My friends just invited me over for dinner.

I'm a 21-year-old college student, you don't often have dinner parties with friends (or I don't at least), and I don't often have anyone who cooks for me. (Except my mother when I go home.)

Well, my mother's not a problem, since she doesn't eat wheat, she makes good food that I can eat.

My friends are so great though, they're trying really hard to work around my wheat avoidance. Her and her boyfriend texted me from the grocery store to ask what I wanted that I could eat, and they finally after some back and forth decided on rice as a side dish, and asked what else I wanted... I volunteered that I have some chicken in the freezer that I could bring, and she happily said, "Okay, sure! We'll have stir-fry. "

I winced and txted back, "Okay," not having the heart to tell her that soya sauce, or pretty much anything other sauce you put in stir-fry has wheat.

I don't want to go off-plan, but I also don't want to drive all of my friends MENTAL!!

Wow that's a toughie .. when that happens to me i try my best to have a TINY bit of it

Agh I know what you mean. I always hate going to friend's houses because I don't like putting them out. ESPECIALLY when my bf's mom decides to make my favorite pasta dish when I'm coming over. I can't say no I'm not going to eat this, so I just eat a small portion and go light the rest of the day.

the thing is that we have to stay "on plan" or have healthy eating habits forever in order to keep the weight off. and social situations and dinner parties, etc, are part of life. now that we are older, my friends and I all have houses now and so invite each other over for dinner a lot. i can't really control what they make unless its a food allergy, so I just make do, eat in moderation and move on to the next day.

very well said NYC!!

I would ask if they can add the sauce after you remove your portion. That way you can stay on plan and they can have their sauce. -If you need to, you can bring an alternative to put on yours.

I am constantly put into social eating situations- particularly at church. I just make sure that I don't show up hungry, bring a snack that is OP, and/or bring something to share that is OP for me (like for pot lucks). Last night I made a huge South Beach friendly salad and avocado-lime dressing. Everyone loved it (along with their chicken and dumplins with rolls and baked apples!) but I just had mine on a big plate with nothing else and everyone was happy. For things that truly don't happen often (like actual holidays) I think I am ok being a little less strict with myself but if I ate what was there every time I go somewhere that would be at least 3 times a week I went off plan and I wouldn't be losing weight.

I feel for you. It's a little tougher when it's about things you don't eat at all, instead of just a calorie issue. Let us know how it goes.

Jess, there are a couple of gluten free soy sauces out there. La Choy and oe other. But I can't remember which one. There's a wicked cooking blog called the. Pioneer woman cooks she has a lot of gluten free recipes on her site. I use a lot of her recipes when cooking for my gluten free friends.

You wanna talk about picky eaters. I recently had a dinner party where one person was gluten free, I'm alergeric to shellfish, one doesn't eat red meat, one doesn't eat fish and one didn't eat pork and one was allergic to dairy. Picking a menu was a challenge.

Jelbb, dearie, you're not nearly as picky as some people I know. Do not worry . I know someone that doesn't eat *any* raw vegetables and another person that doesn't eat most vegetables except for tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage-likes and mushrooms. (He usually just says "Cook whatever you want" because it's just too complicated.)

But I can understand it is a bad feeling to make it so hard for your friends. I just think there is not much you can do about it. You could demand that they show the menu to you beforehand, but that would not be very... nice. You could also bring your own food but that kind of takes away the purpose of a dinner party, right? I find the suggestion of asking them to add the soy sauce not to your portion a good one. Also you could suggest that you do a pot luck next time. I'd probably just give them some general outlines and hope it turns out all right. It would be different if it were a food allergy, but you say you don't have dinner parties that often... how much harm will a little odd bit of wheat do every now and then? (It's not a rhetorical question, I don't mean to say "no harm", I'm seriously wondering about this.)

Tamari is similar to soy sauce, and very often wheat-free. It also seems to generally be considered better, like soy sauce's gourmet cousin. So I think a nice bottle of this would make a very nice hostess gift. Probably she wouldn't even be using it in the recipe until you arrived anyway. But assuming you know her pretty well, you could let you know you heard of this great soy sauce substitute that's supposed to be even better, and you'd love to bring over a bottle for all of you to try.

Maybe it's too late already for this dinner . But next time .