About Friends

ALERT: From now on g/wedf is all I'm going to type for gluten/wheat egg and dairy free. If whatever I'm typing about isn't all of those things I'll spell it out.

Never, ever, underestimate the importance of unsolicited advice.  I know that I used to, but not any more!  And the chain of events I am about to describe will explain that better than I could in any other way.

So I was whining about weird special food on my facebook wall when one friend chimed in about soy cheese.  (You can read all about my soy cheese adventure in Finding Substitutes.)  Then a different friend said on her wall that she had made egg and dairy free cookies from a mix.  !!  From a mix?!  I asked her about it, she told me about this fabulous bakery, right here in Phoenix.  Yay!  A resource.

Before I could investigate the bakery, yet another friend who has food issues in her home and has offered to be a resource, was unexpectedly available to hang out.  We had a fabulous dinner at Q'Doba (Is Fast Food Still Food?) and then went next door to Whole Foods where we hung out with the weird special food.  I had asked about good pastas (my disastrous experience with rice lasagne noodles will never be a blog post <shudder), so she said quinoa would be the way to go.  Evidently this is not pronounced kwin-oh-a, like it looks, it is pronounced keenwa.

Anyway.  We stopped at the bulk bins and looked at the grain, we perused the pasta aisle and found some macaroni, we were completely distracted by the gwedf buckwheat pancake and brownie mix boxes (more on those once I actually try them).  We visited.... seaweed.  I just can't dive into the deep end, no matter how hard I try.  Seaweed, for crying out loud.  She laughed at me and said she likes weird food.  Until we got to the fake substitute cheese aisle, then I was the one laughing.

The next day I met a friend at the gym, went to lunch with her, and then kidnapped her and took her to the bakery!  I even managed not to tell her in advance where we were going.  This bakery is a fantastic find, I can't thank my bakery buddy enough for sharing her knowledge with me.  There are two locations in Phoenix - one on McDowell and one on Thomas, but only the one on Thomas has Monday hours.  Monday is my day off, voila! Gluten Free Creations Bakery

The cubicle at my office is bigger than the retail space of the bakery on Thomas.  But that's because they're very busy in the back - this place supplies restaurants around town with breads and desserts. Evidently the bakery on McDowell includes a small cafe area where they serve sandwiches and things. The staff was very friendly and helpful.  The man in the apron explained, "everything is gluten free.  When you look at this list, if it says egg free or dairy free, then it is also egg or dairy free."  Wow.  Cool.  The bakery sells mixes and cookbooks in addition to baked goods.  There were samples set out, one of which was gwedf and yummy.  I acquired a dozen berry bagels, a loaf of sliced white bread for sandwiches, and a box of wedding cookies. 

Then I went home and cooked the quinoa noodles.  Cool!  They start out looking like normal macaroni.  And like normal macaroni they swell when they cook.  Unlike normal macaroni, they don't really stop swelling.  They get bigger than regular macaroni.  But they taste about the same.  Yay!  I mixed the noodles with some ground turkey, tomatoes and green chile and packaged it up for meals for the week.  Yesterday I found that they survived being packed into a container with other ingredients, and they also stood up to being microwaved.  Hurrah!  A casserole solution!

Today I ate a berry bagel with Tofutti cream cheese for breakfast.  I also made a sandwich using the gwedf sandwich bread from the fabulous bakery my friend found.  YUM!  The bread is great.  It has a consistency similar to foccacia or ... Schlotskey's!  Oh!  I should check out Schlotskey's!

Schlotskey's Ingredient Page
Bummer.  Not a single thing I can eat there.

So you see, in reality my friends are driving this lifestyle change of mine.  They are making suggestions, they are holding my hand through the process, they are eating weird alternative foods with me, going shopping with me, asking me questions, and essentially cheering me on.  When trying to navigate the world of gwedf, never underestimate the usefulness of unsolicited advice, solicited advice, and fabulous friends.

Friends, I love you!  :-)

Chocolate? YES!

ALERT: From now on g/wedf is all I'm going to type for gluten/wheat egg and dairy free. If whatever I'm typing about isn't all of those things I'll spell it out.

As it turns out, so called "milk chocolate" actually does have milk in it.  Go figure.  Just look at any standard normal candy bar label.  And believe me, I've been looking at a lot of them.  Dark chocolate, on the other hand, does not usually have milk in it.  Problem is, I'm not really all that crazy about dark chocolate. The rest of the problem is that for about 3-4 days every month I am all about consuming chocolate.

