Gluten Free is the Way to Be

When I was born in a small town hospital in Poland, the conditions weren't as clean as one would hope. My mom and I caught a disease because hospitals in general carry a lot of diseases, it didn't help that I was a preemie. The way they cured me of whatever disease I had, which basically took all the nutrients from the food I was ingesting, was by feeding me the sticky stuff that stays in the pan after you boil rice. And it helped, home remedy anyone?, I'm clearly still alive.

Fast-forward 22 years.. now I'm not gonna go self-diagnosing myself but lately I haven't been feeling too well after eating anything. My diet was mostly made up of sandwiches, pasta, pizza, burgers, bagels, chocolate, etc. I cut out dairy in my diet very early on, minus chocolate, because it made me sick, easy - lactose intolerance. So that was figured out, but what wasn't was why I was still nauseous after eating normal foods. 

I had a bad burger one day, aka, undercooked, and I lost it. I was sick and tired of feeling sick after feeding myself. I gave up beef and looked toward a more healthy approach to my diet. One day, when Ryan and I were at McDonalds, I decided to do something crazy... I ordered a salad. OMG, right? Gross, I hated salads. But I had one and it was good. Thus started my salad craze. I would come home from school and make a salad for myself varying the ingredients from romaine lettuce to iceberg to chicken to chicken nuggets, corn, carrots, etc. I've been doing this for maybe a month now? I'm still not an expert on salad making so I'm sticking to the basics.

Ok, so I cut out dark meat and pretty much started a salad only diet.. I ate bagels and toast and pasta now. One problem... I still felt sick after eating. When was it going to end?! I swear I tried everything until one day two weeks ago I had dragged my mom to Target with me to pick out healthy foods and I saw those little capri-sun looking applesauce squeezy pouches (I know.. great description), and I said "Hey, these look good and they have a mixture of fruits. I don't care that they're for kids, I wanna try!" After a lot of convincing, a box of GoGo SqueeZe's was in the cart. 

At home we both tried one, disregarding the fact that they tasted amazing, my mom decided to look at the back of the pouch where it said vegan and gluten free. Of course, since my mom can't speak amazing English, she asked what gluten meant... I gave her the only answer I knew: "It's that stuff people cut out of their diet because it's popular to do that now," in a condescending tone. This wasn't a good enough answer for her, so I looked it up on Google. This was the start of the end of my pain.

Gluten is a protein that is found in wheat, barley, rye, and others like those. Meaning, that one who is allergic or cannot digest wheat needs to follow a gluten free diet. The reason I said earlier, "I will not diagnose myself" was because along with gluten intolerance comes Celiac disease on search engines. Celiac disease is where an individuals' intenstines are damaged after ingesting gluten, so nutrients aren't absorbed into that individual's system (sound familiar... scroll up). Again.. not self-diagnosing, but after I've cut gluten out of my diet, I have felt better - so it could just be a gluten intolerance. 

Regardless, that little squeeze pouch saved me from the years of pain and digestive problems I've been experiencing and led me to discover a healthier lifestyle. Peppermint tea helps as well. Long story short, I feel better now!

And also, sorry for bashing those who cut gluten out of their diet; who knows, they might have good reasons to do so, Lord knows I do.