No one can complain with a gluten-free Chipwich in your mouth
Hello, GIMBers! I’m feeling a little weak from my whole reset/vegan’ish situation and it’s making me ponder that other time I had to cut out a major food group. Which was, coincidentally, two years ago last week! Happy horrible going gluten-free anniversary to me.
But I’m not the only one who was upended by this dramatic change, I have a family and all. When you’re diagnosed with celiac disease, the advice is to remove all gluten from the home; which means your roommates are going on the diet too. If you decide to go on a gluten-free diet — whether forcibly, or otherwise — you have to stop and consider the other people living in your home. I mean, I didn’t. But you totally should.
Granted the kids still have Cheerios and normal bagels, and I’m totally suspicious that my husband shoves as much gluten into his gullet every day at lunch, but other than those exceptions we’re kinda’ a gluten-free household. So I decided to sit them down and let them know I feel their pain, and what is that pain, exactly? It turns out, I’m cramping everyone’s restaurant dining style.
The husband
I miss sandwiches, bagels, and cookie dough ice cream. Also, Tortellini Tuesdays.
I miss going out to a restaurant without the possibility of you getting sick.
My 6-year-old daughter
Mostly going out to restaurants I like going to.
Like where?
I don’t know, but ones that have gluten.
My 3-year-old son
Going to Denny’s.
(Ed note: This kid was barely eating solids when I was diagnosed with celiac, and his only memory of Denny’s is from last week. When we were there.)
Is your family as upset about the whole “not so much dining out” situation as mine?
Gluten is my Bitch 
You’re lucky you’re so loved!!! My BF at the time of my diagnosis reluctantly nursed me through what we thought was appendicitis, found out it was pizza, “accidentally” fed me barley (“I thought it was fat rice!”) then dumped me in our then favorite restaurant (that coincidentally also severely glutened mah broken heart).
On trips home, my family will go to P.F. Changs, but otherwise I’m being annoying and am instructed to eat boiled eggs and fruit before watching everyone else eat Italian. They mean well, but are deeply Southern, so all effort goes towards substitutions and bitching about the cost of said substitutions. But I’m not complaining, because I know them, and this minimum effort means I’m still family. But moving home might kill them.
My dream is to meet and marry a Celiac. Is there a dating site for that?
A celiac dating site! I love it.
My husband also gets stressed when we eat out that I will get sick. He misses sharing food with me and makes a sad face if I can’t eat something. We are mostly gluten-free at home, but since I am the only one with an issue, we do stock bread, crackers and cereal for the kids. I have seperate cooking utensils and cutting boards and don’t use my toaster. I had a few bumps in the beginning but haven’t “glutened” myself in awhile.
My husband (and friends) are in this same boat. They’ll all be eating delicious gluten, really enjoying it and then look at me, frown and say, “It’s not that good…” They all understand, and we all make the best of it, but it can still be very disheartening.
It doesn’t exactly upset my boyfriend, but we both used to love trying new restaurants together, so he does miss that. Now, we tend to eat at the same restaurants over and over. It definitely doesn’t upset him as much as it upsets me though 🙂 But it’s cool, we still eat out, life is normal. Luckily I have no kids who would be affected by it, but if I did, I’m sure I’d be upsetting them in other ways, LOL.
I wish I had a video to link to of my three year old granddaughter explaining to me who can eat gluten (which she enunciates very plainly and with emphasis) and who can’t in her family. She and Daddy can eat the gluten OR the not gluten. Mommy can only eat the not gluten.
The main thing we have lost is the ability to just all meet up somewhere at a restaurant. I realize now that we did that quite a bit with everyone’s crazy schedules. We live 20 miles from anywhere so many times my grown children would call and say they were going to be in a neighboring bigger town and did we want to meet? Now, what to do? They don’t like to sit around the table with me while I can’t eat anything (I’ve gotten cross contaminated SO many times it’s just not worth it!) We’ve tried huddling in the car with the heater running but it’s just not the same! And I don’t think the public library would be too happy to see us and our cooler. Ha!
I’ve wondered if progressive cities will begin to put back in places for people to meet. People always traveled with their own food in days long past. In bad weather, where did they stop to eat? There was a program on PBS last weekend about the origins of soul food and how black families continued to travel packing all their own family’s food for decades because they weren’t ever sure of being able to go into a restaurant. In bad weather, did they always just eat in the car? Surely there was a system everyone knew about before fast food restaurants were on every corner. We need to press our communities to recreate this missing piece! But what did it look like?
Interesting idea. I like it! Rest stops can be dicey. Some are well-maintained and others are dicey. Bad weather knocks all of that out of the park.
Oh, April you crack me up even when you’re being (kinda) serious. Tortellini Tuesday’s?! And I love your kids’ responses, not sure which is more hilarious but I’m leaning toward the Denny’s response.
Since it’s my kid (and possibly husband) who are celiac, I’m the odd one out – and maybe my son but don’t know yet – but because it’s my kid I went gf automatically. But I’m not 100% gf, like if I’m out alone (um almost never).
Your kids are lucky you’re gf – I mean, don’t they remember those spooky cake pops?! 🙂
As for TT, your husband is out of luck I think.
Giving all credit to my husband for “Tortellini Tuesdays”
Our first year together (my bf and I) we travelled, dined out and lived an utterly spontaneous lifestyle. Lotsa wines in London and lunches in Paris, ah so romantic right.. Boom, coealiacs disease, and we find ourselves toasting platsic wrapped funny-grain toast and gazing at forbidden pizza pamphlets. A bit of a romance killer really, this whole auto-immune thing.
Bf has a (that’s o-n-e) drawer of gluten snacks. It’s in the dresser in the hallway, just to make sure he brings it out and not in.. And for our anniversary just been I wrapped up a pack of (his much beloved and sorely missed) Weetbix. Complete with plastic plates and spoons, to be enjoyed on the balcony. Poor man, a right prisoner of coeliacs. -When he’s not munching on one of my experimental recipes that is. He sure gets a lot more cake these days 🙂
Kristine
I get the sad face 😦 and “but you can’t eat out anymore…..” usually on Friday’s. But for the most part my family has been supportive and will eat GF with me. I’ve turned them on to GF pancakes and I make big GF crockpot stews, soups and chili’s on the weekends that they enjoy. I’m only about 10 months into this life so we’re still learning…..