The first thing I tried was Chocolate Silk®.  Silk® is soy milk, and it comes in different flavors.  Chocolate Silk®, in my opinion, is even better than chocolate milk.  It has a fullness that chocolate milk does not have.  And it seems to more than satisfy those chocolate cravings.  It also has a longer life than regular milk.  All good things.  But it isn't very portable, really, since it has to live in a refrigerator and I live in Arizona.

I went shopping with a friend tonight (more on shopping with friends in another post), and while trying to sell me on dark chocolate, she took me to the chocolate section of Whole Foods.  The very first thing I saw, right there just above eye level (I'm not tall, you know) was a chocolate bar that says on the label "100% dairy free", and elsewhere on the label "gluten free".  "Creamy Sweet Chocolate bar".  YES!!  I'm all about creamy sweet chocolate bars!  I came home with several different dark chocolates to try, but the first one I tried was the Sweet Chocolate Dream.  mmmmm

ohhhhh

mmmmmmmmmmm.

Did I mention, mmmmmmm?

I'll have to try their ice cream next.

About Tofutti®

ALERT:  From now on g/wedf is all I'm going to type.  It means gluten/wheat egg and dairy free. If whatever I'm typing about isn't all of those things I'll spell out the things that it is.

Refer to my post about Finding Substitutes for my first adventure with Toffuti® sour cream substitute.  Yes, if you're wondering, tofu is the base of all products produced by Toffuti®.  Sounds yummy, doesn't it?

Toffuti® also makes a substitute cream cheese.  <sigh>  In the frozen section at my Fry's I find some g/wedf frozen french toast sticks.  Also some waffles.  Also some rice flour based g/wedf english muffins.  I notice "ice cream" sandwiches by Toffuti® and also by a different company using almond milk for the base.  No.  I can't even contemplate it at this moment.  No.

The english muffins must be pried apart with a flame thrower and crowbar.  Once they're in halves, though, they toast nicely in the toaster.  Just ignore the weird consistency that seems to be a hallmark of substitute products.  The fake substitute cream cheese appears to be plastic, but a knife cuts through it after all.  Wow, the cream cheese is actually pretty impressive.  It melts a little better than regular cream cheese, spreads easily, and tastes almost just like the real thing.  I'm impressed.

The previously mention g/wedf frozen french toast sticks and blueberry waffles are by Van's Natural Foods.  They're good.  Very good.  The only way you can tell that they're weird special is that they're a little heavy.  I'm discovering, however, that heavy is satisfying.  I fill up faster with these special foods, and I stay full longer.  hmm.  Interesting.

Finally the moment we've all been waiting for.  Tofutti® ice cream sandwiches!  <drum roll>

This is not really an experiment that I wanted to make.  But life without ice cream?  I think not.  I debated about it for a while, and then I called a friend, "I'm coming over with weird fake ice cream so that you can try it with me."  (One of the benefits of being my friend is you never know when you're going to get a call like that :-D)   She said, "um, okay... why?"  I said because I was afraid

I took a box of Toffuti® ice cream sandwiches and a box of almond milk ice cream sandwiches (only egg and dairy free, not gluten/wheat free) to her house where (after an in depth discussion of "afraid") we cut one in half and used the "one two three bite!" method of tasting.  We started with the Toffuti® because we expected it to be much yuckier than the almond milk bars.  We were pleasantly surprised to find that it tasted almost exactly like a normal ice cream sandwich.  A little off, as expected, but really very close.  Phew.

Next we tried the almond milk bar and were surprised to find that it was Not better than the Toffuti® one.  Mostly that's because of a nutty flavor that takes a little getting used to.  I find that once I can accept the unusual taste of these special foods then they're ok to eat.

Toffuti® has a web site if you want to know more.

Finding Substitutes

Wait, I'm the Queen of Casseroles!  I make one on Monday and eat it for the rest of the week!  Find me a casserole that does not involve cheese, sour cream, and/or a cream-based soup.  <screaming>  The drama in my head says that I will never again eat another normal meal as long as I live.

