Day 6: Mac n Cheese, a Mini Wheat, and a Second Opinion

Today was kind of eventful! I didn't have any gluten for breakfast, besides a small handful of corn pops (some veggies and a g-free granola bar sufficed). For lunch though....they had a huge Thanksgiving lunch at work (which I missed because I was at a training..awesome)...but someone saved me a plate! I tried a bit of mac n cheese and a TINY bit of stuffing-yum! Super tasty. Not gonna lie...Amy's does a pretty good job on the mac n cheese front (the frozen one).  Pretty funny- the girl at work who made my plate said to me (in all seriousness), "The big orange thing is a sweet potato". I kindly informed her that I am not, in fact, an alien...and that I do know what foods look like. Nice gesture though.
I'm finding that gluten free food really isn't AS different as everyone says (aside from Gardetto's. Wow). I know, I know, I haven't had pizza or a biscuit yet. I tried little things here and there today...I tried part of a strawberry snack bar..pretty solid, and a tiny cheese cracker thing which was DISGUSTING. It tasted like Passover. I don't know what brand it was but they where little tiny chedder crackers with cheese between them (not the square kind in a six-pack, I'm sure those are good :-) ). Yo gluten eaters- yo food aint all that. I also tried one frosted mini wheat tonight- also not delicious. I seem to be missing the mark with some things!

Ok side note: I did seek out a second opinion on this whole thing. I e-mailed a different gastroenterologist (Aunt Melissa's dad, AKA the grandfather of the best e-mail writer ever), and he has a little bit of a different take. He reminded me of the possibility that this may be a time in my life that I am asymptomatic, but could develop some problems later. He suggested:


I actually am going to try and contact my old doctor just because it might he interesting to see if they would come up with the same diagnosis now that they know more about Celiac. My mom pointed out that she remembers there being some ambiguity about the diagnosis, before putting me on the gluten free diet.

For now, I think I'm going to keep sampling things...my thoughts are that I don't think I can do TOO much long-term damage over the next two months (I am repeating the celiac test in January).

Sorry, kind of a boring post- I'll get better at blogging with time :)   OH! I decided that if I DO end up going back to g-free lifestyle, I'm going to make this into a blog about yummy gluten free things. But now, I need to sleep because Body Pump starts in four and a half hours! #tigerblood

Baby Bagel and a Brewski

Thanks to Michelle, she reminded me that the last time I ate a bagel was also photographed! I should have known then that it was all a lie! It would be pretty cool if I knew how to photoshop a beer into the other hand :)

Tonight I tried beer! Beer lovers..prepare to shutter...My first beer was Bud Light Lime! I actually didn't hate it. I understand that it's not a fantastic beer, but it lacks that obnoxious after taste that EVERY gluten free beer has (Red Bridge, New Grist, Bard's, and a few others). It did not taste terrible. Miller light however- WOW that's absolutely disgusting!!! I had two sips I could not stand it. I will not say that I'll NEVER acquire a taste for it..but seriously? Are people just pretending that it tastes good or does it actually taste good? 

The Bud Light Lime actually got better as I sipped on it. Until it got warm, then it was gross. The bar tender's rationale for the Bud Light Lime: he said that if he gave me a "good" beer, I would probably hate beer forever, so he had to give me a really light one. I appreciate the effort he put into it. Anyway, those are my day 5 adventures! Still symptom free, by the way!

Gluten Challenge Day 5: Bagel for Breakfast, Beer for Dinner

So, this morning, I had a bowl of oatmeal again! As it turns out, Quaker oatmeal might have been considered gluten free the whole time. Upon more research, they say, "Because oats are grown, stored, transported in bulk, they may contain trace amounts of wheat, rye and barley. USDA grain standards allow a certain percentage of other grains to be present in the oats. Therefore, gluten may be found in oats, even if very small amounts of these other grains are present." . So..."trace amounts"...meh..I'd probably eat these even if not on a gluten challenge.

Later though....I HAD A BAGEL!!!! I had an everything bagel thin with lox and cream cheese. When I ordered, I told them it was my first bagel, and they were in shock. They said, "Ever?! How can this be your first bagel EVER?!" They said they were happy I chose Einstein's; Not happy enough, however, to give me the bagel for free. If someone went to BubbleFast and told them it was their first time touching bubble packaging, I bet they'd give it for free (don't quote me on that!). 
Anyway, it was delicious. It did, again, taste like Glutino brand. I think I'll write them a letter. Everyone who says that gluten free stuff doesn't taste the same, you should probably go ahead and try Glutino. Only problem is, not a huge variety of gluten free bagel flavors. ALSO--- I noticed that a bagel at Einstein's is only $1.09 or something!!! You can get full, for $1?!?!?! There is nothing gluten free that you can get full from that is only ONE dollar.  Oh yeah by the way, there are capers in the picture. I took them off because capers are gross.  9 hours post-bagel and my stomach is feelin fine! I do have a headache, but my "female" intuition tells me it is caused by something else. Fellow GF peeps- how long does it take you to respond to gluten?


Tonight, I had Q'doba mexican gumbo which I eat all the time..but this time I had the tortilla strips. Not that special. But right now, I gotta go because it's $3 pitcher + free wings night! 

I'm alive!

