Motivation to change

Motivation to change:

Starting almost a whole year ago.

At the beginning of this blogging I thought that I was living a gluten free lifestyle, and i was.
But it just so happens that i recently got a MD Blood test for my wheat/gluten allergy  and it came back negative so what i have isn't even a full blown allergy!
A lot of my stomach issues turned out to be caused by stress, no surprise there.

Ending ? NO Continuing form here..

When i first found this out i went through a roller-coaster of different emotions. First i was relieved, then angry then laughing then i was annoyed again and finally i realized i didn't care.
This lifestyle works for me, sure it hard sometimes and its good to know that i don't have to starve if the only option contains gluten. I can have cheat days and stuff my face with Gluten and artificial food if i want to , but i really don't. I am so used to reaching for a healthy alternative and bread just tastes funny to me now. I cant lie i cherish my bagels still.
I like how this diet has given me energy and actually motivated me to change something about my life, which i haven't done in a long time; it feels good. I want to continue to feel good so this new pieave of information has motivated me to change for the better. For me, that means living a gluten free lifestyle, for you it could be something totally different. I know its not for everyone, to each there own, but i would tell everyone out there that its worth a try!

Challenge yourself and see if you can go Gluten free for a week, i bet you can ;)!

Bible Passage

A passage from the GLUTEN FREE BIBLE:

Gluten free Cookies

As you can probably tell with all the recipes i have shared thus far that i have a uncontrollable sweet tooth, and even though everything i eat is healthy, i do consume a colossal amount of sugar.  Also in case you hadn’t noticed none of the recipes I share take a long time to cook. I always find myself cooking when im hungry and I just want the quickest simplest options available. Probably not the best diet for everyone but these quick snacks works perfectly for me.

The recipe is for oatmeal raisin cookies but in my version you replace the raisins with chocolate and coconut shreds.🙈 you can get creative yourself and add nuts or whatever you fancy. I always improvise.

This passage was taken directly from my Gluten Free Bible cooking guide to greatness(I added that last little bit in myself).

Everyone loves cookies:)

THE GLUTEN FREE GOD HAS SPOKEN

Smoothie boss

Smoothies every damn day

You know Cake Boss? Well I'm the Smoothie bosss!!

I think I owe most of my energy from my new lifestyle to my smoothies, they motivated me to eat healthier. 

Fruits are filled with natural sugar that are good for you and don't make you crash after an hour or two like other artificial sugars. I always make sure to add in a couple of super healthy good for you ingredients like chai or flax seeds,lemon juice, etc. you don't even notice them.I like to mix up the different kinds. 

Some of my favorite recipes include these key ingredients: 

• BANANAS-cannot have a proper smoothie without bananas they are the most important ingredient!!!!
• Strawberries
• Raspberries
• Sugar free yogurt
• Orange juice
• Blueberries
• Pineapple 
• Mango
• Peaches
• Flax seeds
• Chai seeds
• Lemons
• Lemon juice
• Ice/water
• Apples

The trick that I have found with smoothies is Less is More. If you try to add to many flavours all the good taste gets lost, your better off starting small with a few ingredients in each smoothie. They are the best to experiment with, go ahead try one yourself and tell me how it turned out!!

Restaurants vs.Home Cooking

RESTAURANTS Vs. AT HOME COOKING

If you are going out to eat at a restaurant you are going to have to be that annoying customers who asks a zillion questions about how the food is made and what goes into it. You end up asking for a lot considerations ex. without this or can that be cooked separately from everything else or with that on the side etc.

I barely eat out unless i have too because it is a huge pain in the ass but some places, like Swiss Chalet, East Side Marios, Boston Pizza,etc. have adaptations of Gluten free meals on their menu which taste amazing. But i do recommend cooking for yourself at home much more often. 
The benefits include: 

1. You will gain experience and learn new skills for cooking. 
2. You might actually like it and make it your new hobby!
3. You will know exactly what you are eating and hopefully where the ingredients are coming from. Which gives you a peace of mind that those who eat out all the time never have.
4. You will save TONS of money$$!

Honestly it is worth a shot just to be healthier. You will learn a lot going Gluten free, and a lot of what you learn will be positive; trust me:)

Microwave free

MICROWAVES AINT FOR ME

Microwave free is another lifestyle diet myself and my whole family have starting to get into. 

