Eating Out 19

The hysteria continues:

What about gluten-saturated (this is now the opposite of gluten free) partners?! How long from when they eat say, a sandwich and when you can lay one on them?! Does it stick around? Wheat fumes?? You are what you eat they say,* I mean, what about doin'...you know... how dangerous?! EEP!**

What a perilous life I have one more week to live! Oy vey!

That aside moving on now okay. Yesterday was a fine day for eating. Kind of skipped the breakfast thing, but I was far too busy reading reading reading (La Peste). Leftover Chinese for breakfastlunch that meal that is sort of in between. Followed by practically no snacking before my huge nap. The greatness happened after the nap.

We went out to eat!

Cool, huh! Yeah, definitely! So originally the plan was "hey let's go out for lunch" which would have been fine because you don't have to really get dressed much to do lunch, it's not that big ordeal of dinner eating, except for then I would've been in a tight bind to try to find things to eat for dinner and I mean, I was wearing my tribute to yellow outfit that totally wasn't going to fly in Biaggi's where we were going (as I hear its got a nice gluten-free menu) and that is an outfit hardly fit to go anywhere except for maybe the library and the garlic press café (also great for the gluten-free) that just wasn't ticklin' my fancy yesterday if you catch my drift. Run. on. So I just ate a little lunch at my own house and moved this date to dinnertime.

We went to Monical's thanks to a tip from a friend. They must have very, very recently added gluten-free pizzas, but they did! Monical's is certainly one of my favorite pizza places in town and I was so pleasantly surprised! dinner: We got a couple of salads and some fries to start but for dinner we got separate pizzas because the gluten-free one only comes in 10 1/2in. (and because someone ::ahem:: doesn't like meat on their pizza. Ugh!

It came out and lo and behold, it was truly very good. Different, you could totally tell it wasn't made with the same flour, but definitely tasty in that acquired once-you-get-used-to-this-it-tastes-perfectly-normal-and-you-could-never-go-back-to-the-regular-kind sort of way like diet soda. The crust is sliiightly thicker than the thin crust but it's practically negligible - we're talking millimeters here at the most - and it's flakier, kind of like a pie crust. You know, it's a little sweeter like a pie crust too. The Other said it tastes kind of like a Cheez-It and I kind of get it except for it's not crammed with the taste of real cheddar cheese into each tiny square.

I ate a ton of everything. Way too much. I was very full (but not bloated I-need-a-nap-full) so then we shopped it off. Fine fine evening but very low on the eating stuff front.

Oh and I guess I ate my weight in Tootsie Rolls between yesterday and the day before but that's a whole 'nother can of worms....

::edit:: I forgot my appendage!  Whoops!

*When I say this I think of Michael Pollan's bit in The Omnivore's Dilemma where he talks about how because of the carbon type that makes up corn, it changes our make-up and so you can do tests on people to find out what they eat mostly and now we eat more corn than those Native peoples who call themselves the corn people.  

**This may or may not be as scandalous as it sounds 

Supreme Mouth Opening?

So, do allergies count for things not ingested through the mouth orifice?  This is the question of the day.  Really, it is the question of last night, but so it carries into the morning and thus it carries here.  

What if some wheat flour or something were to accidentally get somewhere else?  Naked bread making, say.  Would that count?  Send me to the emergency room?  That's extraordinarily unlikely of course but hypothetically, in some grand What If, hospitalization?  This comes from this moment of HORROR (we're talking sheer terror) when I was in the shower and thought What about my shampoo?!

Shampoo indeed.  I use a homemade shampoo and as I was lathering I remembered - THE GLUTEN!?!  

Right there.  On the label.  Wheat protein and starch.  Oh nuts!  I mean, I didn't eat it, but it was on my head... there are pores there!  And hair holes!  Should I be examining my lotions?  My whatever else??  I have no idea.  WHAT ABOUT BREATHING?? This calls for research I think.  

Till then - forget showers!  Pft!   Clean till proven otherwise. 

::edit::

It's not looking good for the Salty Dawg.  I did see something that included products w/ gluten in them like lip balm, medicine, and vitamins, but those are related directly to the mouth.  Other than that, I'm not finding much.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm not calling 911 but I guess I'll use a different shampoo for a week.  

Tootsie Rolls not Donut Holes

Today was a good day. Productive. Filled with good things.

I came to the realization today that no, this isn't more expensive than my regular life style when it comes to my food habits, this is easily and entirely sustainable. I am feeling good. Really really good. I am paying for convenience and gluten-free convenience doesn't come cheap. It's not easy. It probably shouldn't be cheap.

In all actuality, no food should probably be "cheap." It's like - you go to the store and you pay a ton for fresh fruits and veggies that will last a week at best before they're gone or what's left goes bad or you go to walmart where you can pick up your soaps and furniture and dvd player and bicycle and pants and scrapbooking material in addition to processed foods up the wazoo and when you pay a ton you've got food to last you for a month or even maybe longer that's fast and easy and some paradoxical combination of extra-meganutritious and deadly. So you go back and you say well psh I don't have time to cook but I do have time for pizza rolls and you say well psh i can't afford to eat these fruits and vegetables I don't have time to prepare anyway and so the prices of those things goes up and you say whoa the prices are even more outrageous when I could spend the same amount on 3 apples as I would on a whole meal for my family. But really it's like you pay a ton for fruits and vegetables and meats and stuff but like, that's what food is supposed to cost and the rest, that cheap stuff has somehow become cheap for a reason that I am sure isn't for the betterment of the American peoples.

Know what I'm sayin'??

