Don't feel like reading 500 meticulously argued and footnoted pages this week, but curious about some of the assertions in my previous post?
Here's Gary Taubes himself, in all his academic aquiline elegance, telling you the basics in an hour and a half.
9.19.2010
Steakatarianism, Part I
All my thinking about food has changed since my last post in August.
Over the past six weeks I have cut out grains and sweeteners completely and now track my carbohydrate intake. I began eating meat after twenty-two years of vegetarianism punctuated with a few years of veganism and the very occasional medicinal fish.
How did everything become different? First I noticed I had been hungry for months, maybe longer. It became apparent I was eating more and more eggs and cheese and feeling distractedly hungry even as I was washing the dishes directly after a large meal. I was snacking so much I was typing clinical notes at work with one hand, the other hand ferrying nuts or crackers. I started having dreams of drinking blood and tracking and killing antelope and elk. During my waking hours I fantasized about eating steak though steak hadn't passed my lips in more than twenty years. I was concerned that my weight was creeping up for the first time.
I wasn't sure what to do about any of this and then I happened on an archive piece on the benefits of working standing up. I am one of the lucky and I am employed with a flagship state university. After developing intense hip pain that left me sitting for five months on an old copy of the Physicians' Desk Reference, I was fitted with a supportive Steelcase chair and a sexy adjustable height desk that allows me to stand or sit at the touch a button. I went looking for more information about the physiological impact of standing for hours and happened on Mark's Daily Apple. The tenor of the site was a bit self-promotional for this New Englander--you will never see a photograph of my abs on A Joyful Celiac--but after I got through the piece on working standing, I began reading about Mark's take on eating.
I found an entire world of people who have decided that gluten is poison and wheat is not fit for human consumption.
For a month now I have been sifting through Paleo, Primal, and low carb blogs learning about grass-finished beef, how to order bison flesh in the mail, and why the glycemic index is nonsense. I have learned a whole new vernacular in which formerly innocent unadulterated foodstuffs are outright dismissed as neolithic. Adherents scuffle over whether nightshades are paleo or if sweet potatoes are edible. There are innumerable forums where beginners petition for sources of grass-fed dairy products and coconut flour. And everywhere gluten is denigrated as neolithic poison, as bad as high-fructose corn syrup. The Paleos slander the Primals and everyone hates Atkins, Inc. not so much for the low carb message but for flogging processed low-carb non-food.
The famed Melissa McEwen illuminates the territories with an elegant Venn diagram.
Science journalist Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet & Health, has become my public health hero and geek celebrity crush. Here's the New York Times article that started him researching the pseudo-scence that resulted in the high-carb low-fat dietary recommendations that led to the astronomical increase in diseases of civilization and suffering of so many people I love. Overweight, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and depression can all be traced back to the endocrine changes induced by the chronically elevated blood-sugars incited by carbohydrates.
Thus, my eating has changed drastically. (You just don't do anything half-way do you? observed an old friend when I explained I'd just eaten a lamb for dinner.) I got rid of all my grains and beans. I eat organic, free-range animals and Alaskan salmon almost daily. I bought a glucose meter and an iPod app, and I track my blood sugar levels. I aim to keep my blood glucose under 100 mg/dl to the damaging effects of glycation. I track carbohydrate intake more loosely with the intent to keep the daily carb intake under seventy grams. This allows for some fruit and dairy, but most of my food is dark leafy greens, nuts and the flesh of others.
After several weeks of this here's what I have noticed:
I am no longer cold all the time. I thought this was simply part of being me, apparently it was part of spiking my blood sugar and/or avoiding flesh foods.
Almost immediately I lost four pounds. It was water that flushed out when I reduced my carbohydrate intake. Without that fluid cluttering my tissues, I suddenly have all sorts of visible muscles.
I don't get shaking grumpy hungry the way I used to. I can go seven or more hours at work without eating or getting hungry. And then I don't become incapacitated, it just occurs to me to eat.
When I experimentally ate three slices of the vaunted Grindstone Bread--whole grain millet and quinoa with apparently low carbohydrate count--slathered in blood-glucose damping butter and cheddar--my blood sugar shot up sixty mg/dl to 153 and took more than four hours to drop below 100. This morning my fasting blood glucose was ten mg/dl above normal. This tells me that it's likely the ultra healthy no-processed sweets, whole GF grain diet with many leafies that I used to eat--that I suggested you could eat--probably had my sugar spiking over 150 several times a day and averaging over 120 most of my waking hours. (Gary Taubes and cardiologist Dr. William Davis explain why blood glucose readings over 120 are dangerous and lead to heart disease, weight gain and insulin resistance.)
