A Day "Sans Gluten"

GUEST BLOGGER: Anthony Goodman 

Here’s my journey into living a day “Sans Gluten”.

     It all started off like any other. Woke up, took a shower, brushed my teeth, put some clothes on, and walked out the door. Heading to one of my favorite meals of the day. Breakfast. Living in the dorms and eating at the cafeteria you always know what to expect to be on the menu. Some eggs, bacon, grits, potatoes, biscuits, maybe some gravy, and a pretty good mix of cereal if you choose to live the simple life. I went into it safe and only grabbed some eggs, bacon, and pineapple for myself. Not a bad start!

     First meal survived.
     All was honky dory and I went to my morning classes. Outside of stressing a little about my World Cinema final nothing seemed out of the ordinary even considering my “dietary restrictions”. That’s when lunch hit.
     
     It was all spinach and no bread rolls. A positive on the garbonzo beans negative on the chicken. With grape and without potatoes. My friends looked at my plate and scoffed, “You watching your figure bro?”. Nope, just gluten free!

     After that catastrophe I headed out to my editing class and grabbed a Strawberry Banana Naked drink from the Pickle Jar. Didn’t know if I could handle the next hours until dinner without some sort of pick-me-up.

     #thestruggle     
     After we got out of class I headed back to the dorm to do some studying for the final and just chilled in the dorms, dreading being disappointed in the cafe again. It hit 6pm and I met up with my buddy to go eat together. On the walk to, we passed by a student life table that had cupcakes set up, free to take. The Lord has answered my prayers! I run over, there’s vanilla and chocolate, I sign the sheet, take my chocolate cupcake, and begin to unravel the paper wrapper around my soon to be delicious delight. I bring the cupcake to my mouth as I hear from the corner of my ear, “is that gluten-free?” from my buddy.

     It obviously wasn’t.
     Now I’m in from of this student life worker having just taken one of his free cupcakes and my buddy won’t eat it for me. I resort to bringing it to the cafeteria and throwing into the nearest trash can. Such a sad day.

     Thankfully there’s a good choice of strawberries, blueberries, pork, and green beans to get me through the final, but not my ideal meal by far. I’m hear now today to say that I survived a day “Sans Gluten” and may even do it again if I had the ability to make my own meals as the cafe is in no way conducive to that sort of lifestyle.

     Throughout my journey I also researched a few tools to possibly help me and came across this link that gives you the low-down in starting a gluten-free diet. 

http://www.glutenfreeliving.com/nutrition/the-basic-diet/

     In the same vein I found this paid app for iPhones that is database for all foods gluten-free, it boasts about 29,000 products that you can look up which is a great tool when you’re in a crisis of life or death like I was.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/is-that-gluten-free/id324483597

     When it was all said and done, all I can say is that I have such a greater respect for the people that have to live a gluten-free life due to health issues or dietary choices. It’s not an easy thing to do knowing all the yummy things you used to have. And for me, unless fate chooses otherwise, it’s a gluten-full life I’ll live.