So you want to go gluten free?
When I was in my first year of college, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The doctor gave me a poorly printed sheet of basic information about what Celiac is and sent me on my way. I felt so lost and I had no idea how to change my lifestyle to now be gluten free.
From the campus dining halls to buying groceries and cooking on my own for the first time to ordering drinks at the bars with my friends to the shampoo I was putting in my hair, there are so many aspects of our lives that are influenced by gluten. But I survived and now have the experience to share with you to save you from the same mistakes I made.
If you are interested, click the link below to order my guidebook on being gluten free in college. New here? Use code GLUTEN15 for 15% off your order!
So, what is gluten anyway?
Gluten is wheat, barely, rye, and some oats.
Wheat is the main source of gluten in many of our favorite foods like bread, pasta, and cake. Second to wheat is barely and rye which we find in our granola bars, alcohol, and stews. Oats are the sneaky one. Though naturally gluten free, many oats have been crossbred with barely.
But your life is not over because you can’t eat bread! It just means we have to be more conscious about what foods we are allowed to eat. Want to try making bread yourself? Click the link below for my gluten free sourdough recipe!
Going gluten free is going to be hard, but it gets easier.
#1 Rule of going gluten free: READ LABELS!
Seriously, you have to learn to read every label of everything you put on and in your body. I made way too many assumptions about foods that I would have never thought to check if they had gluten and paid dearly for it.
“Gluten in my soy sauce?” Yup, we can’t eat a lot of sauces.
“Gluten in my hair products?” Yup, there too. I had daily migraines until I finally read the label of my shampoo bottle!
Click the link below for a quick guide on how to read labels and what key words to look for.
Snippet from Label Reading
“A great way to start checking labels is looking for these keywords - wheat, barely, rye. Some ingredient lists have the convenient feature of putting in bold at the bottom ‘contains wheat’ which makes our lives easier.”