I stopped adding salt to my food per Paleo instruction and soon after found myself dangerously near fainting whenever I stood up. Salt does bump up blood pressure slightly and it seems that when I salt my food I don't have to put my head between my knees when I get up.
I always floss now. It is intense and intimate to eat the body of another. Paleo, Primal, perhaps, low carb certainly, but the idea of sleeping with someone's flesh in my teeth is simply barbaric. (Also, good oral hygiene reduces chronic inflammation and chronic inflammation creates disease and death.)
I continue to offer my own experience with the hope that it may be helpful to others who navigating life with celiac disease. However, I am not sure what will happen to the Joyful Celiac, because now my writing seems less focused on supporting those newly living with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, and more oriented towards my own experience of adapting to an even more radical diet. I don't think I can write about joy and food without acknowledging the importance of lowering carbohydrate intake for lasting health.
Whatever happens, I will be posting the recipe for coconut flour pancakes with almond butter.
Over the past six weeks I have cut out grains and sweeteners completely and now track my carbohydrate intake. I began eating meat after twenty-two years of vegetarianism punctuated with a few years of veganism and the very occasional medicinal fish.
How did everything become different? First I noticed I had been hungry for months, maybe longer. It became apparent I was eating more and more eggs and cheese and feeling distractedly hungry even as I was washing the dishes directly after a large meal. I was snacking so much I was typing clinical notes at work with one hand, the other hand ferrying nuts or crackers. I started having dreams of drinking blood and tracking and killing antelope and elk. During my waking hours I fantasized about eating steak though steak hadn't passed my lips in more than twenty years. I was concerned that my weight was creeping up for the first time.
I wasn't sure what to do about any of this and then I happened on an archive piece on the benefits of working standing up. I am one of the lucky and I am employed with a flagship state university. After developing intense hip pain that left me sitting for five months on an old copy of the Physicians' Desk Reference, I was fitted with a supportive Steelcase chair and a sexy adjustable height desk that allows me to stand or sit at the touch a button. I went looking for more information about the physiological impact of standing for hours and happened on Mark's Daily Apple. The tenor of the site was a bit self-promotional for this New Englander--you will never see a photograph of my abs on A Joyful Celiac--but after I got through the piece on working standing, I began reading about Mark's take on eating.
I found an entire world of people who have decided that gluten is poison and wheat is not fit for human consumption.
For a month now I have been sifting through Paleo, Primal, and low carb blogs learning about grass-finished beef, how to order bison flesh in the mail, and why the glycemic index is nonsense. I have learned a whole new vernacular in which formerly innocent unadulterated foodstuffs are outright dismissed as neolithic. Adherents scuffle over whether nightshades are paleo or if sweet potatoes are edible. There are innumerable forums where beginners petition for sources of grass-fed dairy products and coconut flour. And everywhere gluten is denigrated as neolithic poison, as bad as high-fructose corn syrup. The Paleos slander the Primals and everyone hates Atkins, Inc. not so much for the low carb message but for flogging processed low-carb non-food.
The famed Melissa McEwen illuminates the territories with an elegant Venn diagram.
Science journalist Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet & Health, has become my public health hero and geek celebrity crush. Here's the New York Times article that started him researching the pseudo-scence that resulted in the high-carb low-fat dietary recommendations that led to the astronomical increase in diseases of civilization and suffering of so many people I love. Overweight, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and depression can all be traced back to the endocrine changes induced by the chronically elevated blood-sugars incited by carbohydrates.
Thus, my eating has changed drastically. (You just don't do anything half-way do you? observed an old friend when I explained I'd just eaten a lamb for dinner.) I got rid of all my grains and beans. I eat organic, free-range animals and Alaskan salmon almost daily. I bought a glucose meter and an iPod app, and I track my blood sugar levels. I aim to keep my blood glucose under 100 mg/dl to the damaging effects of glycation. I track carbohydrate intake more loosely with the intent to keep the daily carb intake under seventy grams. This allows for some fruit and dairy, but most of my food is dark leafy greens, nuts and the flesh of others.
