Cheer up, buttercup

Sometimes it's hard, being gluten-free. I found it particularly difficult in the first few months, during that period when I didn't know what to eat or do... or anything! I found myself looking at everything that I couldn't eat, not at what I could eat. On particularly low days I'd walk past the crumbed fish in the supermarket and just sigh.

(The world is saved, I figured out how to crumb my own fish, gluten-free style!)

I still get days like that, who doesn't? Besides, I love crumbed fish.

But that's not the problem. The thing is that I'm not focusing on the positive things about being G-free, I'm thinking about all the wrong stuff. And that hurts.

So I devised a little exercise to remind all of us of how much scope we actually have with this seemingly restrictive diet. Look at what we can eat in this weeks supermarket mailer:

Apples, margarine, chicken breast and milk chocolate. Yum! Everything on this page!

 Tomato sauce, cheese, water, tea and juice.

Coke, potato chips, reduced cream, sweetened condensed milk and cottage cheese.
I put question marks with V and the Onion soup mix because: 1) I'm not sure if the V is gluten-free, I think it's gross anyway. 2) the Maggie brand pictured contains gluten, but the Pams brand is gluten-free. Yay! Spread the word!

 Ham (check the ingredients), salami (check the ingredients again), tarakihi fillets, red cod fillets and cold smoked salmon (ie, the best thing EVER)

  We can eat EVERYTHING on this page, yay for meat! There is no way I'm going vegetarian.

 I call the bread section of the supermarket "Glutenberg" because I want to escape whenever I'm near it, like escaping from a WWII prison camp. I'm the Cooler Queen.
The only things we can eat on this page are lollies (sigh, check the ingredients), crystallised ginger and pistachios.

 But cheer up! We can eat ALL kinds of fresh fruit and veggies!... Apart from pre-packaged coleslaw, which is no big loss.

 Eggs, juice, canned beetroot and canned soup (check the ingredients).

 Coffee, laundry detergent, razors and tea. Plus all the other non-food items like soap, stockings and kitchen appliances. I'm so glad rice cookers don't automatically 'gluten' our food. Who knows, it could have become special feature?

 Chicken, yoghurt, more yoghurt, margarine-esque spread, juice, cheese and ice cream.

 Umm... all of this is gluten-free - hurrah!

 Thankfully the toilet paper and washing powders are also gluten-free, not so sure about the pet food down the bottom though... but I don't plan on eating Purina One for lunch any time soon.

 We can't drink beer, which is a bit strange in New Zealand...

But we can drink wine, if that's what you're into.

Canned fruit salad is G-free, but I circled Pantene shampoo... dun, dun, duh... I think it contains gluten. Gotta watch out for that shampoo. Did you know that it sometimes contains hydrolyzed wheat protein (aka, gluten)? Evil. I tell ya.


So, that's a little tour of my supermarket mailer. It was a really fun thing to do and made me remember how blessed I am to be able to eat dairy, meat and veggies.


Until next time, focus on what you can eat, not on what you can't.