But wait again!  Someone mentions Toffuti® sour cream substitute to me.  I rush to find some and learn that my Fry's has it in the weird special food section of the store.  Yay!  I go to Wendy's®, buy a plain baked potato and a small chili.  I rush home and... oh yeah, I forgot to mention coconut oil.  My nutritionist (mention my name) sells a coconut oil that does not have a coconut taste.  It's a fantastic butter substitute that I had already been using when the allergen news bomb arrived.

So anyway.  I take my plain baked potato home (yes, I know that I could bake them myself, thanks for sharing), smash some coconut oil into it, cover it in Toffuti® sour cream substitute, and immediately learn why "Toffuti" sounds like a swear word.  <sigh>  I pour the chili on top and that helps.

It was a sad experiment, but all was not lost.  The consistency isn't quite right on a baked potato, and there's a missing... zing.  But there really is enough genuine sour cream taste for the stuff to work in a casserole.  I think.  I haven't tried doing that yet.  :-D

And why haven't I tried it yet?  Because I'm chicken, that's why.  I want my food to taste like it always has and it just isn't going to.  I don't know what it is going to taste like and so... However.  Without using substitutes I'm down to 3 things at fast food restaurants, salad, and other high maintenance meals that require individual cooking and or lots of peeling and slicing of ingredients.  I can only do that for so long.  So I go ahead and bite the bullet (which might taste better than some of these other things I'm biting lately... but I can't prove that).

More about Toffuti® products in another post.  Right now let's talk about... soy cheese!  What?  You don't want to talk about soy cheese?  Well neither do I, really, but here we are and it's the topic.

Someone posted on my facebook page that there are some good soy cheeses out there.  So I thought to myself, "self, that green chile casserole that you make only uses cheese, no sour cream or soup, maybe that would be a good one to try."  I agreed with myself and so off I went to Whole Foods to see what was available.

I think I spent half an hour standing in front of the fake substitute cheese section trying to figure out what the heck to buy.  I settled for one that said, "grates and melts great!" on the package.  The consistency of the package alarmed me very much -- do yourself a favor and do not squeeze the soy cheese.  Or the rice cheese either for that matter.  You can't help seeing that it isn't quite the right color, and you already know it isn't going to taste quite right, there is no reason to upset yourself with the sponginess factor.  Just sayin'.

Out of curiosity I also purchased 1 lb. of fancy hamburger for $10.  Yes you read that right.  $10/lb. for organic whatever whatever ground beef.  No, I couldn't taste a difference.  Doesn't mean there wasn't one, just not one that I could detect.

I wish I could say that I rushed home and made the casserole, but grocery shopping has become exhausting with all the label reading and whatnot, so I took a nap first and then played a video game for a couple of hours before I was ready to face grating soy cheese into a casserole that I happen to love.

The cheese I got did indeed grate great as promised on the package.  I tasted one shred of it and thought with a shudder, "oh well, the green chile should cover any weirdness in taste".  Really it's not so bad, I just don't do change well.  lol

The cheese did not, however, melt great.  It melted better than some other cheeses I've had (fat free cheese doesn't melt at all).  And it worked well enough to hold the other ingredients together.  Mostly.  I can stand it, it'll work.  The recipe, you say?

Great Green Chile Casserole, from the Green Chile Bible Award-Winning New Mexico Recipes, published by Clearlight

12 corn tortillas (or 1 bag of tortilla chips)
1 can (16 oz.) hominy, drained
2 cups cheese, grated
1 onion, chopped (I use a yellow one)
2 cans (4 oz. each) green chiles, chopped (I usually use more)
1 lb. ground beef, browned (I cook the onion with it)
1 can (16 oz) green chile salsa or taco or enchilada sauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Quickly fry the tortillas in hot oil (corn oil or canola oil work well for this). Cover the bottom of a 9x13-inch casserole with half the tortillas (or use tortilla chips, like I do). Layer all of the hominy, 1 cup cheese, half the onion, and half the chopped green chiles over half the tortillas.

Cover with the remaining tortillas, the ground beef, the remaining cheeese (reserve a few handfuls for the top), onion, and green chiles. Pour the salsa over the top and sprinkle with additional grated cheese.

Bake for 30 minutes. Freezes well. Serves 8 to 10.

Is Fast Food Still Food?

