#and recently i've been struggling because gluten is in everything

[pharawee]

I already love Chef Shin so much for making gluten-free cake 🥰

(But also the fact that at one point the subs said "comPeach" instead of compete. Genius. Give this series an award!)

[vegance]

Any advice for someone with coeliac disease? I'm recently diagnosed, and I've been vegan for 6 years. It's getting hard to continue being vegan, just because of how inconvenient things are. Almost every vegan meat substitute has gluten in it, other than tofu, and that gets old. Everything I used to get my protein from is now moot. I became vegan for the animals, so I absolutely don't want to break my values. It's just looking bleak.

hi :)

First of all, I’m really sorry you are having such a hard time right know. I definitely know how it feels to struggle with eating and feeling well nourished and satisfied because of food intolerances.

Secondly, I am not you doctor or dietician, so I won’t be advising you on specific things to do. I can only give some general advice.

It might help to tell me where you live, depending on that me and my followers might be able to find some GF vegan substitutes! Since there are many vegan people who are also GF, there might already be a list of products for you to try!

From my experience, the most difficult thing about complex food intolerances is often the feeling of extreme restriction, the social consequences and the boredom with eating the same 5 things over and over. Maybe it would be helpful to try and start anew with your approach to food? When people go vegan, they can really struggle if all they do is take away the animal products. But when they reevaluate their entire approach and start anew, a whole new world opens up. Maybe there are specific GF cookbooks and channels you can have a look at, to slowly figure out a rotation of meals that you like <3

Just from the top of my head, here are some vegan protein sources that are GF (as far as I know) and NOT tofu!!

TVP (nuggets, steaks, mince etc. Soo versatile and delicious. hmu for recipes if u want)

Tempeh (apparently u can make amazing meatballs with it)

Chickpea/lentil tofu (is this cheating?)

Bean burgers

Lentil/nut mince

Beyond meat products

Chickpeas

Protein powder (I love it in cookies)

Again, these are just some examples. If you tell me where you live, people might be able to help you more.

Lastly, I think it’s really important to let yourself be mad and frustrated with your food restriction, and to acknowledge how hard it can be, especially socially. It takes time to adjust, and that’s ok. I hope the people around you are considerate of your needs, and inclusive of you when you eat together.

Remember, veganism is about doing the best you personally can. That looks different for everybody <3

[mbrainspaz]

I can't tell if I'm misunderstanding local culture or if my coworkers are just the rudest people on earth: A sort of tumblr AITA.

Any other south Texans out there, care to add your two cents?

I've lived in several cultures with wildly different gift giving practices so I'm pretty adaptable but since starting my current job in south Texas I'm at a loss for the first time. Having been a person who's struggled to afford food in recent years the best way I know to show gratitude and camaraderie is by gifting and sharing necessities like food, clothing, and shelter. I've always loved cooking for other people. Granted I do cook some weird stuff like curry and gluten free snacks so I don't expect people to want everything I make. I have a pretty stellar track record though. At my old office my deserts were legendary. Still, I'm not offended when someone turns down gifts of any kind. I wouldn't want anyone to feel obligated to give me anything in return.

Well... I wouldn't have been offended a few rejected gifts, but these people have accepted literally NOTHING I've tried to give them all year—usually just by tossing it aside on a dusty shelf or leaving it sitting out so that I find it later, spoiled. The muffins I made? Left on the counter for 3 days until I finally threw them out. The pumpkin pie with cool whip on thanksgiving? Left sitting on a workbench overnight. The nice warm waterproof coat I made available for the kid who only has a hoodie? Shoved in a dusty sink full of spiders. The spare room in my company house: always open, but they've told me they slept in their cars instead. I've even offered them full access to my kitchen (on the worksite) in case they ever need a snack or a sandwich and NOT ONCE—not even during severe storms—have they ever asked for so much as a breath mint.

