Fast food that’s GFCF?! Who knew it was possible? But it is at Pollo Tropical Today I had lunch with my DH at our neigborhood Pollo Tropical and had a wonderful meal, yet again. This is my go-to place for fast, easy, always GFCF food. Pollo Tropical is actually a member of the Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network (FAAN), so they’re really aware of the considerations necessary to accommodate food sensitive people. The staff at the three Pollo Tropicals I frequent are always super nice and friendly. And every single employee I’ve ever interacted with has taken my food allergies very seriously and were extremely conscientious with the gluten. Since going GF on Dec 3rd, I’ve probably been here a dozen or more times and have NEVER had any reaction. So, what do I eat here? I love the Tropichops! It’s a bowl of rice and beans with your choice of meat on top. I usually get the Chicken Tropichop with white rice (I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the yellow rice has gluten in it, but it’s not listed on the official Pollo Tropical Allergy List… but I always get white to be safe) and black beans. They have a Regular and a Large, but the large comes with a side Caesar salad, so I always get the Regular (and it’s more than enough to eat.. I usually take some home!). To spice it up a little, I put on a bunch of mild salsa from the salsa bar. And I usually get the combo meal (adds a side and a drink). For my side I always get the super delicious Plantains. They’re...
Oh my gosh!!!!!!! I never thought I could have another treat from the Ice Cream freezer section again. But I was so wrong!!!!!! I found these WONDERFUL coconut, non-dairy, gluten-free frozen treats at the grocery store yesterday. The brand is So Delicious and the treats I purchased were Coconut Almond Mini Bars. And I must admit I was more than a little dubious about them. Any company that gives itself a name like that is either trying too hard to make up for a poor-tasting product or not terribly creative in the name department. But after I tried them I actually agreed with their self-chosen moniker because they really and truly are SOOOOO delicious!!!!! I was so very, VERY excited as I sat there rolling my eyes in yummy ecstasy, reveling in the fact that there are actually yummy dairy-free treats out there. And apparently there are a lot more from the same company!! Before I ate the Coconut Almond Bar, I did a quick search to be sure it was GFCF (it says Dairy Free all over the box and the ingredients seemed safe, but I just wanted to be sure about the Gluten). When I got to their site I found that So Delicious is a very, very allergy friendly company. (I don’t know why I was surprise to see this… with an “ice cream” treat that’s not made from milk, their target allergy demographic should have been obvious to me!) But they have a wonderful Allergy ID Chart that lists every product they have and if it’s ingredients include Almond, Coconut, Corn, Dairy, Egg, Gluten, Peanut,...
Eating out and being truly gluten free and casein free is proving to be very difficult. There’s milk and gluten in SOOO many prepared foods. I’ve been hearing from people that going to oriental restaurants is the way to go: not a lot of dairy in general and plenty of rice and veggies. So today for lunch we went to Pei Wei to give their Gluten Free Menu a try. I was initially a little disappointed with the number of items to choose from (there are currently only five menu items) but all of them seemed to be dairy free too. I ordered the Vietnamese Chicken Salad Rolls without Thai peanut sauce (they are in the regular menu under the Salad section). When ordering, I told them about being allergic to dairy and being gluten free. The girl behind the counter was a little confused about the whole “gluten free menu” thing and deferred to a more experienced employee. She, fortunately, knew all about the gluten free menu button on the computer, so she showed her “go here to the Gluten Free Menu, then just push the item and that’s it.” When our order was delivered, the server made a point of saying “Gluten Free Vietnamese Chicken Salad Rolls” when he announced the order to see who had what. That was very encouraging. And then when I ate the first bite… YUM!!! They we absolutely delicious!!! Fresh and tasty, the chicken, veggies and mint came wrapped in a nice soft rice paper. It was nice and cool and light, but with three full rolls to an order, very filling and satisfying....
I went gluten-free on December 3, 2009 because although it turns out that I don’t have Celiac, I’m very gluten intolerant. I was pretty sick for a long time (years of feeling tired and just generally unwell culminated into many awful months of severe sickness). But doctor after doctor, expensive test after test, no one could figure out why. Around October ’09, things got WAY worse and I thought I had something very, very wrong with me. Perhaps terminally wrong. I went through every test known to western medicine: blood work, CAT Scans, MRIs, Endoscopies, Colonoscopies… You name it, I had the test. But they couldn’t really find anything wrong with me. Doctors called it all kinds of different things (IBS, stress, fibromyalgia, depression) and prescribed all kinds of medications to mask the growing list of symptoms. Doctors sure do like to give you prescriptions! But it was a nurse practitioner who’d recently seen something on TV about Celiac Disease that put me on the road to Gluten Intolerance and, ultimately, to recovery. While her interest in food intolerance waned once my $800 Celiac genetic marker blood work came back negative, I finally took matters into my own hands and began an exclusionary diet the day after my Endoscopy. (I was told to keep up with the gluten FULL diet until the Endoscopy, which was difficult, but I’m glad I did: it showed severely blunted villi.) Once an actual “disease” was ruled out, all my doctors (GI, urologist, primary care, allergy) told me that it wasn’t the food that was making me sick. The blood test was negative! So...
I just got back from the allergist. “Hum… oh, no… you’re not allergic to gluten. No, no – you can still be intolerant of it – maybe even allergic. These scratch tests are only fifty percent eff – Oh! Wait! Yup. You’re allergic to Casein. What’s that? No, not meat. MILK.” I’m allergic to MILK not GLUTEN? Oi. So now I need to not only have a gluten free diet (’cause I don’t care WHAT the scratch test said: when I eat one BITE of bread my midsection grows more than FOUR INCHES in an hour from all the bloating and swelling that happens. Yes. I measured. Many times. ‘Cause I couldn’t believe it myself.) But now I need to add dairy products to my List o’ Nix. But I love, love, love cheese! And butter And ice cream … Hum. Wonder why I’m so .. um.. curvy. 😛 So, since I have to go through this, I figured I might as well write about it. ‘Cause it’s not going to be easy. And maybe if I blog about it, someone else can benefit from what I learn. And my mistakes. ‘Cause I’m sure there will be those. Here we...
