Gluten free lunches

Considering my blog gets a lot of traffic from those seeking information about the GAPS diet, I thought I'd do a foodie post about something that affects us everyday. But first, just to explain why we did the GAPS diet ... I had Nathan on the GAPS diet 2.5yrs ago when I aimed to heal his suspected leaky gut (perhaps as a consequence of having damage from eating gluten prior to his coeliac diagnosis). We had ended up in hospital with his kidneys not working (of unknown causes - so frustrating to have no answers to that one except a name of the condition based on a bunch of symptoms rather than a known cause - idiopathic is the name they give to that kind of situation) and it was a time that I decided to reassess if I could be doing all that I could health-wise

The GAPS diet includes eating entirely fresh prepared foods due to the nature of the restrictions - no grains of any description, no starch (ie potatoes), no dairy (just for a limited time), and no sugar. The reason for the diet was one of those long-shot kind of things that could really only do good, and although not directly related to kidney function, I wanted to take a deeper look at his immune function and the way that he processed his food. (As an update on the Nephrotic Syndrome - he's been all good. Had one relapse a year ago (successfully and quickly treated) and fine since then. Here's to a further 4yrs of no relapses and he can then be considered to have outgrown that unfortunate childhood illness.)

Back to the nature of this post. Nathan has Coeliacs disease and was diagnosed when he was 2.5yrs old, which means that he needs to be on a 100% GF diet for the rest of his life. The good news is that this is the "cure" to the disease, so it's not a big deal in the big scheme of things (just frustrating at times), and we are fortunate that he doesn't suffer any life threatening repercussions if he were to consume something containing gluten (just a big tummy ache and negative consequences in the long-term if done repeatedly) - although we've not stuffed up on a big-scale as far as I'm aware, and certainly not even a trace for a long time.

So, I thought I'd now do a post on what I cook/prepare for lunches and snacks.

Since starting school, our lunches in particular have changed quite dramatically. Firstly, I have discovered that making GF lunches is much easier and cheaper than what I expected. This is the first time ever that he has been "allowed" to eat gluten free bread every day. I used to ration it because it's sooooo expensive and since I was feeding 3 of us at home for lunch, I wasn't about to make several meals, so we all ate GF lunches. But a cooked lunch I did still make to avoid the sandwich trap - hence the cost and the headache!

I don't find GF bread to be very nice at being sandwich bread (tends to be hard and dry even when fresh). However, with school lunches, I initially thought I'd give him 2 x slices of bread as a part of his lunch until I figured out what to do. But it's actually working out quite well. And he's not fussy about the bread - he likes it even.

Here's what his lunch-bag contains every day:

~ I make the bread into toasted mousetraps (GF marmite-alternative with grated cheese and then grilled) and he eats them cold.

~ Half a homemade GF muffin

~ Container of homemade popcorn

~ A few dehydrated apple slices

~ A piece of fruit (feijoas, apple, pear or banana depending on season)

~ A small GF biscuit that I buy

Weekend lunches include:

~ Baked beans (one that doesn't contain wheat)

~ Rice noodle omelette

~ Vegetable fritatta

~ Corn fritters

~ Sandwiches using corn thins and filled with salad/eggs etc

~ Homemade pizza with sauce, bacon and cheese

~ GF scones or fresh made bread

Snacks include:

~ Fruit

~ Carrot sticks

~ Corn thins with peanut butter

~ Popcorn

Dinner:

Well, these are fairly straightforward if you're cooking from scratch. We basically eat the same as what we used to with just a few modifications. GF pasta instead of wheat pasta, rice noodles instead of any other sort of noodles/spaghetti, no packet/jar sauces (although there is a growing range of products that just happen to have no gluten in them - not specifically marketed or priced as GF, just the manufacturers must realise they will tap a larger part of the market if they replace wheat thickeners with corn thickeners), plain corn chips for nachos rather than flavoured, tamari sauce instead of soy sauce, etc.

So, although my wee fella's suffered a few medical conditions in his short life, he's actually very healthy and robust when his kidney's are functioning as they should and he doesn't eat any gluten!

PS: Gosh, what a long rambly post!