Where do you start?

Now that you know my story, I can finally go into the "bread and butter" of the issue (ohh ho ho, its funny because those both have Gluten and Milk in them)

Right so as we all know alot of foods have Gluten and Milk for instance pizza, burgers, and mac and cheese all have cheese and milk in them, but this is the basics its obvious they have Gluten and Lactose in them

One thing that alot of people do not think through is that some foods have Gluten and Lactose that are hidden and not as obvious like Soy Sauce, barbecue sauce, and Ranch Dressing (well it was not obvious to me, not sure if I am alone on this one)

Now before you start eliminating all the food in your pantry it should be noted that not all of these items have Gluten or Lactose in them. for instance Soy Sauce that is Gluten Free (GF) will be fine to eat, but non GF Soy Sauce might or might not have any in it (but I highly recommend only eating GF or Lactose Free (LF) in this danger zone as we will call it)

Now Soy Sauce is more of a danger food than BBQ sauce and ranch dressing since with Soy Sauce will not actually put on the label any words that would identify Gluten.

What can I eat?

Now if you are like me, I get a little overwhelmed when I look at the sheer list of foods that I cant eat I start to freak out and think the world is coming to an end, but you have to change your mindset, you must now think What CAN I eat

Think Meats, Veggies, Fruits

Most of the foods in this group will be GF and LF, the more natural the better (Try to avoid processed foods, they can be very dangerous, and frankly kinda disgusting once you think about it)

You might be thinking to yourself  "but I cant just eat burger patties and cans of beans"

Well with that attitude you cant, think about what you can combine

Here is my first easy "recipe" all easy to make, and frankly tastes pretty good for abunch of random things throw together

Ingredients:

1 Can of Refried Beans
Salsa (your favorite salsa or homemade does not really matter)
3 Corn Tortillas

Now seeing that I am a college student, I tend to go for things that are cheap, fast, and easy to make

First off all you need to do is take 3 corn tortillas spread some beans over it through the center (as if you are making a burrito) put in the toaster oven for 10 minutes (350*f) or until or Microwave for a minute or two.

After Taking them out of your choice of heating devices (I would recommend the toaster oven over the microwave) just put on some salsa and boom you have a quick and easy snake to hold you over for awhile

Yummy!

This is a nice snack to make if you dont have much time.

Throughout these posts I will be sharing some of my favorite meals that I eat everyday, I hope you enjoy your snack (keep in mind to check the ingredients on all foods to make sure you are using GF and LF ingredients)

- Arc

All great stories begin with a quandary

You know in this wonderful age of information and solutions that we have at the tip of our fingers, no one ever told us that some questions cant be solved...

Or can they?

I must warn you that I am no holding back in this story of my life, I want those who have the same issues as I did to know they are not alone.

I guess first I should start of with what is Gluten and what is Lactose

Gluten: (from Latin gluten, "glue") is a protein composite found in foods processed from wheat and related grain species, including barley and rye. (Wikipedia)

Lactose: is a disaccharide sugar derived from galactose and glucose that is found in milk. (Lactose)


Now when we look at our world around us what do we see? Pizza, Burgers, Fried Chicken, Ice cream, and so on and so forth

Looking at this list it can be extremely daunting to find something that does not have Gluten or Lactose. but it can be done.

For instance Burgers (shout out to one of my main meals) is normally made out of Bread, Meat and sometimes Cheese (if you are like me, that is a must). now right off the bat we have a problem Bread and Cheese, you have to remove those before you can eat them. but before you start thinking "Hey there we go I will just order 2 burgers from McDonalds and just rip off that bread and cheese".

before this you have to ask yourself one question. What about what is left over, what about Cross contamination?

in short Cross Contamination is just when one food comes into contact with another. and with this comes our issue. you have to be sure that it does not happen. (I will go into this in my posts to come on how to avoid this)

Now by no means am I an expert on this, I have just been doing this for a year now, and have been doing pretty well at picking and making foods without Gluten and Lactose

Now that we get the basics out of the way I guess I can Introduce myself

For the reasons of privacy, I shall be calling myself Arc (its a nickname that I have had since I was a kid)

Who am I? 

