Pitfalls Of A Gluten-Free Diet

[caption id="attachment_821544" align="alignleft" width="1068"] Bigstockphoto.com/young beautiful African American woman enjoys while eating delicious pasta[/caption] If you’ve been diagnosed with Celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, then you’re probably coming to a frightening realization: gluten is in just about everything. There are a few common paths people take when they need to cut out gluten, ranging from cutting out carbohydrates all together just to be safe, to paying for high-priced, gluten-free, home delivery services. But these paths are pretty extreme and aren’t quite sustainable. You don’t need to do anything drastic to cut gluten out of your diet, so long as you know what to look for. It’s worth doing a little research, or you can end up deficient in nutrients, or downright bored with your diet. Here are pitfalls of the gluten-free diet. [caption id="attachment_713621" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Gluten-free products

You may quickly discover the gluten-free bread, gluten-free pizza and gluten-free pasta at your grocery store. But these products tend to contain something called xanthan gum, which sticks to your insides and causes constipation. [caption id="attachment_707056" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Cutting out all bread and pasta

There are good, healthy gluten-free products. Just sure they’re made from non-wheat flour like chickpea or brown rice and don’t contain a long list of strange ingredients. [caption id="attachment_701294" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Cutting out carbs entirely

You don’t need to live life without carbohydrates! You can eat potatoes, rice, butternut squash and much more. And you need carbohydrates to eat a balanced diet. [caption id="attachment_713648" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Assuming it’s low-calorie

Don’t believe that just because you’re on a gluten-free diet, you can stop counting calories. A gluten-free diet can be just as high in calories as any other diet, so you should still be wary of calorie counts. [caption id="attachment_698794" align="alignleft" width="421"] Sushi/Flickr.com[/caption]

Thinking sushi is over

Yes, a lot of sushi restaurants sneak soy sauce (which contains gluten) into every roll they make. But if you ask them to make a roll exactly how you want it, they will. Oh, and fish sauce is delicious, doesn’t contain gluten, and can replace your so sauce. [caption id="attachment_697222" align="alignleft" width="468"] Shutterstock.com/Menu[/caption]

Forgetting to ask about the gluten-free menu

A lot of restaurants have gluten-free menus today or have at least trained their servers about which foods don’t contain gluten. So ask! They’ll help you. [caption id="attachment_710484" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Failing to ask questions

Don’t forget that your server isn’t an expert on living gluten-free unless she lives that way, too. So ask questions like “Did these share the same fryer as something made with gluten?” They may not think about those things. [caption id="attachment_706853" align="alignleft" width="420"] Shutterstock[/caption]

Trying “just a little”

After you haven’t had gluten for months, you may be tempted one night and try one bite of your friend’s regular pasts. But now that you haven’t been eating the food, your body is even more sensitive to gluten, and this little bite could make you sicker than ever. [caption id="attachment_713130" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Switching to hard alcohol

Okay so beer is out, but try not to fall into just drinking hard alcohol. That’s just not good for your liver.   [caption id="attachment_715033" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Shopping at the wrong store

Believe it or not, the “fancy” health food store probably has better prices on gluten-free products because they have established relationships with their vendors, and have bought from them since long before the gluten-free craze. Major supermarkets up-charge for these items because, since they only buy limited amounts, they pay high prices for them, too. [caption id="attachment_716930" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Paying for pricey delivery

You do not need an expensive, home-delivery catering company to make you a gluten-free menu. Actually, just take a look at their menus online and try to recreate them. [caption id="attachment_704420" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Tell your friends

You may feel high-maintenance by telling your friend, who is hosting you for dinner, that you can’t eat dinner. But if you go there with the plan of just eating whatever non-gluten items she’s made, you may end up eating spinach for dinner. [caption id="attachment_715039" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Failing to read labels

Unless you are eating whole, raw food like a raw chicken breast or a head of broccoli, read the ingredients label. Let’s put it this way; if there is an ingredients label, read it because gluten sneaks into a lot of things. [caption id="attachment_702575" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Assuming you need the gluten-free menu

While a restaurant has a gluten-free menu, you aren’t limited to that. There are probably several items they make, as-is, that are naturally free of gluten like their salads and meat and potato dishes. [caption id="attachment_716479" align="alignleft" width="420"] Image Source: Shutterstock[/caption]

Thinking your life is over

There is a learning curve, but you get the hang of gluten-free living. Eventually, you find the foods you love, and you don’t even feel deprived. All you know is that you feel a lot better than you used to feel.

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