Holy Cow, shifting away from fast food has been a 2-year long struggle for me already, but giving up egg and dairy without giving up fast food entirely - is that even possible??  Yes, as a matter of fact, it is possible.  Some facts:

McDonald's®

• The english muffin does not have egg or dairy in it.  Neither does the sausage.  The american cheese... well, that's stretching it a little... but I can eat a sausage McMuffin without suffering food side affects.
• Coffee with cream & sugar?  No.  Amazingly, McDonald's uses a real creamer, not a non-dairy creamer.  Ixnay on the offeecay.  This leads to another astonishing food fact - non-dairy creamer contains powdered milk.  So it's actually a dairy creamer.  Try Silk® creamer instead.
• French fries are potatoes, right?  Mostly right.  McD's french fries have milk in them.

McDonald's PDF ingredients list

Wendy's®

• French fries made only of potatoes!
• Baked potatoes made only of potatoes! (skip the sour cream)
• Chili made only of chili ingredients that do not include egg or dairy.  (skip the cheese)
• A side salad with romaine lettuce, carrots and tomatoes. (Italian dressing is ok at Wendy's, but not everywhere.)
• Wendy's web site is a little more difficult to navigate, but it is still possible to find the right information.

Wendy's Java Ingredients Finder

Taco Bell®

• Taco Bell has good nutrition/allergen information available on their web site.  I can eat tacos, preferably without the cheese.  Not unexpectedly, most menu items are out.

Taco Bell Allergen Info

Sonic®

•  Yess! Tater tots!
• Not much else, though.  Sonic has incomplete information available.  "* Bread: Sonic does not have a single bread formulation. Sonic purchases from local bakeries and ingredients and allergens may vary."

Sonic PDF Ingredients list

Q'Doba®

• The pork is safe.  The chicken, steak, shredded beef, ground beef and chorizo all contain milk.  Oh yeah, weird food fact - "milk" often means "butter".
• Rice is rice.
• The salsas are all safe, as is the guacamole.

Q'Doba PDF Ingredients list

I don't need to exist on fast food alone.  I do need to know that at the end of one of my grueling weeks I have an option or two about food.  I can be satisfied with that.

Starting Out

An unexpectedly lengthy and detailed discussion following a facebook post about a ham and swiss flavored veggie slice with Veganaise® on rice flour bread sandwich prompted me to start blogging my experiences with food.  So here we go and maybe I can even keep up with it!

About a month ago food allergen test results came from my nutritionist (mention my name).  The good news?  Well, there was none.  The bad news?  On a scale from 0 to 6: egg whites,  egg yolks, and whey rank a solid 4; milk and other milk products such as yogurt and cottage cheese rank a solid 3; whole wheat and asparagus rate a 2.  Wow, major lifestyle changes coming.  I spent some time in shock, freaking out and panicking, like anyone would.  One at a time things came to my attention that I was going to really REALLY miss.  Hagen Daas®.  OMG.  Lasagne.  Cookies!  Pizza!! Much whining ensued.

Regardless, I immediately did what I could to cut out all obvious and as much as possible non-obvious egg and dairy.  Goodbye breakfast burritos!  Goodbye suspiciously yellow tinted bread!  I decided to wait a while to remove the wheat - that seemed like too many things at once.  I was more bothered by the loss of convenience than by the lack of egg/dairy/wheat in my life.  So the first thing I did was go to all the fast food web sites and find out what, if anything, I could still eat.  More about that in a different post.

The point is, within 3 days the swelling I had been experiencing in my hands and feet went away.  Within 3 weeks I had shed about 15 lbs.  I'm still losing lbs 4-5 weeks later, but at a slower rate than initially.  I have so much more energy that I've had to stop taking some of my energy vitamin supplements because I stopped sleeping properly - turns out, milk products make me sleepy, who knew?  I don't particularly like this lifestyle change.  Weird foods (as I call them even though I shouldn't) are a lot of work to find and/or prepare.  Eating out becomes next to impossible unless one wants to subsist on salad, and even then there are limits.

But results are results.  Did I say at the beginning of this post that there was no good news?  That's not true.  The good news is other people have blazed the trail before me.  Most food products are clearly marked with common allergens.  Most restaurants do have allergen information available, many restaurants even have specialty items available.  Normal grocery stores have started carrying specialty items, so I don't suddenly have to double my grocery bill by doing all of my grocery shopping at Whole Foods and Sprouts.  Although I do make more trips to Whole Foods now than previously.  Best of all, I am not afflicted with the extremes of these allergens such as Celiac Disease.  I just have some food allergies.  So yeah, I'm whining, but I'm doing it.  And I already feel better than I have in years.