Our favourite afternoon snack since regular, reasonably priced bread is out of the question temporarily: Baked sweet potato fries and decaf coffee. I just cut a sweet potato into large fry-like pieces, coat them in a few tsp of rice bran oil (depending on how much I'm making), liberally apply fresh cracked sea salt and bake in the oven at 220 degrees C for about 45 minutes. I like to make the edges a little bit burnt so I sometimes just leave it in til the coffee has finished brewing or something. At (still!) 49c a kilo, this is one cheap snack, that's much better for us than our toast with margarine and jam :)
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Now, about the gluten thang.
Nadine decided she wanted to the Quantum Wellness Cleanse (a book by Kathy Freston, find it here on FishPond) so naturally I would do it with her (makes food prep easier and all that) which is basically going without sugar, alcohol, gluten, caffiene and animal products for 3 weeks. Why not? I'm sure my body could do without those for a while, particularly the caffiene. We weren't going to do the gluten part in the first place, but then I heard from a coworker that someone she knew (who wasn't a celiac, OR intolerant OR allergic to gluten/wheat) decided to try going gluten free to fix up her skin which was dry and excema-y. And of course it worked very well and her skin cleared up really quickly. So I thought, hmm. My hands and forearms are covered in dermatitis. And it hurts. And it's really gross. Maybe gluten could be the problem.
So there you have it, I'm seeing if gluten is aggravating the dermatitis. After the three weeks if it has cleared up (I am starting an indoors job soon so that should help too) I will start eating gluteny things again and if it flares up, well, then I'll know. It'll suck, but it's a small price. Who knows, it could be soy, or sugar, or some random unlikely fruit or vegetable. (I could just go to the doctor and get tested, but I don't want to, and they tend to just prescribe cortisone - been there done that, don't want to have to use that again.)
So anyway, today's lunch was just delicious. I made the curried pumpkin soup I found on Scandi Foodie and splurged on some gluten free bread to eat it with.
I was going to make my own bread but I got a bit lazy.
This loaf is pretty good, and the ingredients are nice excpet one - palm oil. I mean, really? That'll be my motivation to bake my own when this loaf runs out ( I predict tomorrow). It toasted up really well, though I tried to defrost one piece just to eat as bread and it kind of went all squishy in the microwave. Maybe if I just leave it out until it's ready...
Oh cool! Let us know how the diet goes overall, as well as the gluten. I have no problem going animal product-free (obvi) and could easily ditch caffeine since I barely drink black tea and never have coffee. But sugar and gluten would be tough. Especially gluten, actually. It's central to a lot of our meals! But of course, when one needs to, or just really wants to, it's easy enough to adjust diets. In fact, I used to think the same things about cheese, and look at me now.
ReplyDeleteInteresting stuff - looking forward to hearing more. What will you be using instead of wheat flour if you make bread?
ReplyDelete@Joey: I don't know yet. This bread I bought was pretty good so probably those flours. Depends on what recipe I end up using :)
ReplyDelete@Theresa: I actually had a headache for a couple of days even though I only drink 1 coffee or black/green tea a day. Goes to show how much your body actually depends on it! I think if I was diagnosed with some allergy it'd be fairly easy to stop eating it. I have a feeling gluten isn't the problem which is good though.