Saturday, October 9, 2010

Day 11, Trip 3 - Haiti Mission - A Quick Blip on Gluten-Free Knowledge

“Pain was not given thee merely to be miserable under; learn from it, turn it to account.” - Thomas Carlyle

So, it was very disheartening, especially after yesterday's post and putting it out there that I had gone gluten-free, to then awaken this morning very stiff and in a lot of pain. The weather was beautiful yesterday and predicted to be high pressure, warm, dry, and beautiful for the next couple of days. To say I was grouchy was an understatement. To use a phrase commonly heard from a good friend of mine, I was snarky. Crusty. A notch higher than just plain irritated.

The problem with trying to eat out and being gluten-free is that when you assume that you're getting something that should be fine, sometimes you don't. I had a Harvest Apple Chicken Salad from Wendy's last night, which included all of the necessary little packets to put on the salad. I checked the ingredients on the Apple Vinegarette, which was fine, but on a side note, they include "spiced" dried apples and "spiced" carmelized walnuts and let me guarantee you they aren't just spiced....they're knock you out of your chair HOT. Which apparently should have tipped me off immediately to stop...eating.

My research this evening is proving that I don't know NEARLY what I need to know about what foods and other things that may contain gluten....including, but not exclusive to: cosmetics, medication, carmel coloring, the lickable glue on envelopes, cleaning products, etc........and I could go on and on. So I'll save that for another night. While this "seasonal" salad isn't listed in Wendy's nutritional information, what I'm getting to is that whatever Wendy's used to coat those Spiced Carmelized Walnuts in, I'm pretty sure contained some form of gluten. "How do you know?" you ask....because the only "nut" listed on their website, Roasted Pecans, per the nutritional information/ingredients listed on their website contains "maltodextrin". That's right. Gluten. For the same reason that I can't eat Doritos, regular BBQ chips, or Cheetos is probably the same culprit in the coating on those walnuts.

Do not be mistaken. I am 100% encouraged by the fact that my pain and stiffness this morning could very well be a result of actually having gluten instead of the opposite. I would love for this to be a signal that this gluten-free thing is really having some effect, but I'm sticking to my guns about it being too early to tell. However, I know that I could rant on and on about how the list of things that "may" contain gluten is completely absurd, but no one wants to read that. So I guess that leave me with just one thing left to say......

If I can no longer have the carmel coloring in cola, I guess I'll have to start drinking my rum straight.

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