There’s no doubt about it, I’ve got the gluten-free blues. Since tasting that scrumptious pandesal from last week, lately, bread is all I can think about. Sandwiches, paninis, wraps… it’s all I can think about from the time I wake up to the time I fall asleep. Temptations abound everywhere I go and though I know to stay away from it, for the good of my own digestive system, that yeast and gluten together conspire and beckon me close even if I am trying very hard not to think about it.
Getting on the gluten-free bandwagon was a choice I recently made. Having witnessed my sister’s weight loss from following the Wheat Belly guidelines, the goal was to become gluten-free and grain-free. That meant staying away from foods with gluten or wheat in it, i.e. bread, beer, soy sauce, etc…, as well as grains like rice and corn. Except for beer, all the latter mentioned were staples to my diet. Heck, I’m Filipino after all and this body of mine was built from rice, mamon and pandesal. When we came to live in the U.S., it then became about the sausage and pineapple pizzas, In-N-Out hamburgers, carne asada tacos and pastrami sandwiches that were ordered occasionally as takeout meals during the week. Not to mention unlimited access to countless chocolate croissants and fleur de sel cookies met during my stint in a pastry kitchen. Aahhhh, the days of gluten, I call them. Such wild and carefree moments with flour not long ago….
Going gluten-free was far from what I considered for myself. I love(d) bread. I was a baker for two years and I absolutely enjoyed the process of yeast and flour coming together to form beautiful gluten strands when kneaded with my bare hands. I loved that encounter of tacky dough against my skin and its eventual release from the heels of my palms. Best of all, of course, is the end product itself that has risen well in the oven and is baked to golden brown; every time, a deliciousness accompanied by a symphonic aroma of sweet, warm and goodness. You just can’t help pick up a roll or two to taste and devour.
I didn’t want to go gluten-free let alone grain free. Around the time I was contemplating the decision, I had just figured out how to make good pizza dough. I’ve been laboring over it for weeks, I was so proud of it. I hesitated the gluten-free route because I didn’t want to give up on making and eating pizza. However, after perusing through a borrowed Wheat Belly book from the library, what convinced me to transition is the explanation for wheat and how it isn’t what it used to be. It’s been genetically altered so many times over that the resulting wheat, the modern wheat, may be the source of many health problems, obesity being one of them. All my life, I’ve had weight issues, but any diet or exercise regiment was often short-lived. I equate diets with deprivation and I really don’t like being deprived of a lot of things. But being able to have most of everything but the wheat and the grain… why not give it a try.
It’s a difficult road to take, gluten-free and grain-free. Though the goal is to be both, I am neither a full convert at this point. For two months, I have eliminated many gluten products from my diet (the soy sauce and countless bread tastings for this blog still creeps in though), and limited most of my grain intake. What I can honestly say about myself is that I am predominantly gluten-free. I was never a fan of diets, but becoming gluten-free empowered me to make a simple choice of whether to have or not have bread. Finding myself before trays and trays of day-old croissants, danishes and morning buns at work, I hearken back to Hamlet when I ask, “to bread or to not to bread? That is the question.” I pick up that piece of chocolate croissant, hold it up in the air, and bust out with my own soliloquy, “whether to endure the pangs and sorrows of outrageous hunger.” In other words, I am so hungry, should I have this piece of bread? And as I imagine having this with a fresh cup of coffee (cream and sugar please), I then think of my own small accomplishment which is the weight I’ve lost since staying away from many gluten products. I abandon the bread and walk away.
more than sandwiches 
Loving that Gluten Free Bread
I don’t think we’ve truly tasted bread until we make it with our own hands. I don’t think I would come to this thought had I not turned predominantly gluten free. For in comparison, today’s bread is air. We are sold fluffed air for bread. This is something I wouldn’t have arrived at if I didn’t look for an alternative bread for the almost gluten free lifestyle I was about to plunge into.
As a former baker, bread has always been important to me. From the two years I spent baking overnight, turning out croissants and danishes and muffins on a daily basis, all I can say is that it is as much a craft as a cobbler is to a pair of shoes or a cheesemonger to a sharp aged piece of cheddar cheese. No one can begin to understand a baker’s craft unless one walked in their shoes, and how they might agonize over unproofed dough, tracking down the culprit as to whether it is due to insufficient warmth or overly salted dough. These kind of details are enough to make a baker go insane at three o’clock in the morning. But no one would know, no one would see except him or herself and God. These are the quiet hours when there is nobody around the kitchen and the baker is forced to come to a decision as to whether to start again and face the embarrassment of a fatal mistake as to why a hefty amount of croissant dough met its demise that morning.
Changing over to this new lifestyle, I discovered quickly that not everything gluten free is gold. Although many products are sold out there, some are just really unpleasant and unpalatable. Working with sandwiches, it really makes me think twice about going back when I encounter such a gluten free product. I ask myself why it is I surrendered the joy of a croissant sandwich over this grainy, unbreadlike-tasting bread. That’s redundant and quite a mouthful, but I just spent $7 on a loaf of bread that I’ll force myself to eat because I spent 7 bucks on it even if it isn’t good. I’ll toast the hell out of it and slather it with a ton of cream cheese and strawberry jam just to eclipse the taste of that bread out of my mouth. I’ll chase it with coffee or milk if I have to, just as long as it is gluten free.
The one thing gluten free contributed, aside from minor weight loss and not being quite so bloated all the time, is how it reacquainted me with baking again. Now more than ever, baking becomes necessary. My dissatisfaction with products I’ve encountered encourages me to recreate breads and desserts according to my standards. The idea of making something staple and needed as bread has never surfaced until now. Sure I made my pandesal, but I can’t eat it daily as I do my new gluten free loaf. When I worked in pastry, though an enticing place to work in, no one can really consume too many cookies or brownies for that matter because that would be sugar overkill. Fear of diabetes lurks not too far and if one wasn’t careful with the array of chocolate cakes, ganaches and mousses abound, one can easily trip into some health-related pitfall, if not diabetes, then overconsumption made manifest around the waist.
Bread, when one is gluten free, takes on a different notion. It no longer becomes that item of abuse like the unlimited, free cheese biscuits or house rolls delivered to the table at our favorite restaurant. Oh God, no. I look at that bread basket now and see it as poison. Take it away please! The gluten free bread becomes, in essence, a food item reeling me back to what is important and necessary. This is what being gluten free means. Going back and rediscovering what the basic staple, such as bread, really means to one’s body. In a case like this, the bread without its gluten foundation becomes more substantial, a food item that the body learns to appreciate and not take for granted.