My Favorite Day of The Week!

It's Thursday! I love Thursday.

Generally, Thursday morning doesn't have ANYTHING on say, the occasional Saturday morning adventure or on a lazy Sunday morning full of a whole bunch of nothing but a blessed bloody mary and marathon of Mad Men.

Thursday begins like every other day. My husband flicks on the lights and forcefully drags me out of bed We get up at 6 and everyone complains that they are too tired to live and at least one person hates what I made them for breakfast. Someone will cry when brushing her hair (sometimes this is me) and everyone will gripe when it's time to get dressed (including me).

But on Thursday morning, something MAGICAL happen when I am dropping Jay at the train station and the kids off at school. Someone comes to my house and drops off a large green carton full of really healthy, wonderful, often locally made/grown food. Every Thursday I come home and am greeted at the door with what I have come to feel is treasure. Sure, sometimes during the week I go into my order and tweak it, depending on whether or not I still have purple onions left from last week. But sometimes I don't look at the order at all. So, when I open the green box everything inside is a big surprise!

The company who does this is called Planet Organics. I know that there are a lot of co-op's out there and a lot of produce delivery services available, but Planet Organics rocks my world. I mean, I find the entire thing completely exciting. After all, nothing is more depressing to me than a trip to Whole Foods, where I go to grieve for the fact that I am not a millionaire and inevitably walk out of feeling a.)hungry, b.) robbed and c.) like I will return to a house full of genetically-modified-high-fructose-MSG-Nitrate-infused -apples that have been injected with Red #5 and casein just because my daughter is allergic to it. Planet Organics is pretty much Whole Foods, but small, independent, friendlier and online. So, I signed up for a delivery each week. And in case you missed it, it comes on Thursday. I pay a certain amount of money and they fill my basket with stuff and deliver it. We have two lemon trees, a peach tree and an orange tree, so I clearly don't want any of those. I was able to go in and just check a box that said to never deliver them to me. I also was able to check off preferences, like I always want cilantro.

It really doesn't get better than this. You know, you can even give them a key and they'll let themselves in and unload your groceries for you. No joke. I think that's a little creepy, so I don't do it. But I could do it. And I like options.

The Impossible Task of Eating

I feel like I have struggled with food pretty obsessively in my life. As a little background information, I was a vegetarian for around a decade but began eating meat during my first pregnancy. In the eight following years I have gone back and forth between some pretty extreme lifestyle choices. There have been huge periods of time when I have healthfully mastered the Atkins diet and others where I have eaten an entirely plant based vegan diet (and subjected my entire family to it too). I know that food impacts the way you feel, your energy, skin, hair, sleep, emotional health, but for me food seems to entirely construct and dictate the way I feel in pretty much every respect.

Back in 2008 I was diagnosed with hashimotos. My doctor suggested that I go from vegetarianism to a very low carb, high protein diet of meat and green vegetables. I did this and felt a million times better. I lost a tremendous amount of weight, had wonderful energy and felt better than I have ever felt in my life. The problem, of course, is that I really don't like to eat meat. Inevitably, I'd begin skimping down on the chicken and adding a serving of pasta to my plate. The more carbs I ate, the worse I felt and I'd eventually return to Atkins and feel better within a matter of days. The difference is extreme for me. When I do not eat carbs I feel fantastic and when I do I feel horrible. The relationship is undeniable and clear. At one point I was even tested for celiac (which I do not have) because eating bread makes me feel so awful.

Recently I met someone who also has hashimotos but her doctor recommended that she use a vegan, gluten free diet. My interest piqued, I decided to do a bit of research. As it turns out hashimotos and celiac have some sort of relationship that I honestly don't understand (dispute reading several research pieces and patient testimonials). People with hashimotos are not able to process gluten as well and removing gluten from the diet will ease the symptoms of hashimotos.

So, all along, every time I had miraculous improvements after giving up carbs and returning to Atikins, it wasn't the chicken hat was helping me! The culprit was the gluten.

I am pleased to say that I have been able to make a return to vegetarianism while being gluten free and feel fantastic! Because we have casein allergy in our home, we don't' actually have any dairy in the house. I would call myself vegan if it weren't for the fact that I will always happily accept cream in my coffee and cheddar cheese in my black bean soup.

It's a strange world. Eating should be something so simple, and yet tackling it has been the one of the hardest journeys for me.

Food

I went to the doctor to talk about nutrition and my speculated gluten intolerance.

