I don’t talk about myself too much here, at least, not in this sort of way. But it’s Monday, the first day of a new week, so it’s time to tell a story.
I have to make a proper life changing decision. One that is hopefully, going to be for the better. The idea of sticking to a gluten free diet is not a new one for me. I was told in 2009 that I was gluten intolerant to avoid it.
I didn’t do a very good job.
The thing is, eating bread doesn’t make me feel ill, I grew up on bowls of pasta as life support, and margarita pizza is pretty much my favourite thing on earth. So I figured that if I kept my gluten intake to a minimum, then I would be okay.
I am coming up to three years of being on the road almost constantly, and often the easiest thing to do while travelling is just eat the bread, pastry and pasta, and deal with it. Or so I thought.
This is not only my favourite pizza, it’s my favourite pizza with buffalo mozzarella and at my favourite place in Rome.
Fast forward to 2012 when I was then diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease. Actually, I wasn’t properly diagnosed. Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune disease that then attacks the thyroid. Thyroid problems can be a side effect of Hashimoto’s, but it is not the disease itself. So even though I had the typical blood test results for Hashimoto’s (and continue to do so), because Hashimoto’s was not effecting my thyroid, the doctor didn’t know what to do except say to come back and re-test my blood and thyroid in a year.
I have since learnt that unless Hashimoto’s is causing obvious thyroid problems the doctors don’t know how to treat it, as due to lack of education and misunderstanding of the disease they treat as a thyroid disease and not an auto-immune disease. Anyway, that’s the technical garb over with.
So the other day, when filling in my spare time by reading about Hashimoto’s (which is my other hobby, other than this blog) and anything I could possibly do to make myself feel better, I stumbled across this video.
If you have Hashimoto’s, you might find it interesting. But in short, not did it only answer a couple of questions and clarify some things for me, the most important thing I took away was when the presenter explicitly states that anyone with Hashimoto’s should avoid gluten – almost to the same extent as a person who is celiac.
Now, I already knew about the relationship between gluten and Hashimoto’s and had been making a good effort to avoid it (which means NO bread or pasta, ever). But I still had not gotten fussy about trace gluten, breadcrumbs, a small amount of food preparation. Basically, I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.
I stumbled across the video on a Hashimoto’s blog in a post called “20 minutes might just give you the information you need to change your health!” but I didn’t think take the wild claim in the title too seriously before watching. How wrong was I.
After watching the video I realised that if I want to start feeling like a human again (yes, it’s that bad), I am going to have to make the commitment to be 100% gluten-free.
Luckily there is hope in the world. I have been following another food-loving travel blogger for awhile, Legal Nomads, who happens to be celiac and therefore on a strict 100% gluten free diet. To make my self better in this dark moment of half realisation/ half guilt for not making this change earlier, I looked back on her site to read about some of her experiences. I took comfort in reading about her positive experience in Italy being gluten free.
It’s now been a couple of days since I was curled up in my hotel room bed, watching this video, and since then I have been trying out my new 100% gluten free diet. Obviously this is not easy in my work, which means I am travelling all the time and staying in hotels – lots of frequent travelling and no opportunity to cook and prepare even a proper breakfast. But so far, I have been met with positive responses.
On Saturday morning I visited Celisioso, a Gluten free bakery in Madrid.
There I bought a gluten free AND sugar free cupcake (as with Hashimoto’s you are supposed to avoid sugar at all costs too), and also a piece of sweet bread (sugar and gluten free again) that I kept for my breakfast on the bus the following morning. I left the busy bakery happy about my purchases – so happy I had to snap a shot for Instagram in the beautiful autumn sunshine – and feeling empowered that I could make this change and still treat myself, guilt and gluten free.
It’s not only gluten, but sugar free too. But it looks just like the real deal!
The next challenge however, would be Saturday evening.
It was the beginning of a new tour which meant a half hour meeting to go through the tour with my new guests, and then onwards to dinner at a nearby restaurant. I chose to visit a great little local place that I love, Muxia. They specialise in seafood and are they are very accommodating, which worked out well as I wanted to keep things as “fuss free” as possible.
By a stroke of good luck I also have two people who are gluten intolerant on my current tour, so I had to ask the restaurant about gluten free dishes on behalf of my passengers anyway. I’d been to this restaurant a number of times before, they know me well enough, but have never been concerned about having dishes with gluten before so I didn’t want them to think I was weird. Okay guys, so I am really over thinking this, right? I know! But it is taking some courage to finally do this and get used to it. So it worked out well that on my first night enquiring in restaurants about the particular makeup of dishes that I had two other people to hide behind. But I digress. Back to the food.
I established that all the fish and seafood that were battered were done so with harina de trigo, wheat flour.
So I ordered nine different raciones in total, in order to have a variety of dishes, and only two of which were prepared with flour i.e.: gluten. I didn’t think this was a bad effort. I had read somewhere online last week that Spain is one of the easiest countries in Europe for people following a gluten free diet, and I definitely felt at ease this Saturday night in the restaurant.