I am a 20 year old American college student, I am going to school to become a software engineer just like my mother and uncle (I seem to have a knack for software). while being a little bit nerdy I also happen to be extremely patriotic for my country.

Now from since I was a kid I have always been "special" you could call it. I always had issues. I hated going on trips, I did not enjoy playing or going to baseball games in the early morning. I just had to go

Now this was my first "encounter" with my Gluten/ Lactose intolerance, although I did not know it at the time.

I as a kid assumed that all kids just had to use the restroom 5, 6, 7 times before noon. I just assumed that's what people dealt with. which in reality was not that bad, so I had to wake up 2 hours before I went anywhere.

now this went on for many years, many embarrassing moments passed on... but I just assumed that's just what happened.

Though it came a time, when things kinda just went south. I was in 8th grade and had the recent passing of my grandfather who I was very close to, now this was a very stressful time for me considering this the first person close to me that had died. but I moved on, I got past and continued on with my life (wow... that sounds kinda messed up). but it was not over

I went into a long string of Depression and Anger triggered by what seemed like nothing, I also had these strange stabbing pains in my stomach  and at certain points it would get so bad that I thought I was actually being stabbed, of course my natural reaction was to hide my my place of comfort, the bathroom, and when I would "go" the pain would go away

The bathroom for me was a place of comfort, it reminded me that, "its alright Arc, you will be fine, you dont have to worry". This go to the point where whenever I would go anywhere I would immediately locate the bathroom and be fine. but in the case there was none the stress of the possibility that I would have to use the restroom would make me have to go.

now this carried on, it go worse and worse to the point where I had almost fainted several times (did I mention I could not use the restroom at night, my body just refused no matter how much I had to go)

I then started to wonder... what is wrong with me? how come no one ever talks about this? why does everyone tease me about using the restroom all the time?

It went all the way until finally when I was out with my dad doing some errands (I popped two of my tires while doing this, it kinda gave me and my dad some time to talk more while we waited). and as normal situations go, I had to go, I had only gone to the restroom 4 times today, the hour dragged on and I just had to keep going and going, I was up to about 9 - 10 times to the restroom when finally my dad said "are you alright". naturally I said in response "yeah I am ok, this is normal". this was a shock to my dad in his remark "going to the restroom that much is not normal... something is wrong with you".

now in contrast through the many years I had just gotten used to the escalation of this, it was normal for me to use the restroom 8 times a day and about half way through the day to get stabbing pains, and maybe have random mood swings, but to someone who had never had to deal with this, it seemed like hell

It was my hell, but that is life, I remember as a kid thinking to myself "Heaven is the place where you never have to use the restroom again" and I would give anything to have that.

going into my Senior year, I had just fed up with everything, I was tired of using the restroom so much, I was tired of the pain, I was tired of the random mood swings... So I stopped eating (by no way do I support or condone these actions) I cut down my meals to 1 meal a day (I normally ate 2, I am just not a breakfast person) and all while doing this, I played golf meaning that I carried golf clubs and walked about 2 - 3 miles a day Mon - Fri

And boy did I lose weight, I went from being 210 to just a 180 pounds, but that was not what I was happy about, I could have cared less about my weight, it was that I had cut down trips to the bathroom by 4! I only had to use the restroom 4 times a day, I was so excited but I was still in pain...

It took many more months and suggestions from my mother to finally try this whole Gluten Free thing, now bringing into 1 week until I started college and I was going to try this huge task, but I did it anyway

And it worked, I felt amazing only 3 days after cutting Gluten out of my diet, the Pain had dropped dramatically, and I had more control over my bowels then ever before (did I mention that whenever I had to just "go to the bathroom 8 times a day" that it was more like 8 times a day I felt as if I was not going to make it)

so on and so forth I kept eliminating more and more food as symptoms would come back, and at the current state I have discovered that I cant have Gluten and I cant have Lactose because they both trigger this reaction, I can not have any of it, not even touched something, it is just that bad

Well I guess that is just the basic intro into my life, I hope to bring some light into issue and discover a cure to this "incurable" disease.
- Arc