Quite Possibly the World's Perfect Food

Yes, I know that Chiquita banana used that title as a slogan a few years ago to encourage Americans to eat more bananas, and it is true that bananas are excellent as a snack, a cooking item, and they're awesomely portable, but I'm not convinced that bananas are the world's perfect food. For that, I'd give the prize to my favorite grain - quinoa (pronounced keen-wa). It has to be the most amazing food source ever - without quinoa, the Incans would have had a hard time living well in their high Andes' homes. Without quinoa, I wouldn't have my favorite pasta, or many of the recipes I use. Quinoa is one of the super-foods - one of those nutritional sources that is nearly perfect and has so many vitamins, minerals, etc. that it is heads and shoulders above those pithy normal foods.

Besides being an excellent addition to any meal (and SUPER easy to cook - soak for 30 minutes, rinse, simmer 1 cup with 1.5 cups of water for 15 minutes, and eat), quinoa is also the basis for the only gluten-free pasta I've ever found that is decent to eat. Most rice pastas are icky gummy and don't mimic the feel or taste of regular pasta in any way that could be considered non-parodic. But Ancient Harvest has a quinoa and corn pasta that is absolutely delightful. Tastes and feels pretty much the same as regular pasta, and it's better for you! This is one aspect of having celiac disease that was good. I ate a lot of pasta, and I still eat a lot of...well...quinoa. But just to give you the breakdown, here's what quinoa has compared to our oh-so-loved wheat:
Quinoa is 16.2% protein - wheat is only 14%, Quinoa has 1.2% more fiber than wheat.
But even more important is comparison of the amino acid pattern of quinoa to other grains. As even the box of Ancient Harvest will tell you, quinoa "stands alone as a complete protein grain. It supplies all the essential amino acids in a balanced pattern." In comparison to the ideal reference pattern for evaluating protein, quinoa is almost a perfect match, whereas wheat and soy are so far off the mark, they should be embarrassed to sit next to quinoa.

Quinoa is versatile, filling, and so good for you. It can take the place of rice in a dish, but what I love to do with it (besides cook it with some pine nuts to accent the nuttiness of quinoa itself), is to use it in place of bulgur in tabbouleh. It's light, and so perfect for those hot summer days. I think you could survive and thrive quite well eating quinoa tabbouleh and drinking iced yerba mate tea. The body doesn't need much else!

So while bananas have tried to pass themselves off as the perfect food, and acai berries are doing a good job with PR these days as a perfect food, my vote is and always will be for the following foods: quinoa and goji berries. If you put them together in a sweet-ish dish, you might start levitating because of how healthy you would be.

oh alcohol! or how I miss beer.

When I was younger, I loved beer. Loved it. Like many college students, I probably drank my weight in beer over the years, and of course, traveling through Europe did nothing to stop my desire to drink beer. Beer is a wonder really, and it's no big surprise that Europeans at least have been drinking it for centuries. It tastes so good (my step-mother would disagree here, as would a few of my friends, but they're strange anyway), doesn't get you drunk quickly, but provides the proper social lubricant for nearly any situation. I love beer. But it makes me sick. I now know why after a night of drinking some beer, I was soooo sick the next morning. I just thought I had bad hangovers! And I do,but that was not the source of worshiping the porcelain throne in my 20s, nor the disconnected wobbly-head feeling that comes with my allergy reactions.

But since I've found out about my wheat allergy and gluten intolerance, I can't have beer. In fact, I can't have so many awesome lovely beverages that it kind of makes me want to cry sometimes. Thankfully, though, there are a few gluten free beers out there in the world, although only one of them is at all mainstream. Redbridge, made by Anheuser Busch, is a pretty good ale, and I do enjoy it even though it doesn't have the same taste as all those micro-brews I used to down. There are other beers for celiac sufferers out there, but they're hard to find and expensive.