After several weeks of this here's what I have noticed:
I am no longer cold all the time. I thought this was simply part of being me, apparently it was part of spiking my blood sugar and/or avoiding flesh foods.
Almost immediately I lost four pounds. It was water that flushed out when I reduced my carbohydrate intake. Without that fluid cluttering my tissues, I suddenly have all sorts of visible muscles.
I don't get shaking grumpy hungry the way I used to. I can go seven or more hours at work without eating or getting hungry. And then I don't become incapacitated, it just occurs to me to eat.
When I experimentally ate three slices of the vaunted Grindstone Bread--whole grain millet and quinoa with apparently low carbohydrate count--slathered in blood-glucose damping butter and cheddar--my blood sugar shot up sixty mg/dl to 153 and took more than four hours to drop below 100. This morning my fasting blood glucose was ten mg/dl above normal. This tells me that it's likely the ultra healthy no-processed sweets, whole GF grain diet with many leafies that I used to eat--that I suggested you could eat--probably had my sugar spiking over 150 several times a day and averaging over 120 most of my waking hours. (Gary Taubes and cardiologist Dr. William Davis explain why blood glucose readings over 120 are dangerous and lead to heart disease, weight gain and insulin resistance.)
I stopped adding salt to my food per Paleo instruction and soon after found myself dangerously near fainting whenever I stood up. Salt does bump up blood pressure slightly and it seems that when I salt my food I don't have to put my head between my knees when I get up.
I always floss now. It is intense and intimate to eat the body of another. Paleo, Primal, perhaps, low carb certainly, but the idea of sleeping with someone's flesh in my teeth is simply barbaric. (Also, good oral hygiene reduces chronic inflammation and chronic inflammation creates disease and death.)
I continue to offer my own experience with the hope that it may be helpful to others who navigating life with celiac disease. However, I am not sure what will happen to the Joyful Celiac, because now my writing seems less focused on supporting those newly living with celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, and more oriented towards my own experience of adapting to an even more radical diet. I don't think I can write about joy and food without acknowledging the importance of lowering carbohydrate intake for lasting health.
Whatever happens, I will be posting the recipe for coconut flour pancakes with almond butter.
8.14.2010
Return to Joy: Today's lunch
A dear friend and esteemed food blogger had me to tea and wonderful nibbles last week. We talked about abundant eating gluten-free in a pastry-shop world and she generously gave A Joyful Celiac mention.
A Joyful Celiac is an offering to people with celiac disease, gluten-intolerance, and those who simple want to reduce their gluten intake. I post sporadically and I respond to questions about living and eating joyfully celiac disease.
Above, a thrown together lunch of several colors. Vintage tomatoes sauteed with lacinated kale & sprinkled with chevré, Cultured's Lemon Garlic Dill Live Kraut and most of an avocado.
5.13.2010
Simple yet sumptuous
Last night I made lentil soup. In order to include some fat, I sprinkled goat's cheese on it after I took the picture.
I know everyone knows how to make lentil soup. I'm just reminding you that it's so easy and delicious. If you live where I do, the evenings are getting foggy and windy. Perfect soup weather.
Here's my basic recipe.
1 cup lentils, washed and examined for stones
1 medium white or yellow onion, chopped
About a thumb's worth of minced garlic (If your thumb is bigger than mine then clearly you need more garlic.)
A carrot, sliced into rounds
One rib celery (But who has one rib of celery? I usually leave out the celery)
Can of crushed tomatoes, including the tomato water
A few handfuls of chopped kale or mixed braising greens
A bunch of herbs (This soup had dried rosemary, thyme, sage, and tarragon, tied up in a cheesecloth, later to be removed and composted.)
Splash of olive oil
Salt & pepper
5 cups of water
If you eat dairy, garnish with some kind of fabulous cheese--asiago, real parmesan, or chevré.
Take your heavy bottom soup pot and heat your olive oil up a bit over medium-low flame.
Throw in the chopped onion for about five minutes and stir it around occasionally.
Add your minced garlic and your carrot rounds and celery for about five minutes, stirring about sometimes.
Now put in the tomato, your cheesecloth herb ball and some salt. Let it all cook for about ten more minutes.
Toss in your lentils and five cups of water and bring to a gentle boil for a moment, then put the lid on.
Simmer for about forty minutes, or until your lentil are cooked but not falling apart.
Remove from heat, free the herb ball, salt and pepper to your preference and stir in your chopped kale or greens.
Put in a bowl and garnish if you wish.