Breakfast:

Cereal

Lunch:

Salad

Later:

French Fries

Dinner:

hot & spicy beef

rice

Later:

cookies

candy

squirrel in eastern europe

Today has been even stranger than yesterday as far as eating goes.  I feel like a little squirrel hoarding stuff in my backpack eating a little here, eating a little there.  Didn't really do breakfast except for some coffee but spent the day snacking on raisins and pears and applesauce and fruitsnacks and those amazing cookies and whatever else.

Lunch: megasalad.  I've been craving lettuce so I ate lettuce.  Straight romaine practically.  A touch of french dressing seeing as my Hidden Valley is not acceptable.  Grr. 

Dinner: meat and potatoes! 

mm there's this place in my heart eternally for sausage and potatoes.  It ended up being delicious what with the light butter and chive sauce on the roasted potatoes.  Finally something typically heavier that I feel like I ate a fair amount of but still this like undying ravishing hunger is getting to me.  

What I really want is some candy.  I don't have any.  I shouldn't have any.  I am toying with the idea of making a dessert to satisfy my sweet tooth but it's probably not going to happen.  I don't think I'm really hungry.  I can't quite tell anymore.   It might still just be my body freakin' out from a fairly dramatic all-of-a-sudden change in what I give it.  And on top of the new diet I also re-introduced a little yoga and got back on my bicycle.  

Some combination of these life changes are doing me good.  I feel energetic and even better - I don't feel heavy anymore.  I don't get that I'm-so-bloated-I-just-ate-my-weight-in-bread-and-pasta-I-can't-move-for-six-hours-I-need-a-nap-before-anyone-can-talk-to-me feeling.  I am sleeping a lot - but I think it's the drugs and sickness 'cause I'm not really tired... I just am sleeping.  There's a difference.  

Toothless Ruthless

I'm learning that this is a very light kind of diet.  I need some bread to anchor my belly!  I don't.  But I am finding that I have to change the way I am eating and that's totally fine.  Three meals a day just doesn't cut it.  I am STARVING by the time it gets to the next one.  It's more of a eat every three or four hours sort of deal.  Eat till I'm not hungry/full and then I'm ready for more a few hours later.  And it's not something I feel bad about.  Without having to really worry about it, I'm eating healthier things and using them as fuel not as funtimes eating for no reason.   It's enjoyable fuel, but uh, you know, fuel.  

Yesterday was painful and terrible.  Teeth you know?  Those drugs were messing me up.  Also messing up my eating schedule.  

Breakfast:

oatmeal

Lunch/Snacks: 

applesauce

pears

fries

raisins

fruit snacks 

mcdo fries

Dinner:

crustless sausage and cheese quiche

Yesterday is over.  Today is much better.  

Day Two

Hooray for a first gluten-free advertised quick and easy meal!  

I went to the grocery today and forgot my list of not okay ingredients, but I think I did a pretty good job.  Some stuff I'll need to check against the list before I eat it just to make sure -- but I'm fairly certain I'm in the clear.  This won't be so bad.  

Stopped at Naturally Yours of course first for their gluten free aisles so I could get quick stuff and also flour substitute for bread/muffins/other assorted baked goods.  The plan was to eat mostly natural things, eat mostly stuff that takes its energy from the sun or one step removed.  And I mean, it's still part of the plan ... but there were so many goodies!  I spent a small fortune but I can't wait to try stuff out.  

fun fact: Captain Crunch - gluten free.  

I bought cookies and 

pastas and easy lunchtime meals.  I bought juice and cereal and brownie mix and fruit snacks and vegetables.  THIS IS FUN!  I could do this for realsies!  

Hah, so tonight is mac 'n cheese because I'm eating so late and because of dentist's orders.  I'm supposed to eat soft foods for some days (they took my remaining two wisdom teeth) which canceled my chicken and balsamic vegetables over rice plan.  The hygienist suggested a list of foods to eat that were all things I thought I couldn't eat due to the wheat thing and my lactose thing but imagine my surprise to find gluten-free mac 'n cheese first thing!  The first item on her list!  Check! Cart! Purchase! Success!  Tasted like easy mac!  I'd definitely do that again.  

Cookies later?  I think so, as a reward for doing some homework finally.  

What else? 

Breakfast!  So easy so easy!  I can eat whatever I want except for toast...and donuts...but that's another story.  I got so excited for some Dunkin' before remembering it's not coffee and donuts without the donut.  Sadday.  I found gluten-free donuts today, too, but they were frozen and that made me a little nervous... Besides, they weren't crullers so they were hardly even donuts.  

Tomorrow will be interesting, it's one of my long days.  9-9 with few breaks (four classes and a morning at work) means usually foods I can keep in my backpac

k all day and munch on constantly.  Usually granola bars and sandwiches, goldfish, that sort of thing.  Not tomorrow.  I hope I picked up enough to last.  I'm sure it'll be fine.  Soft, transportable, gluten-free foods.   Gee, great. 

Breakfast:

cheesy eggs

bacon

Lunch:

bloody gauze. 

Dinner:

gluten-free macaroni and cheese

Dessert:

snickerdoodles!  gluten-free and DELICIOUS soft and chewy

Edit

I forgot a few things I suppose and there is always more to add.  

Other things I ate today - pineapple.  Day one gluten free has been a fair success.  I should eat more.  I do normally when I feel better.  

After dinner I indulged in a bowl of icecream and a package of Skittles.  Both of these were bad ideas.  I did take a lactaid before the icecream, but the Skittles had to go before my dentist appointment tomorrow, I couldn't have the temptation.  

Speaking of temptation - for tomorrow, let's talk about this weird occupied france craving for some bread and butter.  What I would give for some bread and butter.  

It's been eight hours.