Assessing the gluten soy free progress!

It's now been well over a year since I went gluten and soy free so I thought it was about time for a reassessment of my progress and a look back at my journey so far.

When I first eliminated gluten and soy from my diet, it was quite a novelty for me. I couldn't believe just how much better I felt and the whole process of discovering what I could eat and enjoy was fascinating and exciting. I experimented with baking and blew the dust off my breadmaker. I regularly made chocolate chip cookies, granola, bread and other delights and my house was often filled with wonderful aromas. I was in domestic heaven!

Fast forward to a year later.....haven't made bread in months and the breadmaker is looking forgotten and forlorn again. No granola in the container and haven't had a chocolate chip cookie in ages. Has something gone wrong?

Short answer - NO. What has happened is that life has shown up again and I am embracing it fully. I still feel amazing compared to a pre-gluten/soy free and I have the energy to be getting on with life. I have also discovered that I don't have to cater 100% for myself from my own kitchen and I can in fact, buy prepared foods and eat out.

Yes, store bought gluten free bread is expensive but I don't eat a lot of it and I can buy it when it is on sale and store it in the freezer. Granola is easy to make and I plan to get back to making my own supply. It keeps for ages without refrigeration and gives me a treat over apple sauce, sorbet and many other desserts. And.....I don't really need to be eating as many chocolate chip cookies as I was!!

Whereas last year being gluten and soy free was a BIG deal in my life, now it is just part of who I am and how I live. It has found its place in my life and I have found it a place in who I am.

I still am making discoveries and finding new ways to make my eating interesting and flavorful and I will continue to share those.

In the meantime, I am out enjoying life. I hope you are too!

Happy Holiday Season!

Having what you want including....chocolate!

Have you ever noticed that as soon as you think you can't have something, you want it SO much it hurts - even if you weren't wild about it before? What is that about?

When I left the UK almost 30 years ago and came to live in the US, there were certain things I missed - double decker buses, telephone boxes, salt and vinegar crisps (chips - now available here!), rain (aaarrrggghhh no, no, no NOT rain!). You get the picture. But the one thing I craved and couldn't wait to get to when I returned for a visit was ........ sausages!! Huh? I hardly ever ate sausages when I lived in the UK but now, all of a sudden I had such a craving for a plate of good ol' bangers and mash (sausages and mashed potatoes) that I couldn't stand it.

When I stopped consuming gluten and soy there wasn't actually much I missed but, much like the sausage craving, I suddenly realized that life might not be worth living without chocolate. Now I had never been a big chocoholic before but now that it was off the menu, I couldn't stop a craving from building and building. Although gluten isn't a problem with chocolate other ingredients stood between me and increased chocolate consumption. I had also quit dairy products so any chocolate with milk in was out. The main issue however was that old bugaboo that I have written about before - soy lecithin. Seems most chocolate makers can't make a decent bar without its stickability qualities.

One day a friend and I were standing in a health food store bemoaning the lack of soy and dairy free chocolate, when a sales associate who had overheard our conversation told us that they did indeed have dairy and soy free chocolate in the next aisle. Amazing - I was saved!

The chocolate in question turned out to be produced by a cooperative of cocoa farmers in Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru and Ecuador, organized under the banner of Equal Exchange. Wow - dairy and soy free, organic and fair trade! How about that for a score?

The chocolate comes in a variety of flavors (I tried Organic Mint) and is dark and delicious. But here's another thing.....in my previous before-glutenfree life, I never touched dark chocolate. Milk chocolate was my thing and I couldn't get past the bitter taste of the dark stuff. Now however, I am totally hooked on the darkest, most saliva producing bitter version I can find!

Subsequently, I have discovered a couple of other brands of dairy free, soy free dark chocolate. El Ceibo Cooperative of Bolivia - also organic and fair trade - has an array of dark and delicious chocolate that is "sun dried and slow roasted". Mmmm, makes my mouth water just writing about it! This chocolate is distributed by Alter Eco (love the pun!) of San Francisco.

Lastly, chocolate-wise, I was browsing the candy aisle at my local Safeway store the other day and casually checked out their own brand of bittersweet chocolate. Guess what? It is also dairy and soy free.....and it was on sale!

