Some things are just harder than others.
Last spring I decided to perform scientific experiments on my children. There were reasons besides mere curiosity. Anywho, the experiments I perform on my children always follow the Hippocratic Oath - cause no harm. But I'd like to update that to "cause no harm, learn something and make it fun." I'm sure in Greek it sounds fabulous.
Back to the experiment. We had a month of a gluten free diet that just about killed me. There was no more thunking down to the jumbo wheat-a-palooza cereal and mindlessly shovelling it into sleep dazed faces. This required planning.
No problem I thought. I'll just buy rice palooza or corn palooza since there are so many other cereal types on the market. No dice. Each one of them contained a gluten bearing ingredient like malt barley syrup or the like.
Next thought. I'll just buy gluten free cereal even though it's a tenth the size and ten times the price. Bland wasn't the first problem, especially with the cocoa versions. I became enlightened as to how enriched our breakfast cereals are these days. Gluten free cereals are not enriched. In fact, without milk, most of them are a big nutritional zero.
Third thought, uh, fourth thought. We'll have oatmeal. Nix that. There was no solid guarantee that this would be feasible and tolerated well. Sooo, I was baking gluten free muffins, making gluten free pancakes, preparing fruit, doling out yogurt... all in an effort to make sure my children were eating a healthy breakfast.
I bribed them with every gluten free treat I could find. My children thought this would be heaven if only it included real pizza.
But that month was only a trial run. Turns out that mother's intuition is right on the money. Celiac is officially here to stay.
I'm not worried about giving up gluten. I could care less. It means more planning and less garbage that is eligible to be in our diets. I will miss baking and working with yeasty springy flour dough. Sigh, anybody want a monster flour tin that doubles as an end table?
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4 comments:
Nice post.Butt i was shocked to see ur experiment level.
I won't take you up on that offer, mostly because I know you will still be doing non-glutten free things for the rest of your family. (Okay, and I have a big rubbermaid bin of the same flour in my storage room.)
:-)
This "experiment" was really a month of very healthy eating. I didn't expect results from eliminating gluten so I was surprised too. It was something I felt would be a good idea based on the fact that there are members of our extended family who are celiac. We thought all we would gain was more understanding and empathy. I always thought "Whew, glad celiac is not our concern" not realising that it is.
I can't believe your kids went for it!
I tried just giving up white flour (on the same level as you - checking all ingredients for hidden components) and it was such a production! I just couldn't keep it up.
My hat's off to you!
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