I can't wrap my head around it! If someone had offered me any of these things while I was struggling or even just as a kind gesture I would've done everything in my power to show them how grateful I was even if I didn't want whatever they were sharing. The one coworker has literally come up to me at work and talked about how they couldn't afford anything but canned beans for a week—BESTIE, you could've helped yourself to a whole steak I had in the fridge! Or a vegan burger! Have I not told you so a dozen times?! I know what you're thinking: "They clearly hate you!" Not particularly. At least, I try not to let the paranoia get to me. We get along well enough on most other fronts. But wait—there's more!

They also rudely reject all gifts from our boss and clients. A client gave us special cooling scarves in the heat of the summer and I made sure to thank her and be seen wearing mine (it was super nice), and what did my coworkers do with theirs? They're still in the box in the back of a dusty bin. A coffee maker? Also left in its box for 9 months. A mug of hot chocolate? Left to mold. Leftovers of fried chicken and pizza from work meetings goes bad in the break room fridge every time (if I don't eat it). The candy and snacks our boss brings 'round on holidays ends up sitting in the feed room unopened for months (until I finally take it). Sometimes clients bring leftover desserts or donuts, and if I don't take those and put them away they will also sit out until they calcify.

It's no wonder I'm the only one who gets gifts from clients most of the time—I know how to at least ACT grateful. Even if you don't want the thing it's about basic manners.

My two coworkers come from different cultural backgrounds in the sense that one has a rich family and the other has always lived in poverty. Both still own land, horses, and big trucks (because Texas). Both are from south Texas and haven't spent a lot of time in other cultures. My best guess is that this is some kind of sick hyper-individualist mentality bullshit in action. I just don't get it.

No matter what culture you're from I'm pretty sure it's always downright rude to reject gifts the way they do. I'm to the point where I've decided to stop trying to give them anything and I just hope that doesn't make me the bad guy. I'm tired of being insulted for no reason and I hate to see food go to waste. Really at a loss here.

[nightinghoul]

Me, talking about all my feelings surrounding food, weight, and physical and mental health

CN: Dieting, weight, ED, food scarcity, food contamination OCD

I talked about how my food restrictions aren't diet culture, and this is true. That aside, is it always bad to diet? I am not sure I know the answer.

Here's where I'm coming from: In 2020, I was on a medication that made me both ravenously hungry, and extremely fatigued. I worked, ate, and slept. That's all I did.

I'm 5'6". I ended up going from 128 lbs to 180 in a VERY short time span. My body felt physically different to me. I literally felt as if my brain had been put into a different body. I was dissociating all the time. I felt like my spirit had been kicked out of its home.

After a med change, I pretty easily lost about 15 pounds, which softened that feeling that my body had been swapped put with another model. But my body still hadn't had a chance to adjust to a different weight, and with my health issues, standing became very difficult. I couldn't hold myself up for that long. Then I developed plantar fasciitis.

I was personally less healthy with more weight. But I still don't think that any specific weight is an indicator of health. I know people much bigger than me who are way healthier.

Anyway, for me, I decided recently to try to eat better, and get more exercise. I have a tendency to go all or nothing, and pacing myself is hard. Instead of calory counting every day, I made a list of my favorite foods, and listed a portion for each one based on the time of day, plus I'm eating more raw vegetables (which I was supposed to be doing anyway). I've lost ten more pounds.

I don't need to be the weight I was before I started meds. I had always been thin because anxiety made it hard to eat. Even now. I go through phases where all food is gross. The textures are gross, the flavors are gross, and everything feels like it's crawling with germs. (Yay, OCD! 🙄)

When I first hit 150, I had a health instructor at the college I was attending tell the class that we needed to check our BMIs, and if it was 25 or over, we needed to lose weight. That's BS, by the way. BMI is totally arbitrary, and should not be used as a measure. I look gaunt at the midrange "healthy" BMI of 121. At that weight, I once had someone hold my hands and try to pray with me, because she thought I had cancer. (It didn't help that I had short hair, but nobody was ever concerned about my health when I was a 165lb buzz-headed butch.) I have a photo from that time, and my cheeks were sunken in. I'm curvy, so when I got at an even lower weight, I looked like a skeleton, and wore size 6-8 jeans.

Low weight isn't necessarily unhealthy, either. But for me, a BMI under 25 does look very thin, and is usually because I have not been eating, have been eating unsafe-for-me foods, or because I have been throwing up my dinner at night due to anxiety.