So now I am an official chocoholic for the first time in my life. I think I'm loving this gluten and soy free life!!!

A bright new gluten soy free me!

When I first went gluten and soy free I had only one aim - to stop feeling so awful. I didn't really think about what else might happen if I eliminated these two common foods. So it was a big surprise to me when suddenly people started saying things like "Wow, you look different, what did you do?" or "You look great!"

At first I dismissed it as their attempts to make me feel good but after it had happened a number of times, I started to take a closer look. It helped that my husband (at my request) had bought me a lighted, magnifying makeup mirror for Christmas! On closer inspection I could see that my skin did indeed look clearer and brighter, my eyes shinier, my hair had more life. Could this all really be from my new eating plan?

I had already seen a couple of major improvements in my physical health that again, at first, I hadn't connected with the no gluten or soy regime. The first was in my fingers and hands. For about a year previous to giving up gluten and soy, I had woken every morning with stiff, painful and swollen finger joints. It had come on gradually but became chronic. I had to work on my fingers and hands each day before I could do anything. I would try to bend and flex them until they felt as if they would move and perform for me. Just a few days after eliminating gluten, I realized that I woke up with normal sized, flexible fingers. It was a miracle!

The second major improvement was even more dramatic. Also for a about a year I had been experiencing frightening and sudden bouts of choking. It could happen at any time without warning. I didn't even have to be eating something. I could start to choke on my own saliva. Swallowing my vitamins became a terrifying ordeal each day as I tried to push them down only to have them come back up into my mouth.

Several weeks into my new eating plan, I realized that I hadn't had a choking bout
in a while and swallowing my vitamins was easy once again. Another miracle! As I thought about it some more and did some research I realized that allergies and intolerances to foods can cause inflammation all over the body. As my finger swelling had gone down, so had my inflamed throat tissues, once again leaving a clear passage for food and drink (and vitamins!).

There is one more major breakthrough I want to share. A few months after eating gluten and soy free, I visited my dentist for my regular cleaning and checkup. For the previous few visits, the dental hygienist had recommended that I have three rather than two cleanings a year because of all the plaque build up on my teeth. This time however, she declared my teeth to be much improved and said I could go back to twice a year cleanings. I told her and the dentist about my different eating habits and asked if that could have made the difference. My dentist replied that it definitely could as what we eat controls the ph and chemical balance in the saliva and the mouth.

So here were some unexpected yet most welcome benefits of eating gluten and soy free. No more dull skin and hair, no more fat fingers, no more frightening choking bouts and less visits to the dentist!! What more could I ask for?

What health improvements have you experienced from eating gluten and/or soy free?

Gluten soy free travel - Tips for Trips

Before discussing the issue of food and travel, I need to make a few things clear:

When carrying unrefrigerated food, we must ALWAYS be mindful of the temperature we are exposing it to.  Although many foods do not need refrigeration, it is always best to err on the side of caution if traveling in hot climates.  Prepared food and heat are not a wise combination.  So always be cautious about consuming food that has been kept at warm temperatures for any length of time.  Use common sense and stay food safe.  Having said that.......

I'm one of those strange people who actually like to fly.  I didn't set foot on an airplane until I was in my early thirties.  My first trip was from London to Chicago.  Quite an initiation but I loved it.  I had always loved to travel but my modes of transportation until that time were buses, trains and cars.  Of those, my favorite was the train.  I always chose a window seat if possible and sat mesmerized as the towns and countryside whizzed by.  When I took my first airplane ride, it was just as if the train had risen off its tracks and was now ploughing through the clouds, the countryside was just further away and went by faster!

I still travel quite frequently and it wasn't long after going gluten and soy free that I faced my first trip by air.  How was I to manage my new diet and an airplane ride?  For various reasons (too complicated to discuss here), I always travel standby.  That means I cannot reserve a special meal so I can't comment on the gluten free offerings from the airlines (perhaps you can?).  However, having to avoid soy as well as gluten probably means that an airline meal is out anyway.  It also means that I only take carryon luggage.  In a future post, I will write about how I take food for the vacation as well as the airplane ride, but for now let's stick to the travel part.

So....what to do?  Try to buy food at the airport?  Take food along?  What food?  Mmmm, many questions and dilemmas.  Undaunted I tackled the issue.

