Gluten free life

My mom used to get violent stomach aches and migraines for years. She tried everything to cure them (including surgery) until one day a doctor realised she had celiac disease (gluten intolerance). She didn't realise that she had learnt to deal with the pain over the years, while the disease attacked her organs.
She had to immediately change her entire diet, and cut out anything that contained gluten or wheat of any kind. This meant cakes, breads, pizza, pasta... The list goes on. Some may think this is difficult because all of the above taste so damn good,  but when your health depends on it its the easiest decision to make.

Since she has stopped eating gluten and wheat she has become a different person, and her entire quality of life has changed for the better. Every now and then there is a situation where she eats gluten by mistake (we literally call this being 'glutened' because to her it is the equivalent of poison), such as the time I left bread crumbs in the butter dish... oops!

Now as a 22 year old who finished studying and moved back home for a year, her diet therefore became my diet. I didn't do the food shopping as I had to go to work every day so what slowly happened is that I became a gluten-free eater by default. To begin with I was a bit irritated (who wouldn't want a nice ham and cheese roll on a Saturday, or some home-made brownies for tea?), but I can tell you that after 6 months of cutting gluten out of my diet more and more, I could easily live without it most of the time. I still eat most things that everyone else eats when I go out and no one would notice the difference.

If you were to see my mom and I in a supermarket, it would seem like we were food researchers. We go from aisle to aisle, constantly picking up packets and boxes and squinting as we read the ingredients and allergens. If it says anything in the form of gluten or wheat, back on the shelf it goes. Sometimes we are in luck when we arrive in a section that is all gluten-free, but that is a rare occasion and usually in a more expensive shop.
The funny thing is that since my mom's friends and family have been told about this gluten intolerance, they feel it's necessary to help out in their own kind way. They do so by offering a packet of dry, bland biscuits that they saw at a random health shop, or printing out a gluten-free recipe with complicated ingredients we have never heard of. Its a sweet gesture, but rather leave it up to us to choose the gluten-free food we eat.

Another complication is a social gathering of any kind. Whether its a complete stranger hosting an event or a close friend having a braai, my mom has to be that one irritating guest with dietary requirements. Sorry vegetarians, at least you know what you can eat. People such as my mom that suffer with celiac disease need to know exactly how those potatoes were roasted (did they pour flour all over them?) and whether that chicken marinade has a packet with the ingredients she can examine. Some people have even gone as far as to ask my mom "are you sure you can't eat gluten?". Um no, I just make my daily life more difficult for fun.

I obviously don't have the daily struggle of making sure there is no gluten in the food I eat because nothing awful will happen to me if I do. What I can say is that by not having all that refined food and all the tasty baked goods around the house, its easy not to be tempted. My stomach works better, I have more energy and I have lost a decent amount of weight that didn't seem to budge before. In a strange way I could actually thank my mom for having celiac disease, because the rest of our family are all the better for it. Whether it's by choice or necessity,  choose the gluten-free life.

Ps: White bread is the enemy. x