Our Little Baby Blog

Gluten-free Experiment

Tonight marks the end of our two week gluten-free experiment. As you will recall, Mike and I made a New Year's resolution to give up gluten for two weeks. My brother has celiac disease (that's an allergy to wheat) and has been educating us on the health ramifications of gluten.

I had hopes that giving up gluten would help ease tension and anxiety (what? you hadn't noticed I'm slightly tense?) and Mike was hoping this might help him with some weight loss goals he has. Now we only did this for two weeks so we didn't really think it would be anything dramatic, but we did think that by the end of two weeks, we'd have some inkling as to whether we were on to something.

The parameters we set required us to avoid wheat as if we were gluten-intolerant -- not gluten allergic. What's the difference? Well, there's gluten in everything. Food manufacturers are required to list the most common allergens in their ingredient lists. However, lots of foods don't list wheat in the ingredients, yet still contain gluten. Some starches and preservatives have gluten and you've got to decipher all those crazy chemical names to make sure you're eating something safe if you're actually allergic to wheat. Instead, we just looked for wheat and avoided it. (For example, soy sauce has gluten, but if you read the ingredients it says just soy.)

You've gotta really stick to eating stuff that comes from the earth -- fruits, vegetables, meat (but lots of meats have gluten in them so beware). Rice is safe and there are some gluten-free pastas but we don't even like whole wheat pasta so we didn't bother trying it.

Here's what we ate:
Crock pot apricot chicken (Kate's recipe)
Vegetable curry with rice*
Broccoli crock pot casserole with rice
Pot roast with carrots, celery and potatoes
Gluten-free pizza
Tacos (with corn tortillas)
Tomato, basil and mozzarella melts on gluten-free bread (courtesy of my bread maker)
Salmon with rice and steamed green beans
Salad, lots and lots of salad

*This was a mess up, the curry mix I used had gluten in it, but I didn't realize it until I was getting ready to make dinner. We had to eat it because I didn't have another alternative that night.

Now that it's over, I have to say this was very very hard. Mike gave up on Saturday night and I cut it short tonight (technically, I should have waited to have gluten until tomorrow morning). Partially it was difficult because we both missed having bread and sweets. I have a HUGE sweet tooth and hit the wall after about a week and had to buy a gluten-free brownie mix. But partially it was difficult because there aren't really any snack-type foods that are gluten free except for fruit. I don't keep much junk food around our house, but I've been known to snack on pretzels or cheddar bunnies when I get hungry during the day. Once you start removing those you realize that you don't have a lot of options beyond fruit and dairy (I ate more cheese than you can imagine).

Despite the fact that I had more protein than I've ever had in my life during the last two weeks (eggs and bacon for breakfast, yogurt, cheese, salads packed with beans and meat and cheese, hard boiled eggs for snacks), I found myself constantly hungry. Constantly. As in stomach hurting, head-pounding type hunger. I don't understand that at all. Why wasn't I less hungry after consuming all that protein?

Mike was less hungry. He typically just eats a bowl of cereal in the morning and the protein from eggs really helped him stave off the hunger. His big frustration was trying to find gluten-free meals around his work. Salads had to suffice, but he finds them a bit boring. He did start eating a bowl of chili for lunch and plans to keep that up. We both found it frustrating that we didn't have many options for sweets. Our local farmers market had a stand that sold gluten-free cookies and muffins so I spent waaaay too much money on some chocolate chip cookies this weekend.

I have such respect for people who have to avoid gluten. It is difficult. Every minute of the day I felt like I was thinking about what I was going to eat next, reading labels, trying to figure out what we were going to have for dinner. It just took the fun out of eating entirely.

Plus, I'd hoped that I'd find myself feeling less anxious and more clear-headed. I can't say that I had anything like that occur. I did sleep better, but I don't know if that's really due to this experiment or if I'm just having a good sleep phase right now. Mike feels healthier overall, but he's also been exercising everyday and we don't know if that's the cause or if gluten is somehow a part of this, too.

I think we both agree that probably need to cut down on gluten in general and I do want to try to make more gluten-free meals for dinner. However, unless we have some sort of weird experience when we re-introduce gluten, we're definitely not going to completely give it up voluntarily again. We just didn't see much of a difference in our health or mindset and it was really really difficult.

There you have it. Our gluten-free experiement for 2010. If any of you ever decide to take this little challenge yourself, I'd be curious to see if you have a different experience. Come on... do it. You know you want to...