I should add that I also love the outdoors.  What does that have to do with this topic?  Well, if you have ever hiked or backpacked you will understand.  Strenuous physical activity in the outdoors requires the transportation of food - lots of food.  This food has to be nutritious, easily portable and non-refrigerated.  Putting together a cache of food that you can carry and consume for several days takes a lot of planning and imagination.  If you've done this, taking a meal and a few snacks on an airplane isn't such an insurmountable task.

The first thing to know about taking food on airplanes is that TSA doesn't care about food as long as it isn't liquid or goopy.  They also don't care if your liquid or goopy stuff is mixed with the solid stuff.  For example, if you are taking a salad and dressing, keep them separate until just before you go through security.  Then put the dressing on the salad.  As long as you are going to consume the salad within a couple of hours, it will be fine.  Alternatively, put your salad dressing in a less than 3 ounce container and put it in your liquid "baggie" so you can mix the two later.

Sandwiches are fine.  Use any filling you like but figure out how long it has to last to judge whether or not to include meat or other items that might go "off".  I always avoid mayonnaise on anything when I either hike or travel.  It is the food most likely to cause digestive problems and should always be refrigerated.

I don't eat meat as well as gluten and soy so I am further limited.  But never fear!  There are always nut butters - almond is my favorite rather than peanut.  Nut butter and jelly sandwiches are travel hardy and the worst that happens is that they get a bit soggy, but that's usually from an over enthusiastic amount of jelly so I try to be sparing with that.

I also take along veggies - carrots, celery and my all time favorite, sugar snap peas all make for great crunchy snacks.  Fruit of course is always welcome and energy bars, as long as they are gluten and soy free, are handy.  I always carry a bag of mixed nuts, dried fruits such as cranberries and cherries, and dates with me, not just when I travel but at all times.  This makes a handy protein and energy boost whenever I need one and a small baggie doesn't take up much room in my handbag.

Since going gluten and soy free, I make my own granola and honey roasted nuts.  Both are so easy to make and great to take along on trips.  (Yes, I am getting around to posting recipes soon.  Keep watching this space!).

Other trip friendly foods are gluten soy free cookies, raisin bread (Rudi's is the best), hard-boiled eggs, potato or corn chips (as long as not cooked in vegetable oil) and gluten soy free breakfast cereal (to crunch on without milk).  I am a tea drinker so I always take my own teabags on airplanes.  They serve Starbucks coffee but only have Lipton tea?  What's up with that?

Every time I travel, I figure out some other way to make the gluten soy free experience easier so I'll continue to share my ideas here.

What's your favorite gluten soy free travel tip?

Soy Lecithin - Allergen or just a tongue twister?

Whenever I try to pronounce the word "lecithin" I am always reminded of a childhood tongue twister that I never did quite conquer.  It goes: "There were six thick sticks and six thin sticks in the thicket."  Combining c's and th's in close proximity seems to be one of language's slip ups.  It makes speaking very difficult.

With soy lecithin, however, the more pertinent question is - does it make life more difficult for the soy allergic person?

When I first discovered that I had both an allergy and an intolerance of soy, I was appalled at the amount of the stuff that was sneaked into all kinds of foods.  Did you know for example, that tuna "in water" is not (for the most part) in water?  It is in fact, in vegetable broth.  Check the ingredients and you will see.  And what is vegetable broth?  Well, almost always it is made from soy.  After all soybeans are a vegetable aren't they?  So it qualifies.  Just quite how it qualifies as water, I am not sure, nor do I know how the manufacturers get away with stating that their product is floating in something it isn't.  There is available canned tuna that is truly in water but you'll have to search for it, read many labels and pay more for the privilege of pouring away water rather than vegetable broth after you open the can.  (By the way, my cat doesn't seem to know the difference.  He comes running as soon as he hears the can opener whether it is broth or water that gets poured into his bowl!)

I determined that I ought to stay away from soy sauce (which also contains gluten - a double whammy for me), edamame beans, soy milk and other products obviously containing soy but I was left with the question of soy lecithin.  What was it?  What did it do?  Was I allergic to it?

I decided to cut it out until I had done some research. 