Then, last night in Granada, I went out for a couple of drinks and tapas. This was something that I was dreading as a new-found 100% gluten free, as in Granada many of the tapas are on bread or such things in the preparation, and the tapas just come free with the drinks, so sometimes there is not a choice. I went to a small bar in Granada on Calle Elvira, but they told me they didn’t have any thing that was gluten free. I said no problem, I would just have a drink (it seriously wasn’t a problem, I wasn’t super hungry anyway). The bartender scurried away for a minute and then came back and said the chef would prepare me something special. All this effort for a FREE tapa. I was impressed.
He also told me that they had a gluten free beer on the menu, but I skipped this in favour of a vino blanco.
At least I can still have wine. Phew.
The hotel I am staying in at the moment in Granada has a buffet breakfast, so this morning I took my three pieces of fruit, small bag of seeds that I carry around (uh, I know what you are thinking – weirdo!) and a half size tin of coconut milk that I picked up from a health food store in Madrid on Saturday morning. Okay, picked up is a loose way of describing it. More like, I bought the health food store out of small tins of coconut milk. So after a horrible night’s sleep (perhaps partly due to my body adjusting and but mostly due to the two loud guys that stood outside my room at 4.30am talking for half an hour in loud, animated Spanish) I enjoyed my healthy start to the morning in among a sea of sticky pastries and tostadas.
It’s not surprising that so far I have managed the last couple of days travelling in Spain sin gluten y sin problemas. I found out today that there is even a fairly new online TV channel called Gente sin Gluten (people without gluten). At the moment it is all in Spanish, but an English version is coming soon.
So today I am feeling positive about remaining 100% gluten free, even while travelling, and improving my life and hopefully, my health too.
I didn’t have one last big pig out with my favourite The idea of travelling with intolerances and allergies can suck, and especially when you love food (just allow me a moment of self-pity here guys), but I am determined to make this work. Just stick by me!
Do you have to stick to a gluten free diet or deal with other food allergies/problems while travelling? How do you manage it?
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Cat of Sunshine and Siestas says
Good on you, Cyra! As someone struggling to change my eating habits (not due to illness or intolerance, but wanting to be healthier), I often struggle to make proper choices when it comes to food.
Guess that means no Taifa? For what it’s worth, there’s a gluten-free bakery in Reina Mercedes (you can take the 1, 3 or 34 and end up close by) that had gluten-free snacks. Thankfully, Spain is becoming more tolerant to food allergies, and I’d be happy to suggest a few places with some tapas – mostly fish and veggie! Also grew that you reached out to Jodi – I have sent her blog to a bajillion people traveling abroad with food allergies, especially for those translation cards. Gary Arndt of Everyhere, Every Trip is Celiac as well, which I didn’t know when I took him for tapas – oops!
Cyra says
I just saw these comments now. Don’t know how I missed them. Thanks Cat. You can do it! Even if you don’t have a medical need to make changes, you probably will feel so much better anyway.
No Taifa for me 🙁 I will have to try and find that gluten free bakery next time in Seville!
Yep, her blog is a great source of comfort. Oh no, thanks to all the fried stuff in Seville, tapas can be a nightmare if you aren’t prepared haha. 🙂
Adina Marguerite says
You can do it! And it all gets better once you make the decision to go entirely gluten free. Once you get used to it and begin to find replacements for the gluten filled goodies you used to love – it will just become a regular part of who you are.
I’ve been gluten free for almost six years now and travel for both my day job and my freelance travel work. Eventually, you’ll find a routine that works well for you with eating safe foods while bopping in and out of hotels and restaurants. For me, hotel travels means I try to get a place with a fridge and always bring a bag of granola, dried fruit and nuts, and bars with me. You can also make a pretty great in-room salad with just bag of greens, fancy cheese, tomatoes, and olive oil! Eating out can be trickier in some places (but super easy in others) – but pre-trip research and advance phone calls make everything easier.
Cyra says
I am already getting so much more used to it, and the difference in general well being is so good that I could never go back. You are right – it is just becoming a part of who I am. No biggie. 🙂
Thanks for sharing your success story with travelling gluten free, it’s good to hear that it can be possible! I have been lucky so far with eating out but if I am not sure I have no problem about calling ahead. People are surprisingly happy to help.
Whispering Gums says
Good for you Cyra. For some of us following a good intolerant diet makes a huge difference to their well-being. It changed my life after years of debilitating, misery-making chronic eczema, but it does complicate life too, particularly when travelling.
Europe is tricky … SO much bread, particularly for breakfast. I have such an odd bag of intolerances too … like cow milk (loved Spain’s Manchego), tomato, orange, beef, peanuts, etc etc. But it’s getting easier as more food outlets recognise the need to cater for us.
Cyra says
Thanks!
Europe can be tricky, but I am lucky that Spain has become very aware, especially for gluten. I love that in Spain it’s always easy to find grilled seafood and things like that, so it does make it easier. Tomato and orange are definitely different though, and I can imagine that would be hard to communicate sometimes, especially if there was a language barrier as they are not common allergies/intolerances.