I finally did it to myself. I glutened the heck out of myself on Sunday. It started with a birthday party and ended with vomiting, body pains, and a desperate need to go to bed. Here is my tale of how it happened.
The Party
I was hosting a birthday party for some gluten eaters. I decided that I would make a Mexican casserole, fish tacos, a gluten free trifle, and a gluten birthday cake for the gluten eaters. The only gluten item was supposed to be the birthday cake.
It started by going to the wrong grocery store. I needed some specific ingredients, like red enchilada sauce and green chilies, nothing crazy. But I went to the smaller grocery store with little variety in the mexican aisle. I didn’t have the time or the patience to go to the other grocery store with items labeled gluten free.
The items I bought weren’t labeled gluten free. I read the ingredients. No gluten containing ingredients were found. So, I thought I could make it work.
Cooking
I made everything in the right order. All gluten free items were made first – including brownies, pudding, and whipped cream for the trifle. I chopped and prepped all vegetables for the casserole so I could throw everything together in the morning.
Then I mixed up the gluten cake and put it in the oven. Cooled it, frosted it, and even decorated it without licking my fingers once! While the cake was cooling, I did scoop a big finger full of the frosting before touching the cake. The frosting was gluten free.
Gluten free house?
Some may argue that I should have a completely gluten free household. I’ve only been glutened by me in my house one time in 9 years. ONE TIME IN NINE YEARS. I have three other people that live with me that know and understand how to keep me safe. My children have grown up with these protocols. Everyone knows some basic steps and I take extraordinary steps in our house to remain gluten free – foil on all baking sheets, parchment in the oven before cooking a pizza, everything that touched gluten goes through the dishwasher, knives are only used once, nothing goes on the kitchen counter without a plate under it, etc.
For us, a gluten and gluten free house mixes just fine. And this was nobody’s fault but mine and mine alone.
The Casserole
The casserole is the only place that could have made me sick. The shrimp tacos were made with certified gluten free Boom Boom Shrimp, coleslaw I made, gluten free Yum Yum sauce, and certified gluten free tortillas. I even made more shrimp tacos for dinner last night to prove it wasn’t the shrimp tacos.
The casserole was delicious. I’ve made it before with labeled gluten free ingredients and not gotten sick. But this time it was not gluten free enough for my body. I can only imagine it was an accumulation gluten in too many of the ingredients.
Conclusion
Today is Tuesday. the nausea and body aches have finally faded. I’m still tired but another couple of days will get that resolved. I haven’t been sick like this in about two years in the Nexvax trial where I had to do gluten challenges. It was a rude awakening
The worst part is, I’ve been doing so well. The persistent diarrhea had stopped, my weight was normalizing, energy levels were high, and I messed it up. I will recover, but please use my pain as a cautionary tale.
We all make mistakes. This diet is too hard not to make mistakes. Over the weekend, I made my mistake by being over confident. Don’t be like me, be better!!