Have you ever heard people say, “When I’m single, all I see is happy couples, but when I’m in a relationship, all I see is happy singles”? Well, I definitely felt that statement to the fiftieth degree a couple weeks ago but with food instead of relationships.
A few weeks ago, it seemed like everywhere I turned, there were tons of new gluten-free options, but I wasn’t in a position to care. I didn’t really know what gluten was or why people would even care about it. A couple of my friends explained the whole gluten situation to me, and they told me how much better they feel now that they’re on gluten-free diets. One of them told me that I should do gluten-free for a week to see how much better I feel.
So I did. Well, I tried.
You see, my personal motto in life is “I’ll try almost anything once, maybe even twice just to make sure,” and I figured that since I didn’t have much else to do that week and since I didn’t really eat much bread anyways, a gluten-free diet would be fairly simple to master.
Man, I was wrong. I don’t think I ever wanted bread more in my whole life, and I discovered that Kroger is just dripping in gluten. After an entirely too long trip for groceries, I walked out feeling sad and discouraged because all I wanted was pizza and lasagna and pretzels, foods that I wasn’t even craving that day until I found out that they had gluten in them.
I’m sure there were plenty more gluten-free options than I found, but I was having an extremely difficult time finding them. I think I left Kroger with only about five items, which is far from enough gluten-free food to last me a week, and a Starbucks frappucino that I assume is gluten-free.
So I ended up living off Minute Rice, gluten-free soy sauce, and string cheese for a couple days. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy some white rice with soy sauce and cheese sticks, but when those are the only options you can find, your food experiences seem pretty bleak. It also doesn’t help when someone continually tempts you with lasagna (Thanks, Mom).
Long story short, I was in a culinary misery when I tried a gluten-free diet. My plates were far from colorful, and there was a very limited number of different tastes. I never really felt different either, but that may be because I lasted only two days instead of a whole week.
However, I did try gluten-free long enough to learn that sugar is the actual reason I don’t feel so peppy and wonderful sometimes. I also learned that I’m terrible at finding new things in the grocery store.
So, sorry, friends. All I can really say is that I tried.