Store the rest in glass and eat over brown rice in the future.
One pot makes approximately five servings.
5.08.2010
Fortifications
Dear Ms. W,
I am wondering about powders that you mix into drinks to make them fortified (and hopefully, their drinker fortified as well). I look at the packets and containers in the health food store and am kind of appalled—lots of them have evaporated cane juice and also many other ingredients I cannot pronounce or identify. There are quite a few that claim to be gluten-free and these seem to have the most healthful i.e. least manufactured i.e. most food-like attributes. Are there any you can recommend? Preferably that do not turn one's smoothie bright green?
Love, your faithful reader, etc.
Dear Faithful,
It is appalling! I too am frustrated by the near-universal sweetening and chemicalizing of the American food supply.
Of course the makers of powders have a good reason to add 'evaporated cane juice' and 'organic fructose' (that's corporate organic code for sugar) to their elixirs--their powders usually taste awful without sugaring .
That said, I have limited experience with fortifying powders. I have used the powders that one can add to smoothies.
Is this what you mean, Faithful? Or are you thinking more along the lines of (fructose-sweetened) Emergen-C?
I have used two different supplement powders in the past six years and drank Emergen-C very occasionally.
Both of them resulted in a vibrant green smoothies, unless I used a cup or more of blueberries.
The powder I have used the most is Ultimate Meal. It's got a comprehensive ingredient list that prompted a beloved to remark that it's globalization in a can. There are no unpronounceable mystery ingredients.
To me, Ultimate Meal tastes green and chalky even when prepared exactly as directed. (And the Ultimate Meal people are very directive.) I prefer it with a cup of blueberries. The website is quite emphatic about the product and their beliefs regarding human nutrition, and while I find this off-putting, they seem to be offering a high quality product.
Personally, I shy away from powders these days. They were a helpful nutritional short-cuts during darker days when I wasn't eating solid food, let alone complete meals.
Nowadays, if I want a smoothie, a high-speed blender allows me to purée many nutritious ingredients together.
For example, I might put in a base of fruits, including frozen berries, and then add hemp seeds, raw cacoa nibs and bee pollen. I've put walnuts and kale in with blueberries. Enough berries will obscure the taste of crumbled seaweeds as well.
If you're seeking high quality nutrient fortified convenience, I would go with the Ultimate Meal. Know that like most organically grown value-added unsweetened foodstuffs, it has a hefty ultimate price tag.
The price of inadequate nutrition, fatigue, irritability and potential loss of bone-density is higher in my book, though. So if you're not finding that you're eating fruits and vegetables several times a day and/or not consuming the amount of calories you need to maintain a healthy weight, high-quality nutrition powder blended with fruits and/or vegetables could be a good option--and if you add enough blueberries your smoothie will be bright blue! Perhaps you'll find blue more palatable.
Also, speaking of imbibable nutrient dense foods, I've become a fan of goat's milk kefir in the last month. While it's more expensive than cultured cow's milk, it's much richer so I find I drink less of it per week and enjoy it more.
Note to celiacs: Emergen-C now states that none of their products contain gluten.
I am wondering about powders that you mix into drinks to make them fortified (and hopefully, their drinker fortified as well). I look at the packets and containers in the health food store and am kind of appalled—lots of them have evaporated cane juice and also many other ingredients I cannot pronounce or identify. There are quite a few that claim to be gluten-free and these seem to have the most healthful i.e. least manufactured i.e. most food-like attributes. Are there any you can recommend? Preferably that do not turn one's smoothie bright green?
Love, your faithful reader, etc.
Dear Faithful,
It is appalling! I too am frustrated by the near-universal sweetening and chemicalizing of the American food supply.
Of course the makers of powders have a good reason to add 'evaporated cane juice' and 'organic fructose' (that's corporate organic code for sugar) to their elixirs--their powders usually taste awful without sugaring .
That said, I have limited experience with fortifying powders. I have used the powders that one can add to smoothies.
Is this what you mean, Faithful? Or are you thinking more along the lines of (fructose-sweetened) Emergen-C?
I have used two different supplement powders in the past six years and drank Emergen-C very occasionally.
Both of them resulted in a vibrant green smoothies, unless I used a cup or more of blueberries.
The powder I have used the most is Ultimate Meal. It's got a comprehensive ingredient list that prompted a beloved to remark that it's globalization in a can. There are no unpronounceable mystery ingredients.
