Glutastic.com

About Glutastic.com

Welcome to Glutastic.com. My name is Caitlin and this is my website.

A few months ago I began my epic journey into gluten free living. Since then I have lived a life of accidental poisonings, increased grocery bills, lack of convenience, constant cravings, weight loss, sanity loss and most of all, constant questions.

To use a term coined mostly by rejected women on the bachelor, “my journey” has been one of ups and downs, excitement and frustration, triumphs and failures. My goal with glutastic.com is to spread all the info I have found, dispense resources, share stories, rant a bit, and bring together a group of gluten free people.

THE BACK STORY.

Please indulge me for a moment and I will start at the beginning. How I got here will undoubtedly give you an idea of where I am going. December 2007 is now known in our household as Glutengate 2007. It began with “the flu”. Because that must have been why I couldn’t keep food down…right? WRONG. Well when the “flu” no longer fit the criterion, my doctors and family moved on to the next plausible reason. I must be pregnant. You see in my family and in this fine medical community,

boobs+a pony tail+ constant nausea = pregnancy.

WRONG.

I knew it wasn’t the case, Boyfriend knew it wasn’t the case, but no one else wanted to listen. Even when I was in the emergency on IV getting all necessary nutrients pumped back in – they still thought I must be pregnant. Seriously people, I have a MEDICAL CONDITION!

At this point we were over a month into it and I hadn’t been able to eat an entire meal without being constantly bloated, nauseous, or best of all, totally lethargic, disoriented and battling a heartburn that would drop anyone in their tracks. So here I was, unable to eat anything but grilled chicken and plain salad and no one had any answers for me. So slowly I added things back into my diet, first it was SOME dairy, and then it was SOME grains. Turns out SOME was ENOUGH and no matter what we did I couldn’t feel better.

So where does one turn to next? The good old, trial by error method. And what do you know – turns out I CANNOT under any circumstance tolerate gluten. Can’t even cheat and maybe just once have a cupcake. I know I don’t have to tell you but did you know that gluten is in EVERYTHING – EVERYTHING! My culinary life was over as I knew it.

So fast forward to present day 2008, and here I am gluten free and getting used to it. I’ve learned a lot and still have lots of learning to go. I’ve learned that I can no longer indulge in crave cupcakes, I can no longer just eat whatever I want, whenever I want, wherever I want. I’ve learned how to replicate (kind of) gluten packed foods with gluten free substitutes. And most importantly I’ve learned that there is a large community of “glutties” (as I call as all) out there. It is through the knowledge of glutties that I have learned almost everything I know. So now I sit here in my cute little apartment with my little website in the hopes that I can provide you all with some information, some suggestions; and most importantly to provide you with stories of my “journey” that make you all feel a little more understood.

Glutties of the world unite. We are a large group of people who are underrepresented in grocery stores and resturants. Let us band together and make gluten free living the new black!