeling more energetic and not having chronic tummy pains.  I love a lot of my new foods.  I am enjoying the search and finding of new GF recipes that might taste yummy.  It is an exciting time, this first year of being GF.  And I am glad for the change to a lifestyle that makes me feel much better.  As time goes on I find more and more things that I can make GF; on line, websites, and cookbooks at the library.

So if you are on the fence; have wheat issues but feel going GF can’t really be done.  Yes it can, you can eat wheat free and still enjoy food and will feel much better for the change.  I suggest a gradual change over.  I changed my cereals first and then moved through my diet changing over to non-wheat items.   Some do it cold turkey but I think that would be so hard to accomplish and they say doing it that way can cause you to feel lousy during the first few days/weeks.

I know at least one person who is trying to decide if she can go wheat free.  Yes, there is life after wheat and it is well worth the living!