Seems that soy lecithin is a useful product.  Not only does it act as a binder and emulsifier enabling food ingredients to stick and blend together, but it is also high in choline which is good for the brain.  This was interesting to me as I already take choline as a supplement because I discovered that people who have anxiety (a condition I have tackled all my life) also have low levels of choline in the brain.

Still, there is that question of allergy and intolerance.  So for the past almost a year I have avoided products with soy lecithin in them - no mean feat as it is in practically everything that has more than two ingredients.  Careful label reading however, has turned up things that are lecithin free including sorbets and even some chocolate chips (I haven't yet found a chocolate bar that is lecithin free however - and trust me, I've tried!).

Most discussion of soy lecithin points out that allergic reactions tend to be because of the proteins in soy and that the process of producing lecithin eliminates these.  Therefore, most people ought to be able to consume them without a problem.

A fact sheet from the United Soybean Board states:

"The allergens in soybeans reside in the protein fraction of the bean. The allergenic
potential of specific soyfoods and/or ingredients is largely based on processing
techniques and the amount of protein or protein residue remaining in the final product. 
The majority of soy lecithin used in food applications is derived from refined soybean oil
that has been processed using the hot-solvent extraction technique, which eliminates
most, if not all, allergenic proteins."

But then, I think they might be just a tad biased maybe......?

I still don't have an answer for this question.  I may tentatively experiment with some food that include soy lecithin just to see.  I really do not like to have to use myself as a guinea pig but then, often that is the way with food allergies.  There are no hard and fast rules, no set-in-stone guidelines and one has to figure out the deal for each individual.

I'd love to hear if you are avoiding soy lecithin or if you can tolerate it.  In the meantime, I'll keep you posted.  There are an awful lot of chocolate things out there calling softly to me.........

Gluten soy free - Dare we do dairy?

When I first began to research what it meant to be gluten free, I kept reading about the notion that maybe it was a good idea to cut out dairy at the same time.  This was something I had been resistant to.  I loved butter!  I loved cream!  I loved whole milk yogurt!  Although I wasn't a big milk drinker, I believed that giving up dairy would be difficult for me.

From what I read, gluten intolerance and lactose intolerance often go together.  The reason given was that the gluten reaction can actually damage the ability of the gut to produce lactase which is needed to break down the lactose in dairy.  Without lactase, the gut is irritated by drinking milk, consuming ice cream, or anything containing milk.

I hadn't noticed a violent reaction to dairy although sometimes I did feel a bit queasy so I took a deep breath and decided to suck up the fact that maybe the dairy had to go as well.

My first experiment was with soy milk.  A great taste - I actually liked it.  A few weeks later however, I discovered my soy allergy and that had to go.  It wasn't hard for me to find a substitute.  I absolutely adore almonds and anything made with them.  In fact, I think I'd eat a cardboard box if it was almond flavored!  So almond milk was my next trial.  It was okay and actually didn't taste very almondy but it was awfully sweet and I really don't like sweet drinks.  I'm probably the only English person who doesn't like sugar in tea.

It took me a while to realize it but almond milk comes in several forms.  First there is "original".  I believe this label refers to the fact that it isn't flavored but it is, however, sweetened.  The labeling misled me I must admit.  I wouldn't have assumed that something that pretended to be milk would be sweetened without saying so but apparently it is.  I eventually discovered that there is also "original unsweetened".  Much better!  No cloying sweet taste and less calories to boot.  There is also vanilla flavored in both "original" and "unsweetened".  Not very vanillary (if there is such a word!) but a bit of a different taste.

The long and the short of it is that I now use almond milk exclusively in either unsweetened form.  It seems to perform reasonably well in recipes, sauces, custards etc., although it doesn't have the fat content of milk and therefore doesn't provide that creamy taste - but I can live with that.  My favorite brand is Almond Breeze , some of the others appear to me to have a weird slimey feel to them but that might just be me.....  Oh yes and a bonus is that almond milk actually has more calcium than regular milk.  Who'd have thought?

Substituting for butter was much more challenging and took a lot of store trolling and label reading.  Almost all margarine-type spreads are made with soy in the guise of vegetable oil.  In fact anything labeled "vegetable" whether it is oil, flavoring or broth must be treated as suspect for those with a soy allergy as they most likely contain soy.  After much searching I came up with a soy free spread.  It is made by Earth Balance (they have a really cool website) and it is really quite good.  It can also be used in cooking and baking although I have found it too rich for some cookies and cakes when used alone.  I half and half it with Spectrum shortening which is made from palm oil.

