Gluten-free and No Dairy

We finally made the decision a couple of weeks to completely cut out all products that contain gluten and dairy. And I love my pasta and bread! When I was competing in the Subaru Triathlon series a number of years ago, 'carbo-loading' was necessary. And fun. And now that we have made the decision to be free of both gluten and dairy, my training for the Reggae Marathon in Negril December 5 will be a challenge http://www.reggaemarathon.com/.

But all is not lost: we have met some new people who have given us some great advice, we now eat better at home, and we have found a great restaurant in Thornton. And I still get to carbo-load!

So how did we get so extreme so quickly? It helped that Sally and I both have extreme tendencies. We tend to adopt quickly and push to the limits. Sally finally had enough with digestion problems and decided to do something radical about it.

Our first step was a visit to Georgian Health Foods in Wasaga Beach. It is owned and operated by Ausra Dalinda. You can find her co-ordinates here: http://wasagawomensbusiness.ca/index.php?action=display&cat=19 . She spent some time with us discussing our problem then made a number of suggestions on how we could eliminate gluten and dairy from our diet. We tried them and saw work positive results almost immediately. We also liked that she carried gluten and diary-free products.

Then we modified our cooking at home. Gone are the pasta's and wheat-based products. We replaced them with rice and rice-based dishes. We added fresh vegetables and various lentils to every meal.

Sally is a great cook and has really embraced spicy, flavourful Mediterranean, South Asian and Eastern style cooking. Yummy! And since I grew up in Jamaica and enjoyed many of these flavours, I didn't need convincing.

We also grow vegetables in our backyard garden. We tip-toed in last year with tomatoes and herbs and plan to expand upon that this summer.

And we have found a new 'favourite' restaurant. Sirenis in Thornton http://foodpages.ca/sirenis. We actually found them on Good Friday when we went there for their excellent gluten-free fish and chips. We have been there since and despite our best efforts we have not gotten them to spill the beans on their unique menu for their gluten-free batter. We will keep going back of course and will not give up.

I need your help. Do you have stories to share? Do you have recipes? If so, I would love you to share them. You can post them as comments below this article.

As a 'newbie convert', we are now passionate about sharing the benefits of our gluten and dairy-free diet.

Until next time...