Food is a difficult subject for me. I grew up with food scarcity, and to this day, I struggle with over-buying and hoarding food. I get upset if I'm stranded without food for even a short time. Even if I'm not eating it, I feel like I need it to be there. And I do not share well. I was this way before I learned I was gluten intolerant, and developed more food sensitivities. Now it can be really hard, because even if I walk into a place with food, it's not guaranteed that there will be something I can eat.

All of that said, I'm just trying to eat the right foods that the doctor ordered (because of sensitivities and Lynch syndrome), get some exercise, so I can lift and carry myself and have a healthy heart, and be at a weight that alleviates foot pain and feels like my real body. I'm in a pretty good place right now. But really, at any weight, or any level of health, I've always been able to look in a mirror and say, "Well hello, cutie pie!" That was part of my upbringing. I wish everyone had that.

[consulting-celiac-in-the-tardis]

I Was Given Gluten While Hospitalized For Celiac Complications

New blog post! Lying in my hospital bed, I had an IV in one hand and a feeding tube up my nose. I weighed 83 lbs at 5'3"...as a college freshman. Celiac disease was literally killing me, even after I'd switched to a gluten free diet. Yet, my hospital lunch - with "Gluten Free" written in big letters on the top of the box and "no wheat" neatly checked off on the meal order request - contained a chicken sandwich with a bun that seemed far too soft and fluffy to be gluten free. I sniffed it. I even tore off a small piece of the bun to try. But, in the end, I called my nurse to ask if this sandwich was really gluten free like it stated on the package.

The answer? There had been a mistake. My "gluten free" hospital meal contained a large serving of the very food that landed me in the hospital in the first place: gluten.

Have Celiac Disease? The Hospital Challenges You Could Face

True, the quality of care that patients with celiac disease or food allergies receive will vary by hospital. It's also true that, in recent years, many hospitals have made huge improvements in their cafeteria menus. I've even heard of hospitals with a full gluten free menu, complete with desserts! This progress, however, is not universal. In fact, stories of celiac or food allergy patients struggling to eat safely while hospitalized are still far too common.

You only have to Google "hospital gluten free" - or spend a few weeks in a gluten free Facebook group - to learn what I mean. For the sake of this post, though, here are a few examples:

One Thanksgiving several years ago, Celeste Clevenger's gluten free husband ended up in the hospital. She was thrilled to read the hospital's menu and see that the cafeteria offered "gluten free options." She was less thrilled when the cafeteria staff didn't seem to know much about the gluten free diet and sent up a "regular" Thanksgiving dinner instead of the promised gluten free alternative. 

More recently, Debbie Simpson's gluten intolerant son was in a horrible car accident. Due to his injuries, he couldn't eat for several days. One of the first meals offered? Chicken broth that contained wheat, which Simpson thankfully noticed before her son drank the broth.

In Helen Fletton's experience, hospital food can be especially dangerous for celiac patients when they're groggy from anesthesia and potentially unable to advocate for themselves. In one incident, Fletton was offered a wheat-filled muffin even while wearing a bright red wristband that clearly said, "WHEAT ALLERGY."

The even more worrisome aspect of these stories? They're only the experiences that have been published online.

Maybe a shirt like this would help?

Want to Increase Celiac Awareness? Don't Forget the Hospitals

The purpose of this post is not to vilify hospital teams who don't know how to safely feed celiac patients. Despite the cafeteria issues I had during my own hospitalization, I am grateful for my doctors and nurses every day. They didn't give up on me, even when my body wasn't reacting to a gluten free diet like it "should" have. They kept trying formula after formula to find the liquid diet that would heal my damaged intestines. They literally gave me my life back. (Not to mention that, when my gastroenterologist heard about my "gluten free" lunch, she seemed even angrier than I was.) However, as the anniversary of my of my hospitalization grows closer, I've been thinking more and more about that hospital lunch. And I've realized that, for all the gluten free community has done to raise celiac awareness in the common public, we need to educate doctors, too.