I have read up a lot on what microwaves actually do to your food and they change everything about your meal!

Pulled pork stripes with half of a medium rare steak with sides of
 Yukon gold potatoes(my personal favorite)
and loads of soft and juicy carrots.

By exposing your food to radiation and heat, it alters the very core of the molecules in the food. So by the time that you take out your food and eat it; it's not the same food anymore.

Microwaves competition looks a lot like this.
Use steam to heat up your food or to keep it warm for hours.

Best dinner I have had in awhile and that might be because of how it was heated up or how it was kept warm is what I should say.

My mom puts aside a plate for my because she is an angel and because they never know what time I will be home. 

But instead of having to hear it up like I have done my whole life my granny from Ireland just recently showed us a better way. 

1. Fill a pot with water and bring that water to a boil 
2. Then place plate of food on top of the pot almost like a lid.
3. Lastly place a lid on top of the plate of food to keep the heat being generated from the boiling water in and viola! 

Method to the Madness

Method to the Madness

Blue plates

I not sure if any of you have noticed, but most of the pictures I share of my home-cooked meals are usually on blue plates.
I had no idea that there was a reason for having blue plates, to be honest i had never really thought anything of it. Until just recently my mom recently informed me why.
Years ago she heard of a theory that
if you eat off of blue plates you are known to eat less food.
Interesting enough i am studying marketing so i do know that colors have a serious effect on how people perceive things. But truth be told i goggled it after she told me so I had other sources to back me up, and i do. Tons of studies have been conducted in order to get tot the bottom of this and just to put a statistic to it around 9/10 the participant eating off the blue plates ate less than those eating off of other colors.


Fun fact for the day. :)

NADIAS melted chocolate brownies

This is the recipe straight from Nadia's baking class at George Brown college in Toronto.(I'll post this clearer in the favorite recipes section of my blog! Look for it in more detail there!) 

Voila!!

A few tiny slices of this creation is really all you need. It's the most fudgy/chocolatey brownie ever you wouldn't even know it's gluten free!! 

Caramel, pralines and gluten free brownie bits.

Creations

Tons of asparagus soaked in teriyaki sauce and steamed to perfection with slowly roasted pork cooked in lemon and apple juice with garlic and onions. and the good old mashed potatoes with garlic mashed through them. This was unreal.

Then it turned into an appetizing lunch and a great study snack for me!.

Gluten free spaghetti with layers of melted cheddar cheese throughout it and covered in Parmesan.
100% guilt of being completely addicted to cheese. This was my lunch at my internship!

Munching on cheese and crackers and gluten free pretzles with my man.
 Cant forget the wine either, its my mission in life to try every single wine out there!
This is my all time favorite snack.

Smoothie every damn day. Fresh fruits and chai seeds!

Meals and snacks for days

Combination of my past dinners and some breakfasts and delicious desserts and snacks😍

Plain rice, baby carrots and roast beast.

This is my new GLUTEN FREE bible, and it really is the Lord speaking to me in terms
 of cooking and baking, cant wait to try it out!

Xmas was was a month late, but not any less delicious. So worth the wait.

Best wakeup meal ever. All you need is a cutting board and a pan to fry them on!

Frozen chocolate yogurt with bananananaanas and raspeberries. YUM.

Gluten free Brownies

Gluten free Shhh'mores Brownies

Unbelievably delicious smores brownies, totally Gluten free! 

Ingredients

Brownie Layer

2 cups of All Purpose Gluten free flour(any will do)
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/3 cup (27 g) of Unsweetened cocoa powder
1 cup (200 g) of sugar
8 tablespoons (112 g) of unsalted butter (melted and cooled)
1 egg+ 1 egg yolk beaten @ room temperature
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
Shhhhh'mallow Layer
1 packet (1-2 tablespoons) of unflavored powdered gelatin
1/2 cup of water
1 cup (200 g) of sugar
1/8 teaspoon of cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon of salt
Chocolate Layer
4 onces of chopped up bittersweet chocolate
3 onces of crumbled glutenfree graham crackers

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 20-22 minutes

Result: 16- 20 mouth watering, marshhhmelloweyy chocalatityyy brownies in just under an hour, fun to with with a friend or by yourself if you suddenly get a craving like I always do.

