"There's Wheat In That."

"I can't eat that, there's wheat in it."
The sentence resulted in a 20 second stare off between myself and the man across the table from me (my now husband). We had just waited 45 minutes for a table and the fact that I was offering to split the two pack of saltine crackers I had swiped from the front of the restaurant was a miracle in itself. Was he being rude? No. He must have been trying to be funny. So I laughed and held out the cracker again.
"No really, I can't eat wheat." This time he said it with a half smile.
"Are you serious? Why?" Half of me was interested and the other half of me was horrified as images of bread and pasta flooded my mind.

When my husband was 23 he decided to move to Ecuador. He was on the pursuit of starting up his own international swimsuit modeling company and was actually quite successful for a while. I'm assuming this is any 23 year old guy who is living in Connecticut's dream- to pick up and leave to a country full of adventure and warm weather where no one can find you, let alone surround yourself with models all day. The only difference is, he actually did it.

Unfortunately there is a counter part to a 23 year olds mindset of adventure- stupidity. Between the idea that he was resilient enough to bypass the recommended immunizations before traveling to South America, combined with the thousands of ice cubes in his drinks and meals from food trucks, he returned 3 years later 118 pounds and quite literally on his death bed. He had caught every parasite known to mankind and spent the next several months in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV with antibiotics flooding his system it an attempt to kill the bacteria that had eaten away at his body.

When he was finally deemed healthy enough to resume life as "normal" he found out that it was anything but. He wasn't gaining the weight back and he was running to the bathroom in pain whenever he ate. After seeing a nutritionist she told him there was one simple step he could take to make a huge difference- cut out wheat. And to make things easier just go on a gluten free diet. So he stopped the bagels for breakfast and pizza for dinner and quickly he noticed a huge difference. He wasn't in pain anymore and he was starting to gain his weight back.

"So yeah...that's why I can't eat wheat." He said nonchalantly at the end of, what to me, was an epic tale.

I sat there, a free spirited and wide eyed 24 year old, and fell completely in love. Everything about him was everything I wanted in life. I had rarely met someone who was OK with, let alone understood, my need to just "go." I didn't care where I was going or how I was going to get there, I just had to always be going somewhere. Some called it a free spirit and others called it irresponsible but either way, he got it. He got me. 5 months later we were engaged.

Over the next couple of months I tried to be sensitive to the "no wheat thing" as I called it. I would even pass up breadsticks at Olive Garden and if you know me, that is huge. HUGE. And while he assured me that he had lived long enough without it that it didn't bother him, it bothered me. After all, what good is a basket of Olive Garden breadsticks if you can't share them with the man you love?!

I set out on a mission: I was going to find all of the best gluten free foods the world had to offer and give them to, what I thought, was my malnourished husband. Reality check: I actually lost weight and became healthier NOT eating wheat. My oldest son had less problems focusing once I minimized wheat from his diet. I also realized most of the $38 per slice pizza you find tastes like cardboard and obnoxious advertising can overwhelm your gluten free shopping. I did find some great things at Whole Foods (hello, Udi's), Dominos now delivers gluten free pizza (although I have been told that there is a possibility for cross contamination so Celiacs beware), and Olive Garden even has an entire gluten free pasta menu (I plan on starting a campaign for breadsticks). But most of all I found out that the best tasting, healthiest, and most affordable meals I can provide for my family are the ones I make right here at home.

So here it is: a blog about my triumphs and (hilarious) failures of entering into the gluten free world for the one person I love enough to give up wheat.

Living {Gluten} Freely. Because love means never having to say "sorry there's wheat in that."