Going Gluten Free: Salad is a Sad Substitution

by: Elizabeth Redhead Kriston

Warning: Contains minimal mild bathroom talk

Smelling fresh baked bread is the single greatest torture of my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love bread. I adore It. I crave nothing more than the steaming hot crispy crusted doughy yeasty yummiest that is fresh bread. When it is slathered with fresh creamery butter, nothing is more enticing and delectable.

I grew up in a family with roots firmly set in Italy. Our two main food groups were bread and pasta. I ate bread and pasta daily, and I was happy. For years I worked in a bakery where I added a third food group to my diet, cake. However, my most favorite food is pie. Fruit pie, pot pie, cream pie, nut pie, you name it I love pie.

Then, one morning ten years ago, I awoke to the most horrific piercing pain. The pain brought me to my knees where I stayed clutching my gut as I crawled into the car and headed to the hospital scared and unsure. 

In retrospect, my illness was a slow progression that started when I was just a baby when I could not tolerate milk or corn. As a young child, I had weird skin conditions like chicken skin on my arms and mysterious dry patches. Later, I recall eating pasta and then days later it would feel as if it still sat in my stomach like a hard lump of undigested cement. 


Some of my other symptoms included:

1. nausea,
2. abdominal pain, sometimes intense
3. brain fog
4. extreme moodiness
5. general loss of appetite.
6. hard stools causing: a) diverticulitis & b) hemorrhoids
7.      infertility

Signs and Symptoms of Gluten Intolerance

The doctors performed test after test. Eventually, I was diagnosed with the ubiquitous IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). The treatment of increased fiber intake intensified my symptoms. When I told my doctor of my increased misery with my 35 grams of fiber intake as he prescribed, he called me a liar! Yes you read that correctly, my doctor basically told me pants were on fire and not because of my fictional IBS.

In the end, all those specialists and their fancy tests were of no help as gluten intolerance was not a viable medical diagnosis back then. Fortunately, I happened upon a short article in my husband’s favorite commode read, the Reader’s Digest. This article caused me to suspect that I could not tolerate gluten. I had just one question, “what the h#$$ was gluten?” So I did more research.

What is Gluten

My research taught me that before I could determine if gluten was the primary cause of my illness, I must rule out all food allergies . So, I went on a food elimination diet. For six miserable weeks I did not eat any foods that are commonly linked to allergic reactions.

Foods Associated with Allergies 

           1.       tree nuts

           2.       dairy/milk

           3.       soy

           4.       wheat

           5.       caffeine

           6.       alcohol

           7.       fish/shellfish

           8.       peanuts

           9.       FOD MAPS (can cause digestive distress not allergies)

That only left most fruits and veggies plus meat protein’s. After that long exercise in culinary torture, I was to add back just one food at a time and evaluate how it made me feel. Of course, I chose bread as my first addition.

I remember that first bite as my teeth pierced the crispy crust to find the chewy but airy center of a fresh baguette. It was heavenly. So I ate more. Then I had some spaghetti and meatballs with a side of garlic bread. Then I had a slice of hot, gooey apple pie. Never did these foods taste so good. Sadly, after about a day of eating gluten, the pain and misery returned. Though scrumptious, gluten was clearly not my body’s friend. Sadder I had never been.

It took me close to three years to figure out how to eat gluten free. The products on the market today did not exist in the early 2000’s. So my husband and I stopped buying and preparing most processed foods. We cooked only fresh whole foods. We became healthier together. Eventually all my symptoms disappeared and they only return when the temptation to nosh on fresh bread or just a “sliver” of pie overwhelms my common sense.

Friends and family still mock me occasionally because they believe I am following some fad diet. I laugh at the thought of ever giving up gluten unless my health depended on it. Gluten makes food delicious!  Gluten makes bread, bread!  Going out to restaurants, festivals and fairs, dinner at a friend’s house, or attending holiday meals with family means there is virtually nothing I can eat. All I can do is stare at the delicious dishes and silently whimper as I smell their enticing aromas and swallow back the drool of food lust as I munch on yet another salad.

For those of you who can still enjoy the pleasures of bread and delicious gluten in all its forms, be kind to us intolerant ones. We want gluten. We crave gluten. We miss gluten. We mourn our gluten. Be kind, and stop offering us salads!