Got this beauty of a recipe from the gluten free shoestring! check it out -->

http://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Shoestring-Quick-Easy-Love--Fast/dp/0738215937/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332357840&sr=1-1

- 1/3 of the Gluten free cookbooks I ordered last week, this is the first of them to come in!

GLUTEN FREE OPTIONS TO EAT

GLUTEN FREE OPTIONS TO EAT:

All of my friends tell me a whole slew of things I cant eat, and at first that is all that I focused on; I just wanted to eat easy normal food like they were; but instead now I try and focus on the things I know I can eat. Like these:

Bean and corn tacos, with salsa(i opt for no salsa) and TONS OF CHEESE ,lettuce and whatever else you want to add, its your creation! Tacos are easy to make and fun to eat. The corn and the beans together taste like the ground beef used for tacos. You can use regular ground beef but you have to read the ingredients and make sure whatever gravy or sauce you put in with the beef is Free of Gluten or Wheat products(hard to find).

You can still have french fries! which you will hear from a lot of people that you cant(they don't know what they are talking about) You just have to make sure the oil that you deep fry the fries in hasn't been used to deep fry anything battered like Chicken fingers,etc. The seasoning of the steak is important as well, just regular salt and pepper work; cook that meat till a nice Medium-Rare and you are eating like a queen(or king).

These are cereal options that are Gluten-free and taste delicious. Unfortunately most of these products are sold in the States and are a bit tricky to find in Canada.

HealthyGlutes numero uno

Testing…testing…1..2..3…Hey I’m Kassi Cassidy and I started “HealthyGlutes”. This blog is all about a Gluten free lifestyles and all that it entail from my experiences, it’s for a class project. I think I might even keep it up after the class is done, I mean everyone needs a hobby righttt...

I will be sharing:

• Mouth watering GLUTENFREE recipes
• Lifestyle diets tips
• What you can and can't eat if you are allergic to Gluten/Wheat

The recipes are DELICIOUS trust me im one of the pickiest people on the planet (me!) if I find these foods yummy, there is a high chance you will too.

But I will get to those, in my first post I think I should explain why I chose to blog about Gluten.

WHY IS EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT GLUTEN FREE STUFF NOW?

Trust me I was asking the exact same question, until about 6 months ago when I found out I was allergic to Gluten along with a pretty hefty list of other delicious things I can no longer enjoy.

Oh I’m sorry do I sound bitter? Yeah I am a little bitter still, but I’m starting to see the upsides to being Gluten free. I’m not going to lie to you guys and say it’s an easy lifestyle; you really do have to cut out a lot of delicious foods it takes a lot of self-restraint and dedication. And trust me I've caved more time then I can count, especially at the beginning; I just didn't want it to be true. My entire diet composed of carbs and tons and tons of bread and pasta so it was one of the biggest life changes I have ever had to make when I was told I couldn't have MOST of my favorite things anymore.
WEIRDEST PART?

I had no idea that what I was eating could have been causing me to feel so crappy; I mean whenever I ate anything with Gluten in it (which is almost everything I ate) I wasn’t reacting like I do for my other allergies.

Which is a long list:

1. All animals that have fur
2. Animal saliva(gross I know)
3. Dust/pollen
4. Oh! and I’m deathly allergic to kiwis
5. And now Gluten/Wheat products
6. Milk
7. Cheese(but I cant stop eating cheese)
8. Yogurt
9. Corn
10. I think that's 

SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE:

Disorientation

Nausea

Bloating

Heartburn

Farting(seriously)

Rashes or eczema

Anxiety/Depression Joint &Muscle pains Stomach aches Headaches/ Migraines

I promise my next blogs will be less about me.

Here are a couple of informational websites just talking about what to do when you think you could be allergic to Gluten.Its incredible how much of the food we eat, day in and day out is loaded with Gluten and if you are allergic and don't know like I was, these are some signs to keep a look-out for:

http://celiacdisease.about.com/od/glutenintolerance/ss/Nine-Signs-You-May-Have-A-Gluten-Allergy_11.htm

http://www.healthline.com/health/allergies/gluten-food-list

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/08/17/5-signs-that-you-might-have-a-sensitivity-to-gluten-not-know-it/