What celiac disease really "looks like" - from Gluten Dude's "The Faces of Celiac Disease"

Compared to years ago, celiac disease and the gluten free diet are thankfully more well-known. However, there are still far too many myths flying around. For instance, the myth that people with celiac must be skinny. (Yes, I've heard of a doctor who actually rejected a woman's celiac diagnosis because she is overweight). Or the misconception that having a little gluten "won't hurt." (News flash: even a little gluten will hurt someone with celiac disease, in more ways than one). We need to improve more than general public knowledge, though. I want to be able to trust doctors and the food they give me. When I was hospitalized, I'd only been diagnosed with celiac disease for a few months. I didn't know if gluten free bread could look as "normal" as the bun on my chicken sandwich did, but it sure looked tasty. And after dealing with a lack of appetite for weeks, it suddenly took a lot of effort to keep myself from biting the bullet (or the bun, in this case). The only reason I called the nurse instead of digging in? I trusted my gut. I decided that even doctors couldn't be trusted with my food...and that paranoia turned out to be true. But I don't want to live that way. Does anyone want to have to be on high-alert for the rest of their lives, unable to trust any food they don't prepare with their own hands?

This story doesn't have a happy ending per se. It's happy in that I eventually healed on the gluten free diet, as I've shared in detail in this post, and that I didn't eat the gluten-filled meal that mistakenly landed in my lap. However, even four years later, I don't have a solution to the bigger problem: the lack of celiac awareness still found in some hospitals and medical communities. What I can offer? A few reminders. First, know that our work as celiac advocates is not done. It's not enough for celiac disease to be diagnosed more often or for gluten free food to be more accessible and widespread. (Although those two goals are still important, and steps made accomplishing them should definitely still be celebrated.) We also need to make sure that celiac disease is included in common medical training, and that doctors see beyond common celiac stereotypes.

Like this post? Tweet me some love by clicking here: "Read why this #celiac wants safer #glutenfree hospital meals + tips to follow a #glutenfreediet in the hospital. http://bit.ly/2vYlEKH"

Members of the celiac community have their own lessons to learn, as well; mainly, to never be afraid of being your own advocate. You may not know everything that a doctor knows. However, depending on your doctors' familiarity with celiac disease, they may not know everything you know about celiac disease. So ask questions. Request more information. If you need to, request a second opinion or another doctor. You are in control!

How to Eat Gluten Free in the Hospital

And what if you do end up in the hospital and are worried about eating a safe, gluten free diet? Here are a few tips from the Gluten Intolerance Group and the Northeast Ohio Celiac Network on how to eat gluten free in the hospital:

If you know about your hospital visit ahead of time, contact a hospital dietician or a food service supervisor and talk about their gluten free options and celiac protocol. You might also want to contact any of the departments (pharmacy, pre-op surgery, medical surgery, etc) you will be treated by.

If you have an emergency visit to the hospital, contact one of the hospital's registered dieticians as soon as possible to discuss food options and hospital procedures.

In the case of a long-term, planned hospital stay, you can also ask if the hospital's dietary team could special order some gluten free pasta, baked goods, etc. to be used during your stay.

Learn how your hospital handles allergies, such as using a medical wrist band. Although celiac disease is not an allergy, an "allergy" warning can help alert hospital staff to your dietary restrictions.

Request that a phrase like "Celiac Disease: All foods and medications must be verified gluten-free" be written in your chart or placed on your hospital door.

Ask if you can bring food from home, and prep safe meals (like these 19 easy gluten free dinner recipes!) to be brought my friends/family members or stored in your room. You could also bring gluten free freezer meals to be warmed up by your nurse(s).

If something doesn't look "right" or "safe," ask!

One day, I'm hopeful that all doctors will be well-versed in celiac disease...and that all hospital cafeterias will know how to safely feed their celiac patients. Until that day, though, I'll try to keep my "gluten free" hospital lunch in the back of my mind. And, any time I feel uncertain about my own health or safety but don't want to "be a bother," I'll remember that chicken sandwich, take a deep breath and say, "Can I ask you a quick question?" Have you ever been hospitalized while following a gluten free diet? What was your experience? Tell me in the comments below!

via Blogger http://ift.tt/2xfzOqT