Saturday, June 7, 2014

About Why I'm Gluten Free

Welcome to Goodies Gone Gluten Free! I am very excited to start this Blog!  After many requests for recipes and nudges towards starting a blog, I have finally done it!  Here we go!

I have always loved baking...I like to cook, but I LOVE to bake.  It is my love language.  You reject my baking, you reject my love (well, kind of).  So when I started suspecting I was gluten intolerant, I ignored it.  How could I, the lover of baking and all things yummy, be gluten intolerant and survive life any longer?

 So I continued eating gluten...and feeling super duper bloated, having constant headaches, fatigue and serious dizzy spells after eating gluten laden food.  Call me stupid, I can take it.  What finally brought me to my senses was reading an article about people with Hashimotos Thyroiditis (a thyroid disorder I have had for 15 plus years) which stated that  people with this disorder should never eat gluten because gluten insensitivity and Hashimotos almost always go hand-in-hand and eating gluten further tears down your thyroid.  Okay, that got me.  This was more serious than annoying side effects of eating the food I love.  I had to try it.  I gave it one week.  If after one week of eating gluten free I didn't see drastic results...and I mean drastic...I wasn't going gluten free.

GF White Cake with Strawberry Frosting
By the first day, I knew.  Darn it, I knew.  I was gluten intolerant.  No bloating, no headaches or dizziness...until the night of that first day.  I mean, hey, I had been good all day, a little gluten wouldn't hurt.  So I ate some.  Big mistake!  Everything was spinning so much I could hardly walk and my stomach felt like it was going to explode...after only one day of not eating it and then having a little. 

So I knew I had to make this work.  I had to keep baking, and it had to taste good and I wasn't going to feel like one of my favorite things in life was over...eating and making good food.  

I have to say, I am baking more than I ever have and getting more rave reviews and requests for my baking and cooking, then ever before.  I guess I have to admit, I like what I make even better!  Easy homemade bread (which I never made before going GF), bars, cookies, brownies, pasta dishes, muffins and biscuits...oh my!

GF Honey Oat Bread. Homemade Yogurt
and Kumquat Marmalade

This blog will serve to give hope to those who are gluten free that there are still yummy things to eat and make.  I will be posting my recipes with pictures and sharing brands I have found to be good.  I hope this blog is a blessing and a light in the darkness for those of you who need it, and something new to try for those of you who don't!