To me, Ultimate Meal tastes green and chalky even when prepared exactly as directed. (And the Ultimate Meal people are very directive.) I prefer it with a cup of blueberries. The website is quite emphatic about the product and their beliefs regarding human nutrition, and while I find this off-putting, they seem to be offering a high quality product.
Personally, I shy away from powders these days. They were a helpful nutritional short-cuts during darker days when I wasn't eating solid food, let alone complete meals.
Nowadays, if I want a smoothie, a high-speed blender allows me to purée many nutritious ingredients together.
For example, I might put in a base of fruits, including frozen berries, and then add hemp seeds, raw cacoa nibs and bee pollen. I've put walnuts and kale in with blueberries. Enough berries will obscure the taste of crumbled seaweeds as well.
If you're seeking high quality nutrient fortified convenience, I would go with the Ultimate Meal. Know that like most organically grown value-added unsweetened foodstuffs, it has a hefty ultimate price tag.
The price of inadequate nutrition, fatigue, irritability and potential loss of bone-density is higher in my book, though. So if you're not finding that you're eating fruits and vegetables several times a day and/or not consuming the amount of calories you need to maintain a healthy weight, high-quality nutrition powder blended with fruits and/or vegetables could be a good option--and if you add enough blueberries your smoothie will be bright blue! Perhaps you'll find blue more palatable.
Also, speaking of imbibable nutrient dense foods, I've become a fan of goat's milk kefir in the last month. While it's more expensive than cultured cow's milk, it's much richer so I find I drink less of it per week and enjoy it more.
Note to celiacs: Emergen-C now states that none of their products contain gluten.
5.06.2010
Thanks to Gluten-Free Kathy for a nice cup of herbal tea
Tonight I am reveling in cabin-sitting on Mount Tam's southern big toe.
I made dinner (a bowl of sautéed shiitakes, braised greens, red quinoa with chevré) using a borrowed never-been-glutened cast-iron omelet skillet and pristine bamboo cutting board.
In a bag of safe foods left by the friend who'd provided the equipment, I found Yogi Tea packets. As I have mentioned in a previous post herbal teas can contain all sorts of things--including barley malt.
So I went to the internets to see if I could drink Sweet Thai Delight. Yogi Tea has a lush website but I could not find any allergy or ingredient sourcing information.
Quickly I found that Gluten-Free Kathy had already written to Yogi Tea and blogged the company's response.
Thus I had a lovely evening cup of herbal tea while enjoying Gluten-Free Kathy's wonderful blog.
I made dinner (a bowl of sautéed shiitakes, braised greens, red quinoa with chevré) using a borrowed never-been-glutened cast-iron omelet skillet and pristine bamboo cutting board.
In a bag of safe foods left by the friend who'd provided the equipment, I found Yogi Tea packets. As I have mentioned in a previous post herbal teas can contain all sorts of things--including barley malt.
So I went to the internets to see if I could drink Sweet Thai Delight. Yogi Tea has a lush website but I could not find any allergy or ingredient sourcing information.
Quickly I found that Gluten-Free Kathy had already written to Yogi Tea and blogged the company's response.
Thus I had a lovely evening cup of herbal tea while enjoying Gluten-Free Kathy's wonderful blog.
4.27.2010
How to get onto an airplane: packing a TSA-friendly picnic
It's been a rough year and half for my family and so I've been flying back and forth across the country to the Northeast more than ever before. This month alone, I went back East and also to Arizona for a total of forty-one hours of travel. There were long weather delays and I was grateful that I had lots to eat as I stared out at sleet and runway lights at JFK. The long-promised gluten-free foods at JetBlue Terminal 5 have never materialized despite all the calls and letters to the airline, so even in places we were promised help, we're on our own.
But that's okay because with a little forethought we can eat well anywhere.
My mother figured out she had celiac disease decades before I did, so I had long known that airports and train stations were devoid of gluten-free sustenance. By the time I was diagnosed, airlines had stopped offering meals on domestic flights, so I have turned down a hundred 'breakfast burritos' and bags of chips and pretzels. On international flights I found that I couldn't get vegetarian and gluten free meals and so I request fruit plates.
Sometimes though there are miracles. For me there was a hastily booked Delta flight on the trip home from Salamanca to San Francisco in 2006. I was told my meal hadn't been boarded for the Madrid to Atlanta leg. It was an eight or nine hour flight and my picnic was sparse. I was prepared to be stoic, but a thoughtful flight attendant wrinkled her brow, asked me if I ate dairy and disappeared down the aisle.
