My Gluten-Free Beginnings - Courtney

I can remember when I first heard about gluten free diets. I was in the 4th grade, about 1994, and my grandma had just been diagnosed as celiac. The next few months were a challenge for my mom trying to figure everything out. Celiac was not as known about back then. As I got older and we learned more about being celiac my mom suggested getting the genetic test done. I really did not want to know if I could possibly come down with it later in life, yet we went ahead. I can remember when the results came back showing I had the genetic markers. Let's just say I was less than thrilled. I can remember saying "As long as I am old when it happens, I'll be ok." Well, unfortunately for me my worst nightmare came true a few years later. I was 17, it was the end of my junior year in high school when suddenly I was sick - very sick. I couldn't keep anything down and when I did eat something I ate bread, because that's what used to settle my stomach. After being sick for two weeks straight and knowing my genetic markers, my mom got more testing done on me, which showed I needed to go gluten free. I was never actually diagnosed with being Celiac - more of a gluten intolerance. After I went on the diet I got better but of course being 17 I was less than thrilled to be giving up donuts, cookies, cake and all those other delicious glutenous foods. I struggled with "cheating", eating half a cookie or just a few chicken nuggets here or there. It took many years for me to finally stop cheating. Help from those close to me to realize what I was doing to my body and help from my body by negatively reacting to even a small amount of gluten finally got me to stop "cheating".
Through my college years there were other things I struggled with as well. I became overwhelmed with having to explain to every new person I met why I couldn't eat bread. Then there were those who didn't quite understand what I had to do or what it meant to eat gluten free and still offered me cookies and brownies and there was the boyfriend that broke up with me because he wasn't sure he could handle the thought of having future children that might have to eat gluten free one day. I did have the few close friends that were supportive and tried to understand. One of them was going through nursing school and was excited one day because she was able to answer a question on a quiz about Celiac because she knew me. I was happy that I was able to help her but even though my friends were supportive, I was still very sensitive about the gluten free topic. I hated talking about it and felt like I was somewhat of an inconvenience with people because we always had to be careful about where we went to eat or what was at someone's house to eat. I still struggle with some of those feelings today - that same insecure teenage / early 20's girl is still in there.

Now, 10 years later, even with my insecurities I have found it exciting and yet aggravating how gluten free is now the "fad" diet. I am excited because there are now so many GOOD choices of products and restaurants are working to create GF menus. I also don't get that crazy look from people when I say I have to eat GF and they are like "huh?" The "fad" aggravates me because I feel that some people don't understand why we HAVE to eat this way. We aren't giving up donuts, pizza, pasta & cookies because we want to be thin. We have to or we wouldn't be here.
Lately I have had a lot of people close to me find out they have to go GF. It can be such a confusing and overwhelming process that I've tried to help as much as I can but I don't really want to leave a novel on someones facebook page explaining things to them - so they get the abridged version. Then my sister had a brilliant idea - to blog about it! My ultimate goal with this is to help others who might be struggling with GF. Struggling with finding good recipes, products or even struggling personally with the idea. I want to be able to help - to provide recipes I've tried, tips I might know, products I love, different restaurants I've been to through out the country but I also want people to know that struggles are normal - we all have struggled with it at some point but going GF is not the end of the world. It doesn't have to be a scary thing and I want to help make the process a little less scary.