One year ago today I was diagnosed with Celiac disease (thank you Facebook for the fun memories). I thought by now I'd be an old pro, but honestly, being gluten-free fucking sucks. And I'm really bad at it. I've found some decent alternatives. I used a neighbors really awesome pizza recipe and was able to adapt it to be GF. It's better than the frozen options out there, and doesn't cost an absurd amount to make. GF pretzels are even better than the originals (Snyder's of Hanover makes buffalo style GF pretzels and they are delicious!), but sometimes you just can't replace the real thing. GF beer is awful. Like truly terrible. The gluten removed ones are ok, but I can't drink too many of them because they still contain traces of gluten. In reality, when I'm in the mood for a good beer I just drink one and deal with the consequences later. Kind of like how it's worth it to eat a real hotdog bun. Yum.
I thought for sure that I would just start dropping weight too. I mean, people go gluten-free as a diet right? So I should be skinny now, right? Uh, wrong. I've only gained weight, which just makes me want to eat more bread. And drink more beer. But I feel better, and I'm learning how to make all my go-to recipes GF. The whole family is eating healthier and I can't rely on just grabbing KFC for any meal, which also doesn't hurt the wallet. I'm also meal planning now which makes our crazy hectic schedule so much easier. We have sports/rehearsals/events at least 3 nights a week but we still get to have a real dinner together, and meal planning helps me not spend 3x more than necessary on groceries that will eventually go bad. So now that I've gotten my shit a little bit together I think I've learned my lesson and should be free of this gluten-free nightmare. What if I say please?