We talked a lot about my diet and my overall history with food and vegetarianism. Interestingly, she said that she was so happy to hear that I'm eating meat now. She said that she personally feels that vegetarian diets are unhealthy because many people consume and awful lot of crap in order to get as much protein as they need. She said that she'd rather see a person eating red meat on a regular basis than pastas and other carbs.

She hugely advocated low-carb diets and encouraged me to get the carbohydrates I eat from fruit and vegetables instead of grains. So basically my diet should be meat, fruit, veggies and dairy. No flours, grains or added sugar. This isn't really a stretch for me.

We touched on the quality of meat and other food that I eat, but didn't speak a lot about it because I already care a lot about eating organic food.

I think that it's interesting because it wasn't that long ago that most doctors would tell you that eating meat each day was terrible for your health and that a vegetarian diet was, by far, the healthiest thing that you could do for your body.

I need to make an appointment at Quest to have my blood work done.

Thursday- Disasters in Cooking, Big Time Fail

I like to think of myself as something of a skilled bakestress. Seriously, I can get my rise on, yo.

I offered to make big, soft pretzels for all of the children in Lila's kindergarten class as a special treat. Her teacher told me that there are a few people with celiac and she'd tell their mom's to send a special snack for them that day because they can't eat the pretzels. I, ready for the challenge, said that I would venture into the land of gluten free baking and de-wheat my kitchen aid mixer so that I could toss together some delicious treats for all to enjoy.

I mean, how hard could it be?

I found this simple recipe and followed it to the tee. There were a few things that I questioned... but I have dabbled enough in gluten-free cooking to know that sometimes the baking process is different for non-wheat foods.

So, my first real indication that there was something terribly wrong was the after I mixed the dough and kneaded it a bit... my hands smelled a lot like henna. When the smell of your hands reminds you of slathering your head with mud to turn your hair red when you were 15... it's problematic.

Next, when it was time to boil the pretzels in their baking-soda bath, I put only one in. I got the water to a nice rolling boil and gently moved the pretzel into the boiling water, face down. Within 15 seconds most of the pretzel had dissolved. The baking soda bath quickly turned into a frothy, boiling cauldron of henna-scented gruel.

I decided to just bake the remaining pretzels and see what happened.

What happened was that I created the most disgusting, repulsive, non-edible baked good that has ever existed. Even the smell of them baking was putrid. They were just... AWFUL.

Thank god that we have a completely allergen free bakery called Sweet Freedom near-bye. I popped in and picked up two magic bars and two blueberry oat bars for this afternoon. At least it's something special! Of course, the whole point was to bring in the exact same thing for the kids with celiac as I was bringing for everyone else... so that there'd be no difference. My heart aches because I have failed in this.

On a personal note, I have my test for celiac and appointment to talk to a dr. about my nutrition on Tuesday. I feel like when my diet is naturally gluten free, I feel great. But even when I try to use gluten substitutes, I am just as sick as I'd be if I at a sandwich made from whole wheat bread.

gluten free

I have an appointment to go and talk to someone about my nutrition and suspected gluten intolerance. The more I read about celiac and gluten sensitivity, the more convinced I am that this is my issue.

Last December, after my doctor suggested that I cut out a lot of the carbs I was eating, I felt better than ever! I still ate fruits and veggies but completely did away with all grains in my diet. I immediately felt much, much, much better than I ever had. I could eat until I was full and not feel sick, bloated and crampy after the meal. Generally, even when I do not overeat I am sick afterward. Also, even though I was eating plenty of natural sugar the weight fell off of my body.

Through my life, I've always eaten a carb-heavy diet. It's what I love. Originally, I attributed my better digestion to some sort of sugar-carb addiction that I had broken. Now, I'm certain that it's because I have an actual problem with gluten or some related issue.

When I began eating grains again in small portions, I would have a sandwich in a whole grain wrap or a salad with quinoa and barley. I might have one of these things one time in three days, so I wasn't going crazy or over-doing it. I noticed that I immediately started getting eczema. I mentioned this to my mom, who said that I was allergic to barley as a baby. It gave me rashes and eczema. I also noticed that when I ate these foods I'd feel so sick. I could eat rice or eat things that I've made with gluten free flour and not suffer from it. It makes so much sense.

It will be really interesting to have a few tests and see if this is an actual problem of mine.

It's funny, you never actually know that there's something wrong with you until you feel great. This reminds me of how amazing I felt after I began taking my thyroid medication. I remember thinking, "I had no idea how tired I was until I had energy again." For my whole life I just assumed that everyone finished a meal and felt sick and bloated no matter how much they ate. It wasn't until I stopped eating grains that I realized that I could enjoy food and not feel like I was about to explode.