Just wanted to give an update that I am alive after my gluten feast yesterday! I woke up a little groggy today after sleeping a ton, but that's pretty normal for me. MINOR headache, but nothing too crazy...sometimes I get that from sleeping too much (slept 9 hours). Woke up and had some corn pops and some oatmeal. Corn pops actually pulled a French Silk Ice Cream also! They were a childhood fav, and then they added gluten- and it tastes the same! Companies should stop doing this, don't they know gluten free is what's hot right now?

Anyway, I'm off to Einstein's to get a bagel thin with lox and cream cheese!!! I'm going by myself because everyone is at work :( . I'm going to get an employee to take a picture of my first bagel and I'll share it with you on my next post. A post about bagels and beer can be expected later today....:)

By the way- I have also been eating things that DON'T have gluten in them, but I figured you guys don't care so much about those. But for the record, I ate a sweet potato and clam chowder for dinner. They were gluten free and delicious.

Gluten Challenge: Days 1-4

So, when the doctor told me to try gluten, I asked him, "well, what do you mean? how much gluten?". He said, "Eat a little goldfish cracker, then a few days later..try a saltine..then a dinner roll". Let me tell you..the THOUGHT of a dinner roll is terrifying. At first, I followed the regimen:
Day 1, 11/12
I tried gluten!! First time in 22 years. Thought on goldfish: I have a feeling Cheez-Its are better. They are pretty good, but this one happened to be stale. I'm willing to try them again, because I bet they are better than this one. Do whole grain goldfish taste the same as regular ones?

Day 2, 11/13
This day, I actually restrained myself and did not have any gluten. However, I notice that not only did I not DIE from the Goldfish...but I didn't even get a stomach ache. Hmmm......

Day 3, 11/14
Cracker day!! I was supposed to have a saltine...but I didn't have access to one. So I ate one of those Toppers crackers instead. I was seriously so nervous..I called my mom and said, "I CANT believe I'm about to eat a CRACKER on PURPOSE!" I put a piece of swiss cheese on it, because crackers are boring. It was pretty good but....it tasted the SAME as Glutino crackers. The same.

During the day, I did actually have a bit of a stomach ache. However, I decided it might be due to stress. All I was doing was thinking, "hmmm, I wonder if this cracker has digested yet". 

So, after work, I decided, SCREW THE REGIMEN. I went to Wal Mart and bought all kind of yummy things. Things that really "look like gluten" still freaked me out. I would not buy bread, poptarts, pastries, or anything like that. But...later in day 3, I tried:

- Whoppers: Ummmm not very good. I tried 2, and I don't think I NEED another one. Ever. (point of clarification: candies, not hamburgers. Did you really think I ate two hamburgers?)

-Rice in a pouch..but this one had PASTA in it!! I ate like half the bag! Wooo! That was pretty good! It was perfect because it LOOKED like rice, so it didn't freak me out so much.

-Before I went to bed, I had a spoonful of Edy's French Silk Ice Cream..which USED to be my favorite flavor of ice cream until they randomly decided to add gluten to it my sophomore year of college. Let me tell you: It's still delicious..but it tastes the same! No need to add gluten, why would you do that?! 

Day 4, 11/15: 

11/15/11 will now be known as Balls to the Wall day. I woke up and had a bowl of Quaker instant oatmeal (apple cinnamon).  A solid breakfast. Everyone should eat this. Not too heavy, but delicious nonetheless. I HAVE had oatmeal with gluten free oats, but Quaker seems to do it right. My g-free oatmeal is good though. THEN....oh my God. I had reduced fat Gardetto's for a snack- THESE ARE FANTASIC!!!!!!!  Everyone should eat these ALL THE TIME!!! They have WHEAT, BARLEY, OATS, AND RYE in them (hence, balls to the wall). The only thing that would make them better would be some M&M's, so that they would have the whole sweet & savory thing going on. 

The best part about day 4: NO SYMPTOMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

More to come....I initially said I'd try a challah roll on Wednesday, but I am going to wait until Shabbat (and will say Ha Motzi, and Shehechayanu!!!). Not sure what's on the menu tomorrow...but I think I'll eat corn pops for breakfast!! Oh, and I'm trying beer tomorrow night. Cuz I've never had that. It wasn't legal when I was 2.

A Delicious Journey

Ok...so I've never really had a blog before. However, instead of clogging up all my beautiful Facebook friend's feed, I figured I would make a separate space to chronicle every time I eat a cracker (which aren't THAT good by the way..). So just to catch everyone up to speed, here is a [brief] timeline of the last 24 years:

1987: Born
1988-1989: Didn't gain weight
1989-1990: Diagnosed with Celiac after a million other tests
1990-2011: Spent a RIDICULOUS amount of money on gluten free food, was denied from health insurance companies due to having a preexisting condition, did not eat food at birthday parties, never had beer, challah, pizza, or any other equally delicious or important things.
11/11/11: Told there there is a 97% change I was misdiagnosed. The only way to tell will be to eat gluten for 2 months and see if I either a) get symptoms, or b)test positive for Celiac in January

And that brings us to the present. I will use this blog to talk about the different foods that I try over the next few months, give some reviews...and also share whether or not I am still alive.

PS: This is VERY weird for me. Imagine if someone told you for your WHOLE LIFE that something was poison and that you should not eat it..it could KILL YOU..or at least give you AWFUL symptoms..and then they said, "eh...try it for awhile, why not?!"