As for yogurt - I gave it up and haven't missed it.  At first I thought that was odd as I ate it every day but on reflection, I can see that eating gluten free has changed my appetite and eliminated a lot of food cravings and I no longer desire some foods I used to eat frequently.

Ice cream wasn't big on my diet list previously either but now when I want something cold and sweet, I eat a little sorbet.  Again, label reading is necessary because some of them contain dairy or soy but I have found several including peach, mango and black cherry that I can eat.  Safeway have their own brand of sorbet which is good and often on sale!  I don't feel deprived at all.

I'd love to hear what you do about dairy.  Do you still eat it?  Have you given it up?  What do you use for substitutes?  How do you adapt recipes?

Milk might be good for you but it isn't necessary.  Humans are the only mammals that drink it beyond  nursing years and I have never come across a calcium deprived bear or giraffe or elephant.  Have you?

Yes we can! Accentuating the gluten & soy free positive.

I've always been an optimist.  When my children were young they would often come to me because they had lost something.  "Don't worry, it will show up!" I would say.  Not what they wanted to hear - "But I need it NOW!" they would respond.....

When I realized that both gluten and soy were the cause of all my years of digestive distress, I had a "moment".  In that moment, I went to the place that says, "Ain't it awful?  I can't eat bread anymore...and I love bread.  I can't eat cookies anymore....and I live for cookies.  I can't eat pie anymore....and...and...and..."  But it was only a moment.

I saw quickly that the only way to do this huge change in my life was to accentuate the positive.  I needed to focus on what I CAN eat and not on what I can't.  So I began to investigate and research all the possibilities for a gluten and soy free diet.

The first, perhaps most obvious replacement staple I saw was rice.  I liked rice.  I had always liked it.  So versatile - dress it up, add to it, flavor it, use it for dinner, use it for dessert, use it for breakfast, eat it soft, eat it sweet, eat it crunchy.  I looked back into the dim and distant past and there it was.........rice pudding!!!

My mother used to make rice pudding for me when I was a child.  She never cooked it on top of the stove.  No, it had to be baked.  She would put a small amount of rice and sugar in the bottom of the special oval shaped dish she kept especially for this dish after buttering the sides liberally.  Then she would add the milk.  The final flourish was a copious amount of nutmeg grated on the top.  The whole thing was - very carefully so as not to spill - carried to the oven.  There it sat on a low heat for a couple of hours eventually filling the kitchen with a wonderful nutmeggy aroma.

To eat this concoction was to be transported to heaven!  Soft in the middle but with a brown thick "skin" on top, it was unbelievably delicious.  The family would fight to scrape the sides of the bowl where all the ingredients had baked together, sticking to the edges in a chewy, toffee-like goop.  Yes, I could eat rice pudding again!!

As I focused more and more on what I could eat, I found more and more items.  Anything made of corn was fine (some people are unfortunately allergic to corn but I am not) - corn tortillas, corn chips (although I found I had to watch what they had been cooked in, sometimes it is soy oil), cornbread, grits, polenta.  Here was another cornucopia (pun intended!) of items to consume and re-think as part of my diet.

Breakfast has never been a focus for me.  Mostly I am just not hungry in the morning but my investigations unearthed a variety of gluten and soy free choices - Rice Chex (or the less expensive generic equivalents but not Corn Chex, they have malt, made from barley in them), Cream of Buckwheat (which has become my favorite), Corn Flakes (again check the ingredients, some are ok, some not), gluten-free instant cereal and even a hot cereal made from potatoes!!

Add to this new discoveries such as quinoa and gluten free pasta and I am set.

You know.....this isn't nearly as limited as I thought it was going to be.  In fact, I have more choices now than ever.  In addition, I enjoy my food so much more knowing that it isn't going to make me sick and I can experiment with new and delicious choices.

Eating gluten and soy free, as with any change in life, bring challenges and choices but it also brings opportunities.  There is always a silver lining to any cloud, always the sun shining above the storm, always happiness just around the corner.  Just say "I can!  And I will!"