Sometimes being gluten free just sucks...

I grabbed this from aglutenfreediet.com. It's oh so true. I'm totally okay with being gluten free and the hard choices i'm forced to make sometimes. But there are those days where one after the other you're forced with a situation and it's just overwhelming. You don't want to be rude, but you also don't want to get sick! I totally get exactly what this woman is saying and wanted to share.


Sometimes being forced to be on a gluten-free diet just sucks. There’s no getting around it. I wish I could run out and grab a slice of pizza or get a sandwich at my favorite deli for lunch. I wish I could have eaten all of the amazing pastries and baguettes in Paris. I wish I could have eaten the donut pictured above. I want to eat crepes in a restaurant. I want to be able to order toast with breakfast at any diner. I wish I could eat a pretzel croissant – I want to eat at the new Momofuku Bakery and Milk Bar, heck I want to eat at the original Momofuku.

Yes, I ate amazingly well and completely gluten-free in Paris. Yes I can eat gluten-free pizza at multiple restaurants in Manhattan. Yes, there are gluten-free croissants and even gluten-free ravioli. Yes, I have had more amazing food experiences in the last 4 years since being gluten-free than I ever had previously. Sometimes I just want to be able to eat a Twinkie or a box of Wheat Thins (of course I haven’t eaten a Twinkie since I was in elementary school, but somehow knowing that I won’t ever be able to eat one again makes me mourn the loss).

In the last year I have become so adept at eating/living gluten-free it has started to seem less like a burden, but it still is really hard sometimes. This week was particularly rough. A friend offered to make me dinner on Thursday. He had cooked the same dish successfully for me before so I let my guard down and didn’t rehash the do’s and don’t’s of ‘gluten-free’. When I arrived at his place the ribs I had been dreaming about were smothered in a fragrant homemade sauce I remembered so well from this summer. Just as we were about to eat I double-checked with him all of the ingredients. “It’s the same as what you made this summer right?”

“No, not exactly, I don’t really work from a recipe.”
Oh no, my heart sank. I couldn’t bear another dinner like Jeff’s. Hold on, I told myself, it’s probably fine. “What’s in it, just to be sure?”

The first red flag was fish sauce. While most fish sauces are gluten-free, I held my breath as we checked the bottle. It was fine, phew. The rest of the ingredients were gluten-free.

“Oh and I added a little hoisin sauce at the end” he said.

Then I knew, the amazing ribs, smothered in sauce were just going taunt me. As we looked at the ingredients, there right on the bottle were the words I dreaded: “WHEAT FLOUR.” I wanted to cry. I normally am so good at planning ahead, but when we had had the ribs this summer he didn’t pre-sauce them so everyone was able to put the amount they wanted. I figured even if the sauce wasn’t gluten-free I would still be able to enjoy the smoky meat falling off the bone. But alas, it was not meant to be. He still managed to pull together a great spread of prosciutto, chipotle and cinnamon-spiced sweet potatoes and an arugula salad with toasted walnuts, fresh parmiggiano reggiano and homemade vinaigrette all of which were gluten-free and delicious. So while I didn’t leave hungry, it was a blow to my spirit.

Less than 24-hours later I encountered another difficult eating situation. I had a work lunch at 12:45pm. Now most work lunches aren’t a problem. As long as a restaurant is somewhat upscale I can usually find something and it tends to be great for the most part. Well, the location hadn’t been selected until an hour beforehand so by the time I got to look at the menu it was too late - a soup and sandwich place, again my heart sank. The focus of the restaurant was bread and luscious gluten-filled soups. I didn’t have time to reach anyone to ask for a change of venue or to grab something to eat in advance. When I got to the restaurant it was so crowded inside it was tough to move and there were throngs of people waiting for a table. Our third guest arrived late so there really wasn’t enough time for us to change restaurants so I had to sit and watch as they ate the most amazing French onion soup I have ever seen/smelled. I usually don’t have that much of a problem sitting at a table while other people eat, but I had already been so demoralized by the previous evening that this was just too much. I fought back tears and tried to silence a rumbling stomach as we talked business.

I had a great dinner later that evening, shared with a roommate from college. It helped me feel better after the dreadful lunch experience.

In general I am a really positive person, but sometimes it really just sucks to be gluten-free. What has been your most frustrating dining experience since going gluten-free?