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 December 12, 2013

Years ago, I took a allergy test. I tested positively allergic to wheat, corn, pork and of all things string beans, along with a host of airborne pest, weeds and trees. 

Last month, because I desire to break free from allergy and asthma meds that drive me crazy….(that’s another story)…..my doctor suggested I’d jump on the latest craze and try a gluten-free diet for 3 months. Just to see how I’ll feel…how I will feel? 

How about will I STILL be alive???

Dr. Control Freak also warned me…”don’t eat rice”…she’s nut’s. My people hold stock in a rice company in Louisiana! So you tell me, what Geechee/Creole/Caribbean lady do you know who can go without eating rice?

Not even BROWN rice?…No, it’s whole grain…Maybe a little WHITE rice (the grain or gluten is removed)

Little did she know that I’ve avoided cooking white rice for over 40 years, it only brown rice for me, even before Uncle Ben got on the bandwagon!…..Little did I know the whole grain of brown rice is full of gluten! Confused? Well now you know how I feel.

Dr. Progressive Medicine’s advice is gluten free for 3 months…just TRY it. It may stop the inflammation that is causing my allergies, asthma, arthritis, skin problems, weight gain and any future ailments that are waiting around the corner at Old Age & Senior Avenue. She recommended a book called “It Starts With Food”…it was $30 more than I wanted to spend on a book. 

Never the more, I’ve always had a keen interest in nutrition, organic cooking and was a whole grain health nut for so many years…it seems like all my life. So I put the book back on the Barnes & Noble bookshelf and revisited my bookshelf at home. I have plenty of books on natural cooking. I read “Wheat Belly” online last year, (as my laptop rested on my swollen belly) …and still, I continued to eat wheat!

At first I was sad and frustrated. No rice? What was I going to eat WITH all the veggies, fruits, organic chicken, fish, turkey, that I CAN eat …AIR?

Gluten-free is gaining in popularity, but I was never one to follow the crowd. Besides the line of cinnamon rice cereal I enjoy with unsweetened rice milk for breakfast. The package products of gluten free foods taste and look terrible. And the high prices with everything costing 5$ and up…is a huge turnoff to eating gluten free.

I love to cook natural foods, nothing from a box or can (maybe tomato paste or a soup, or bake beans, now and then) and most everyone I know loves to eat my tasty non-recipe, Soul/Caribbean dishes. (30 years of marriage to a Trinidadian, makes for an eclectic style of cooking my dear)

So after digging out my copy of “Gluten Free For Dummies” I decided to focus on the foods I COULD eat and keep things basic and simple.

My husband and I are snowbirds…we fly to a little island called Tobago, for three months out of the year to get away from the cold of Pennsylvania winters. He’s the baker in the family and helping me with a few things I CAN eat by using whatever we can find here in the Caribbean that doesn’t have wheat. He hand grated the real coconut and cassava and made me a delicious pone to enjoy in place of bread pudding. 

Can I really spend my days pondering, as posh food snobs often proclaim…..”is it gluten-free?” I'll try.  I did. But I decided to lift my spirits high over this new venture by preparing and taking photos, right before we eat it, for a photo album called “food we mek." This venture is not a cookbook, I list the ingredients so you can throw it together and maybe even like it too…but feel free to make it to your taste to suits your personal plate/palate. (whatever that means;-)

If your life has space, enjoy peeping it on my Facebook page (if you are a real friend) in the "Foods We Mek" photo album. Oh how I wish computers had a “smell” button, to enjoy my simply down home, Gluten-free Caribbean/Soul cooking and enjoy…or as the saying goes, in Tobago….“lick a finger!”

PS: As of 2020, I am still sniffing and sneezing and have NOT been able to stay away from gluten. But I'm going to kindle that book, "It Starts With Food" and eat it!

(c) 2013 Oni Lasana