When you start living gluten free, it seems really difficult. The problem is that most processed food contains gluten, even stuff you don't expect, like low fat yogurt.
So you spend ages looking at all the ready-made meals and tv dinners you used to eat, reading the ingredients lists, and you find that almost all of them are off limits. This is very discouraging.
The next phase is when you realize you will probably have to go to the "free from" section of the store to find anything you can eat. You buy a few products to try. Only one of everything, because you've heard, or maybe you just suspect, that some may not be all that nice.
You're shocked at the prices, which seem to be anything up to 10 times the price you would expect to pay for the same sort of product in the rest of the store.
You take the packages home, and you pick one to try. It's horrible.
You can't believe you just paid what would have bought you almost a week's worth of meals on this one pack, and then it's so nasty you can't even eat it.
So you try another one, and unless you're lucky, that one is also inedible.
OK, you decide to give up on that for now, and just fill up on those yummy looking gluten free cookies.
The cookies are in a big packet, and the picture on the front looks really nice. You open the pack. There seems to be an awful lot of packaging inside, and not a lot of cookies - and they are tiny. Oh well, perhaps they taste good at least. But no, you're on a losing streak today. Even the cookies are rubbish.
What a waste of your hard-earned money! And there's something really depressing about this fairly common scenario, even without the loss of money involved.
Though not all gluten free products on sale are inedible, there's an amazing number that are, and the prices are usually high, because we are a captive market, and we have little choice.
Unfortunately, if you want to be able to eat something reasonably palatable you need to cook your own gluten free food. This also helps to keep the costs down, as unprocessed food (with no "added value" = higher price for processing) generally does not contain gluten, which is the protein found in wheat, rye, barley and a few other closely-related grains - and
nowhere else!
So going back to basics, and cooking a lamb cutlet or a steak as your main protein source, with no coating or sauce except what you make for yourself from gluten free ingredients, adding a salad or some vegetables with it, is the easiest gluten free meal you can make.
Of course, you can substitute any sort of meat or fish - even an omelette. If it's a cheese omelette, though, make sure you grate your own cheese, as the stuff sold in packets is coated in modified starch (almost always wheat-based) to stop it sticking together.
Breakfast is a bit more difficult, as pretty much all breakfast cereals not on the Free From shelves are not suitable for anyone who has difficulty with gluten, because even the ones made with rice usually contain malt for flavoring (which comes from either wheat or barley). But you can have some juice, a boiled egg, and some gluten free crackers with jelly or marmalade. I recommend giving the rice cakes a miss and getting Corn Thins by Real Foods Pty, or thin Corn Cakes from Kallo or Mrs Crimbles. No need to toast them, just butter and add marmalade!
More information about
cooking gluten free
Chatboard (0)