Guts and Gory

When SweetPea and I first started dating (this would be shortly after dinosaurs became extinct, for those of you who are wondering), SweetPea was doing the Atkins diet. When I first heard about Atkins, I thought it was kind of a cool deal. After all, I really like meat. I like it so much that, back when I was omnivorous, I would usually be more inclined to have second helpings of a meat dish than dessert. So a diet where one was cut loose to eat only meat?

Um.

OK!

I never actually did the Atkins thing, but I did start doing some research. The more research I did, the less like a good idea it seemed. Add to that the fact that SweetPea's idea for good Atkins snack was a couple fistsfull of salami, which she then used to scoop up big globs of buttermilk ranch. Just looking at that made me nauseous and I could not see how anybody could make an argument that it was a healthy snack.

After a few months, she went off the diet. She started getting sick and craving bread and that was pretty much the beginning of the end. It took me a good couple of years to finally get her to stop believing that bread and carbohydrates were evil. Because it's not about carbs, themselves. It's eating the simple carbs, the ones that are promptly turned into sugar, that isn't so great. Whole grains and whole grain breads are good for you and provide lots of stuff your body needs to function.

OK, I don't think I ever really convinced her. I think she finally just wised up to not bringing up her "carbs are evil" philosophy.

Fast forward a couple of years to Thursday night. MonkeySee is at the junior high dance, and SweetPea, MonkeyDo and I go have dinner at Noble Vegetarian. We get the usual Verbosery favorites - Rubi Pearls, Rhoti Drumstick, Golden Rolls, and I get the Fresh from the Sea Clay Pot. About half an hour after dinner, SweetPea is so sick to her stomach that I have to drive her home and then turn around and go back to get MonkeySee. Considering that the only thing she had that I didn't was soy sauce, I couldn't imagine what why her stomach was in such a turmoil.

Until a couple of days later when some dots connected in my head.

I may have had a mild aneurysm, because, when I came to, I was, possibly, throwing a tantrum.

Why?

Well, at Noble Vegetarian, the things that we like are made, largely from Seitan. Which is made from wheat gluten.

Did you know that gluten sensitivity is kind of a big deal and there are a number of diseases and conditions attributed to gluten sensitivity,including Coeliac disease? And that one of symptoms of Coeliac disease is diarrhea?

What this means is that it's looking a lot like she was right all along and that breads and carbs really aren't that great for her. Although I don't believe she has any idea what she's going to be in for if we do switch to a gluten-free diet.

And by "we" I may mean "she".

Because it's really not as simple as: eggs, sausage and bacon make a good breakfast, just don't eat the pancakes. Since the sausage probably has wheat gluten in it, too.

So, frankly, I have no idea what this means for us. Since diagnosing Coeliac disease involves a biopsy of the small intestine and, once diagnosed, all they're really going to tell us is that she has to be on a gluten-free diet, I'm thinking that it might be a better choice to just switch to a gluten-free diet and see what happens.

If it was me, I know I certainly wouldn't want someone to biopsy my small intestine.