She returned a few minutes later from behind the curtain separating coach from first class bearing a ceramic plate, cloth napkin and metal cutlery. The plate was heavy with fruit slices and a selection of pleasant cheeses. My fellow passengers in steerage craned their necks and peered and pointed. Soon I heard them asking to have what I had received.
Thinking about travel food:
--Maximum calories and nutrition for weight
--Nothing too squishy. Ripe fruit can explode and leak.
--Make it diverse, yummy and pretty. When you're tired and sleep-deprived you are particularly vulnerable to making poor choices. The way to avoid eating risky foods in airports is to have a picnic that is more appealing than anything else in sight.
--Make it big. Who knows how long you may be delayed in an airport or on the runway where you really have no hope of procuring safe food. I increase the size of my picnic based on the likelihood of delays. The worse the weather forecast, the higher the number of connections, the more notorious the airports, the more food I pack.
--Have enough that you can give some away. People around you may notice the delights in your bag. It's lovely to be able to share. If you want to, you might explain why you have to travel with so much food and raise awareness about celiac disease while savoring clementines and muffins together. Last December I wound up on a flight from SFO to JFK with an empty seat between me and a high-powered business executive who turned out to be celiac and we shared treats!
--The TSA can accuse cheese of having the consistency of a gel, so harder cheeses are less likely to be confiscated.
Sad memory of Portland, Maine security officers taking a big expensive chunk of Humboldt Fog away from me as I protested that I had medically-necessary diet and I was going to be traveling for another twenty-four hours. The cheese had constituted about fifty percent of the three thousand calories I thought I was going to need to make the journey comfortably. My destination was in a foreign country where I knew no-one and had no sense of where I was going to find safe food upon arrival. But they had to throw my cheese away to protect public safety.
So what do I bring?
I have an enormous, tough leather satchel and I fill most of it with food.
Usually I pack both tiers of the tiffin.
In the tiffin I have at least one lunch. The second tier can protect fruit and cheese, or hold crackers and seaweeds. On a trans-oceanic flight I might pack two meals in the tiffin and carry the rest of the treats separately.
If you pack a tiffin be prepared to open it up and show the TSA your comestibles. I've never had a problem once they've examined my meals, though one officer seemed disgusted by the kimchee and pickled sea vegetables in a Cafe Gratitude ensemble I had packed in there.
I have wooden hashi (chopsticks) and spoon that always go with the tiffin. Metal on metal makes a teeth-shimmying noise.
Then:
--Two varieties of unsalted, raw nuts
--GF food bars: Lara Bars, Raw Revolution, whatever. Bring many! If you don't get stuck in Heathrow for two days or on the LAX runway for four hours, you can put them in your emergency kit or eat them at home.
--Fruit with structural integrity: not-too ripe pears, apples, and/or citrus. I especially love citrus on planes. A mandarina smells like heaven and peels very unstickily at 39,000 feet. Pack the fruit in a protected part of your bag so your books, magazines, tiffin and heavier foods won't weigh on it. One way: back to front, heaviest to lightest/most crushable. Then always lay the backpack or satchel on its back under the seat ahead.
--Dried yumminess: goji berries, golden Inca berries, mulberries, raisons.
--Crackers: Mary's Gone Crackers
--Crunchy seaweed
--Dark chocolate bars: crucial for maintaining cognitive function & positive mood through customs or during snow delays.
--Seed and nut brittles
--Maybe a GF muffin or two: perhaps a loving friend made you muffins or you were near a dedicated GF bakery.
--Something breath-freshening to chew on: cardamom pods are nice and they're not sweet.
Also: Metal water bottle, size dependent on flight lengths. You can fill it from the public fountains in the terminals and never lack for water on the plane. Remember to have it empty when you go through security.
For me, the difference between a miserable schlep and a journey where I meet amazing people and enjoy the wild weirdness of travel, is being well-nourished.
Be safe and joyful!
But that's okay because with a little forethought we can eat well anywhere.
My mother figured out she had celiac disease decades before I did, so I had long known that airports and train stations were devoid of gluten-free sustenance. By the time I was diagnosed, airlines had stopped offering meals on domestic flights, so I have turned down a hundred 'breakfast burritos' and bags of chips and pretzels. On international flights I found that I couldn't get vegetarian and gluten free meals and so I request fruit plates.
