Lessons learned

Almost any vegetable can be roasted.
Just coat them in a little olive oil, and
give them a little shake of seasoning.

Spread them on baking parchment and pop
them in the oven at 400 degrees. These kale
chips roast in about 5-6 minutes. Delicious!

Thirty days without dairy, sugar, grains, or alcohol—those foods one gives up on a Whole30 diet—was a good experience for me. Turns out, I didn’t lose a significant amount of weight, but my pants certainly fit better after thirty days of avoiding those foods. (I wasn’t dieting to lose weight, but rather to find out what things might be causing ongoing food issues; I didn’t really feel disappointed that the scales remained steady. Many people do testify to losing lots of weight on the diet, though.)

What the Whole30 did teach me was the following:

• I am allergic to blueberries. And I’m not alone. Allergic reaction to blueberries—mine was a very obvious case of hives—is a Thing. Who knew? My theory is that I was eating so many blueberries and other fruits and vegetables high in salicylates that my system was saturated—and I reacted.
• I also discovered that bell peppers cause me to spend a lot of time in the restroom. The same is true with an overload of leafy greens.
• I don’t need sugar. Sugar cravings go away in a few days. In fact, my first taste of sugar after the diet was unpleasant. It felt like that time I overindulged on glazed donuts at an early-morning faculty meeting and to this day can no longer smell or look at them without becoming a little queasy. I’m not giving up sugar forever, but I will definitely be cutting back on it.
• Besides being naturally gluten-free, whole foods taste wonderful! (My best tip: Roast your veggies.  All of them. It’s easy. It’s delicious. Just cut the vegetables to a uniform size, drizzle them with a little olive oil, sprinkle on some salt or other seasoning, and roast them on the top shelf of your oven at about 400 degrees. When they begin to blacken a bit, they're ready to eat! The time varies according to the vegetable.)
• I will never again make processed food a staple of my diet.

The most important lesson I learned, which relates to celiac disease, is that there can be multiple causes for celiac-type symptoms. When you have celiac disease, you tend to believe that every little digestive issue is a result of being “glutenized.” (Consequently, you play the blame game every time you have an upset.) For me, accidental ingestion of gluten isn’t always the cause of my problems—and the Whole30 revealed that to me.

Whether or not you have celiac disease, you might want to give the Whole30 a try. You are guaranteed to learn lessons about your relationship with food--and you might even make some lasting positive changes.

Keeping it simple

A turkey and cheddar panini on gluten-free
bread can't be beat for a quick and easy lunch!

Not long after I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a friend said to me, “Oh, I’d die if I couldn’t have bread!” But celiac disease is not a death sentence. Trust me, you can live without wheat, barley and rye and the foods that contain them.

While it isn’t always easy, and you will definitely miss many of your favorite foods, eating completely gluten-free is very doable—and, if you give yourself time to learn a few new skills (like reading food labels and roasting vegetables, for example) and to acquire a few new tastes, you might even find that you are eating much healthier on your gluten-free diet than you were before your diagnosis.

Chicken salad with fruit and cheese is
also a simple favorite!

If eating gluten-free seems overwhelming to you at first, follow my best tip: Figure out a couple of simple meals that you can always enjoy for breakfast and a couple that you can always enjoy for lunch. Then keep those items on hand at all times. My go-to breakfasts are yogurt and applesauce, gluten-free oatmeal, or bacon and eggs with a side of fruit. My lunch favorites are turkey and cheddar paninis (on gluten-free bread, of course), chicken salad (made with my own home-made mayo), or a green salad with my favorite toppings (avocado, tomato, cheese, boiled egg and gluten-free dressing). I eat these nearly every single day.

Having your breakfast and lunch “fixings” already available simplifies your day and gives you more time to research interesting dinner recipes, collect the necessary ingredients, and prepare your evening meal, where variety is more important and (hopefully) time is more plentiful.

Bacon bummer

Can't touch this!

In recent travels I have twice encountered a new trend in hotel breakfast buffets. Hotels are using slices of bread—for crying out loud!--to absorb the grease from the sausages and bacon offered their guests. It’s a good idea, I guess, unless the guests happen to have celiac disease.

In both cases I felt a brief sense of grief and loss, as I realized that one of the few foods on the morning buffet that I could eat was no longer an option for me. (No way can folks with celiac disease partake of the ubiquitous waffles, cereals, toast or muffins.) But then I gathered my courage and explained the problem to the breakfast attendants, both of whom kindly offered to fix sausages for me without the “grease absorbers.”

The lesson: Don’t be shy to educate hotel managers and breakfast attendants about such issues. Being an educator is a role that those of us with celiac disease must take on—whether we want it or not--if we hope to improve our chances of eating safely while on the road.