Even worse though for those of us with not just celiac's but also a wheat allergy is the fact that we can't even drink most liquors. Who knew that most vodka's were made from wheat?? Urban legend says potatoes, and there are a couple made from something other than winter wheat, but few of them taste quite the same. Potato vodkas are a little "slippery" in comparison to wheat ones, but it'll do in a pinch. Tequilas are often mixed with a grain alcohol unless they say specifically 100% agave. Bourbon, the king of corn liquor, only has to be 51% made from corn and the rest is usually, you guessed it, made from wheat. Rum, made from sugar cane, is often aged in old whiskey casks, so the possibility for contamination is high.

We often think about the food we can't have when we have allergies and/or celiac's, but quite honestly, it's just as annoying that I can't have a decent drink when I go out with friends. I do know more about alcohol and how it's made than I ever wanted to know, and I know my limitations. It just sucks that this limitation is for my favorite drink of all time. OH BEER! HOW I MISS YOU! I could write a poem along the lines of "how do I love thee, let me count the ways...", but I won't because then I'd have to balance it with "how do you hate me, let me count the ways..." And that would be just depressing!

Classic Celiac - Ouch!

So the other night, I had the exquisite pleasure of hurting celiac-style for the first time in a while. Back when I had symptoms more often, it was sort of a "oh look my stomach hurts again" and it was also masked by a lot of symptoms from stress-IBS and food allergies. But not the other night - oh no. Classic pain and bloating. Ouch.

Mom and I had gone to eat at Carrino's, which has a gluten-free menu, and I've eaten there before many times. But someone screwed up this time around. I wondered if I would be able to sleep that night because, well, it's hard to sleep when it hurts. The stomach, the sides, everything in the mid-torso region.

But then I remembered some "miracle" stomach pills I learned about when I went to a two week detox and holistic medicine retreat in North Carolina called The Center for Awakened Health. Although I don't really practice the vast majority of what I learned there - I'm far far too "in the world" for that, I did learn of a few things that are helpful. One of those things is Quantum Stomach Complex capsules by Premier Research Labs. They're totally herbal, don't have the most common allergens in them and are vegan to boot. You can only order them online, but they are, as my friend Victoria said after taking them, "those miracle stomach pills."

You can swallow them with water or open the capsules in hot water for a tea. The tea kind of tastes strange, so I usually just take the capsules. So I took those and did some yoga to stretch out my mid-section and muscles which were cramping up because of the pain I was in.

Yoga stretches: Child's pose, Cat Stretch, Cobra (mostly supported), Knees to Chest, and Spinal Twists.

Anyway, within about 20 minutes I felt ok again. Ready for bed and no longer in quite the pain I had been.

Just thought I'd share what worked for me the other night...

The lady at the store

The other day, I was up in Austin visiting some good friends of mine, and one of them, Andy, and I went to the grocery store. Well, of course we went to the grocery store because in a non gluten-free household with four kids, I wanted food I knew was safe while I was visiting.

While we were wandering around HEB, we encountered a lady, shopping cart in tow, staring at the rows of crackers with a look of bewilderment on her face. She slowly bent down and picked up a box of Nut Thins and stared at them. I know that look and I know who usually buys Nut Thins - gluten free folks. So I asked her if I could help her. She looked at me, blinked, and asked, "Do you know anything about gluten-free stuff?" Yes. Yes I do.

Andy and I directed her to the gluten-free aisle of the grocery store (and god bless HEB for having one!), and I helped her pick out a few items that I knew were good - Glutino's Pretzels, Kinnitoo's Vanilla Creme Cookies, Mary's Gone Crackers (great for meat and cheese appetizers). I asked her if she was going gluten-free. She said, "No. My husband is at the airport right now picking up some visitors, and I just found out they are gluten free. So I'm here." I told her they would probably arrive with food anyway but would be super impressed that she had things on hand for them to munch on. And anything they need can be bought the next day as long as she had the basics.

First, how cool that she was there looking for gluten-free food for her guests. Second, how incredibly great it is that we live in a time when gluten-free foods are available in a local grocery store. Third, what a great coincidence I was there to help her. Just goes to show how many of us there are out there - we exist, we impact others, we travel. We do. How wonderful!