Sometimes though there are miracles. For me there was a hastily booked Delta flight on the trip home from Salamanca to San Francisco in 2006. I was told my meal hadn't been boarded for the Madrid to Atlanta leg. It was an eight or nine hour flight and my picnic was sparse. I was prepared to be stoic, but a thoughtful flight attendant wrinkled her brow, asked me if I ate dairy and disappeared down the aisle.
She returned a few minutes later from behind the curtain separating coach from first class bearing a ceramic plate, cloth napkin and metal cutlery. The plate was heavy with fruit slices and a selection of pleasant cheeses. My fellow passengers in steerage craned their necks and peered and pointed. Soon I heard them asking to have what I had received.
Thinking about travel food:
--Maximum calories and nutrition for weight
--Nothing too squishy. Ripe fruit can explode and leak.
--Make it diverse, yummy and pretty. When you're tired and sleep-deprived you are particularly vulnerable to making poor choices. The way to avoid eating risky foods in airports is to have a picnic that is more appealing than anything else in sight.
--Make it big. Who knows how long you may be delayed in an airport or on the runway where you really have no hope of procuring safe food. I increase the size of my picnic based on the likelihood of delays. The worse the weather forecast, the higher the number of connections, the more notorious the airports, the more food I pack.
--Have enough that you can give some away. People around you may notice the delights in your bag. It's lovely to be able to share. If you want to, you might explain why you have to travel with so much food and raise awareness about celiac disease while savoring clementines and muffins together. Last December I wound up on a flight from SFO to JFK with an empty seat between me and a high-powered business executive who turned out to be celiac and we shared treats!
--The TSA can accuse cheese of having the consistency of a gel, so harder cheeses are less likely to be confiscated.
Sad memory of Portland, Maine security officers taking a big expensive chunk of Humboldt Fog away from me as I protested that I had medically-necessary diet and I was going to be traveling for another twenty-four hours. The cheese had constituted about fifty percent of the three thousand calories I thought I was going to need to make the journey comfortably. My destination was in a foreign country where I knew no-one and had no sense of where I was going to find safe food upon arrival. But they had to throw my cheese away to protect public safety.
So what do I bring?
I have an enormous, tough leather satchel and I fill most of it with food.
Usually I pack both tiers of the tiffin.
In the tiffin I have at least one lunch. The second tier can protect fruit and cheese, or hold crackers and seaweeds. On a trans-oceanic flight I might pack two meals in the tiffin and carry the rest of the treats separately.
If you pack a tiffin be prepared to open it up and show the TSA your comestibles. I've never had a problem once they've examined my meals, though one officer seemed disgusted by the kimchee and pickled sea vegetables in a Cafe Gratitude ensemble I had packed in there.
I have wooden hashi (chopsticks) and spoon that always go with the tiffin. Metal on metal makes a teeth-shimmying noise.
Then:
--Two varieties of unsalted, raw nuts
--GF food bars: Lara Bars, Raw Revolution, whatever. Bring many! If you don't get stuck in Heathrow for two days or on the LAX runway for four hours, you can put them in your emergency kit or eat them at home.
--Fruit with structural integrity: not-too ripe pears, apples, and/or citrus. I especially love citrus on planes. A mandarina smells like heaven and peels very unstickily at 39,000 feet. Pack the fruit in a protected part of your bag so your books, magazines, tiffin and heavier foods won't weigh on it. One way: back to front, heaviest to lightest/most crushable. Then always lay the backpack or satchel on its back under the seat ahead.
--Dried yumminess: goji berries, golden Inca berries, mulberries, raisons.
--Crackers: Mary's Gone Crackers
--Crunchy seaweed
--Dark chocolate bars: crucial for maintaining cognitive function & positive mood through customs or during snow delays.
--Seed and nut brittles
--Maybe a GF muffin or two: perhaps a loving friend made you muffins or you were near a dedicated GF bakery.
--Something breath-freshening to chew on: cardamom pods are nice and they're not sweet.
Also: Metal water bottle, size dependent on flight lengths. You can fill it from the public fountains in the terminals and never lack for water on the plane. Remember to have it empty when you go through security.
For me, the difference between a miserable schlep and a journey where I meet amazing people and enjoy the wild weirdness of travel, is being well-nourished.
Be safe and joyful!
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