What the heck is Gluten Free?

I suppose we ought to talk a bit before we get too far. What is Gluten, why do you need to set it free, who needs to do this and what's in it for me?

Anyone who has not seen me since 2006 might not recognize me. I am almost 100 pounds lighter today than I was back than. When I run into folks I have not seen for a while they inevitably ask me how I lost all the weight. I laugh a bit and explain that I have no idea. The doctors at the time told me it was stress (I was on the road for the better part of the year traveling for work) so I bought that. In 2008 I was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis (info here). It is not uncommon for folks with AS to also have Crohn's disease so that was the assumption at that time. In 2009 testing showed that I did not have Crohn's, but I still had pretty extreme stomach issues. After about 8 months of trying different medications with very little results my doctor recommended that I try removing Gluten from my diet. I thought he was nuts and did nothing with his suggestion. After we moved back to Washington, we were invited to a BBQ at a good friends house. During the meal it came up that my friend was observing a Gluten Free diet, Triann remembered that my doctor had recommended that for me and after about an hour of conversation about how easy it was I agreed to try it for 6 weeks. It didn't take 6 weeks to figure out that this was an obvious piece of my puzzle, I felt better within 2 days. That happened in August of 2010, and I have been eating/cooking Gluten Free since then, and I feel amazing. I am actually enjoying food again. My current doctors do not think that there is a reason to avoid Gluten as I do not test positive for Celiac Disease (the most likely reason for a Gluten Free life), the issue is that you cannot accurately test for Celiac unless you are currently consuming Gluten and I am not willing to do that, so here I am, self diagnosed, but OK with that.

So that is how I got here, lets talk for a minute about where here is. Gluten is found in wheat, barley, rye and almost anything made from these grains. So life is now about eating things that don't contain Gluten. Obvious things to avoid would be breads, flour tortillas, crackers, pastries, deserts etc. Not so obvious things would be licorice, soy sauce, seasonings, sausage, egg noodles, etc. There are a million (this number has not been verified) websites that have been created with to assist folks with identifying Gluten Free (GF) foods, and restaurants. Google Gluten Free and see what you get.

Now back to the blog, and my intentions. What Triann and I want to do is take our love of cooking, our sense of adventure and our gift of gab, put them all together and create a blog that will record our adventures in GF cooking. For example we may have a craving for cornbread and find 20 different GF recipes... which is the best, which is the easiest, are there tricks along the way? We will try them all and report our results... we have even talked about taking some video of the process. We will just have to see where it ends up.

At the end of the day this is for us, a chance to work on something together as a couple, explore and chronicle our adventures and enjoy the feedback of our friends.

If you have a specific GF dish you are looking for, or just want to challenge us, send us a message through the comments and we will give it a shot.

Eric

p.s. I have been racking my brain to think of an appropriate tag line to sign off on each of these... if you have any good ideas please share.