…the journey so far.

So, once again, I’ve been engaging in a really good comments thread with Kris lately and felt the answers to some of the questions might make for good blog entries, so here we are.

Okay, so Kris asked what sort of substitutions I have to make with my BistroMD plan due to avoiding wheat gluten.

Here’s the general answer:

I avoid wheat gluten, which means I can’t have any bread or pasta (there ARE breads and pastas that are made with corn flour and rice flour, but BistroMD doesn’t have any of those), and most sauces (many, many sauces are thickened with wheat, so I have to steer toward those thickened with modified corn starch instead of “modified food starch,” which is almost always WHEAT).

And here’s the specific answer:

There are 14 meals (lunches and dinners) from BistroMD that are made without any wheat at all, but my personal taste means I omit three of those and double up on a couple of others that I enjoy more (I don’t like the Blackened Chicken or Santa Barbara Chicken). So, I don’t know how many dishes there are, total, if you’re on the regular plan, but since I can’t have the stuffed meats, any of the beef dishes (all of their sauces contain wheat), any of the Asian-inspired dishes (soy sauce contains wheat), or any of the meals served with pasta, I basically only have ONE week to choose from.

As for the snacks, I can’t have some of the protein chips or “Crunch-O’s” because their seasoning is *attached* to the chip with… you guessed it… wheat! But some flavors don’t use the wheat adhesive and I can eat those. (Basically, I have to read labels like CRAZY, which is part of why the first few weeks were so frustrating, as they would send items that their records showed were gluten-free, but then I’d read the label and be like, “Bzzz! Thanks for playing. Wrong answer,” and we’d have to start the cycle of asking for a credit, supplementing food, etc.) Granola bars are fine as long as there’s no wheat (which means I can’t have the chocolate graham cracker bar, but I can have the cinnamon bar). The Rice Krispies Treat-like chocolate snacks are fine. All of the protein shakes and the protein hot chocolates are fine too.

Breakfast is probably where I miss out on the most cool stuff. I can’t have the egg dishes because they use an egg substitute which is, yup, thickened with wheat. I couldn’t have bagels or waffles anyway (since they don’t use gluten-free flours), but I can have the muffins that are made gluten-free (lemon poppy seed, wild blueberry, and banana walnut). I can also have the oatmeal with blueberries (not all folks who avoid gluten could do that, though. Some are allergic to oats as well. I’m lucky. I am not sensitive to oats, it seems). But I would love to have an egg and sausage patty now and then. I really do miss those types of breakfasts.

I think that’s the long and short of it.

My weekly delivery from BistroMD contains:

• three muffins
• four servings of oatmeal with blueberries
• seven hot chocolates
• two chocolate mini-crisps
• four shakes
• two granola bars
• four Crunch-O’s
• two protein chips
• and thirteen frozen meals (all of which have been photographed here, if you check out the link to the PHOTOS category on the right side of this blog’s pages)

They only send 13 frozen meals because one meal per week is the “your night out” option. I’ve never NOT taken that option. Hee!

Hope this helps! Weigh-in is Thursday. I think I’m having a good week. Stepped up the exercise a bit, which has been a nice feeling.

Filed under: BistroMD, gluten-free on April 1st, 2008