Saturday, October 1, 2011

My realization that the gluten free food I just ate does, in fact, have gluten.

This is kind of a 'Day in the Life' of post, but not really. Just an experience from eating something I thought was gluten free. Don't know what gluten free means? It means I have celiac disease and that I can't eat wheat, rye, or barley. So in a nutshell, anything with regular flour is out and will make me super sick. Think bread, cookies, tortillas...most people ask what 'super sick' means and it's awkward, so here's a link instead. I of course suffer from the more extreme symptoms.

So back in April you may have read that I discovered Ice Cream Snickers Bars. The delicious, amazing, gooey, peanuty, Ice Cream Snickers. I bought a 24 pack from Sam's Club and quickly devoured them, then continued to go back to Sam's Club and quickly devour more. I must have eaten 4 boxes while I lived in my old house, and kind of forgot about them once we moved back to our new/old house.

I was at Sam's Club a few weeks ago and saw the package for Ice Cream Snickers and my heart skipped a beat. It was like finding my one lost love. I immediately grabbed the box and left the store, completely forgetting what else I had come here for. It was only wedding stuff, so not that important compared to Ice Cream Snickers, right?

I got into my car and ripped the box open. I slowly opened the wrapper savoring the sweet chocolatey smell that wafted into my nose and knew at once I was in heaven. I ate that whole bar up and was so excited to have been reacquainted!

I drove about 5 minutes home and realized that I was really hungry and that I should eat something so I don't get sick from the dairy/sugar, especially since my stomach was already started to feel a bit off. I decided I would try this new tamale that we got from a local grocery store that was pretty cheap and delicious looking. Since it was a new food, I looked at the food label over and over again to be sure it was gluten free so that I wouldn't end up on the toilet for the rest of the night being sick.

I finally decided I could eat them, and eat I did. They were so frickin' amazing!

Vince and I decided to watch a movie after that, but he clearly wasn't interested in the movie because he kept trying to make moves on me. I was interested in the movie so I kept shoving him away and that's when it happened.

My stomach started to hurt. It got all bubbly and started making weird sounds, so I told Vince I think I ate something with gluten in it. He thought I was lying and assumed I was just trying to avoid kissing him.

I sat on the couch for a little while longer and realized that I most definitely ate something bad. I was getting all sweaty, my stomach was killing me, and I felt like I was going to poop myself! So I went to the bathroom and did my business, the whole time cursing those damn tamales. How dare they contain gluten after I scoured the entire package!

As I was in the bathroom, I was also contemplating what else I ate that day because I was really hoping it was something besides the tamales. I had eaten cereal in the morning, had a Pepsi a work along with some leftovers that treated me well the night before, some chips and beans, and an ice cream bar...everything I've eaten a million times before. So I officially decided that it was, in fact, the tamales. I could never eat those amazing things again and I'd have to settle for the extremely expensive and not so delicious ones from the health food store.

The next day I was feeling a little better and decided to treat myself to an Ice Cream Snickers. As I was reaching for one, my gut told me to check the label. Even though I'd eaten a 100 of them before, the ingredients could still change for every box!

And guess what? THEY DID. Ice Cream Snickers are now processed on the same equipment as gluten, which is enough to make me sick. I literally stood in front of my freezer and cried because this was yet another thing that I could not eat. Granted, there are thousands of things I can eat as a gluten free person, but all it takes is one thing I can't eat to make me a sad person for a little while.

Then I quickly realized that Hey! I can eat those tamales!

Thus, I got over the Ice Cream Snickers and moved on.

For all those gluten free people out there, take this as a reminder to check every single label, even if you've bought it a million times before! I sure would have rather spent an extra 7 seconds reading a label instead of spending $10 and being sick for a night.

13 comments:

  1. NOOOOOOOO I can't believe this!!! I haven't gotten one in forever but what the hell?! We seriously ate about 100 of those before too and they were always fine. In fact, those and M&Ms said on the phone they were super careful to use separate facilities a year ago! 
    Bastards!

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  2. Oh and also I think you should make your page font one size larger because my glasses are over there and I'm over here. 

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  3. Agh!  I love those Snicker's ice cream bars.  That's sad.

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  4. Ya they were gluten free until about a month ago! I'm so annoyed. But all the other candy bars I eat (like regular snickers) seem to still be gluten free, so that's good! And do I really need to make it bigger or are you kidding? Everything is smaller on my Mac for some reason and it looked normal, so I assumed it was huge on regular screens! It's at 13pt right now, but I'd happily change it back to 16pt!

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  5. Good because I had a Snickers today lol. And yeah, it was during the middle of a two mile jog. What do you want from me?

    The font is readable but some of the letters don't connect (a's and e's for example) but when it's italicized it's pretty hard to read. Just going up one point for italics would work fine. =]

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  6. Poor darlin! I am so sorry! That sucks, especially since you COULD eat them before. 

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  7. I would say that Snickers are actually a really great treat during a run! The peanuts are super good for you and it's good to have a boost of sugar! =)

    And I bumped the font back up to how I had it originally. Is it any better? I just don't want it too be huge, so let me know!

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  8. At least I get to eat the tamales though!

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  9. Also there is a lot of calcium in Snickers from the chocolate? 

    Actually I've now sworn off sweets every day except Saturday, which is the worst, but at least I get to see I did it before giving them up. 
    Yes, the font is just perfect now! It looks to me like maybe size 13 font. I hope it's not just my computer but it's at a normal zoom percentage so I'm guessing it's all PCs. 

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  10. My best friend is a celiac... she has the same issue with gluten. She's obsessed about labels and she now eats really clean because of how sensitive she is. Actually, when my husband and I went on the Paleo diet (about 3 months, really strict!), we realized how much better we felt that when we finally broke our diet and ate something with gluten... Oi, both our tummies were upset.

    Actually, since my best friend made me aware of gluten, I have found that i function better when I eat gluten free. Seems like most people do better without gluten - at least i've found research that suggests that.

    Unfortunately, it's followed by all these products that were previously gluten-free now turning to gluten because it's cheaper. Oi. Counter-health!

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  11. And calcium is good for you haha

    That's good that you don't do sweets except for weekends! I'm still sticking to one small treat a day and that's hard enough.

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  12. Ya from all my research as well, most people shouldn't be eating gluten. Even if they don't have celiac disease they can still be a little gluten intolerant. It's definitely healthier eating most of the time, so it cna't be bad for you!

    I was considering going on the paleo diet but holy smoke, WAY to restrictive for me. I think if I wasn't in school and work full time I could pull it off because I would have time to prepare each individual meal, but most of the meals won't be very great as leftovers. (At least from the meals I could think of...)

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