I wanted to share a few easy convenience menu items I've located that have made my life easier and a bit tastier...and a bit less hangry.
If you go to any grocery store's Gluten Free aisle (most grocery stores have one, however small), you'll find the Udi brand. One day, cruising towards the ice cream section in HEB because there are no sugar added or Splenda added ice cream choices, I spy the words Udi across a freezer section door and stop mid-stride. Udi? Really? Gluten-free meals? Of course I had to try one out.
Mind you, Udi is not a sugar-free brand, just a gluten-free brand. With my diet restrictions (thanks, thyroid!) I read labels for sugar content and put back any Udi product with more than 9g of sugar in it (typically the cookies and brownie mixes). Now that my local HEB offers Udi frozen meals, I know they're located near the Ezekiel bread (read further down for that alternative grain).
I've so far enjoyed the Udi Ziti with Meatballs, Chicken Alfredo, and Ravioli (sorry, I have no desire to try out the sweet potato ravioli, blech), but there are other choices available. Half a bag easily fills the tummy. This meal proves itself most useful on those evenings when the husband has fed our minions and himself earlier in the evening (sometimes he'll take them to Chinese since I can't eat that too often or they'll be so hangry themselves, they left zero leftovers of the gluten-free stroganoff their Daddy made them). On these late evenings, I've heated up one of these meals and downed an entire bag (not often, but over-eating because I didn't eat enough earlier happens to me too).
The meal itself is a not a steam in the bag option. They take 10 minute in a microwave safe bowl. However, if you purchase it before work for your lunch, it defrosts in a bag in your classroom those 4 hours before lunch. Thus, you cut the cook time in half, easily.
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about frozen pizza. I still maintain that grocery aisle frozen pizza is a delicious and cheaper alternative to delivery service. Since my life includes being a teacher with three bottomless pits - I mean children - I am often over budget and too broke to order pizza on those late hangry nights (more so when their Daddy has an evening shift, which he hasn't had all school year and I'm enjoying it). Gluten-free pizza all by its lonesome is cheaper when purchased from the frozen aisle. By the time I add up the bill for Domino's or Pizza Hut, I'm paying twice as much (or more) for delivered pizza than I would at my local HEB or Walmart. Then you have places like Little Caesar's that no longer make gluten-free pizza. Since I'm the woman who only buys my favorite cashmere sweaters when there's a 70% off sale...budgeting a good pizza deal works quiet well for me.
A few times, I'll take a few slices of GF pizza to work with me with a side of cherry tomatoes. There's lunch in no time and I don't feel deprived. If I had full-wheat pizza, I get nauseous immediately. I think the wheat-yeast combo of risen bread is the deal breaker for my stomach.
Mary's Gone Crackers offers brown-rice, flax-seed crackers. I find them at my local HEB and while I don't particularly crave crackers, I do crave the HEB rotisserie chicken salad which has all of 4g of sugar per serving. That easily takes care of lunch on those days I realize all too late that it's Thursday morning and the house is bereft of gluten-free, sugar-free meal choices for me to take to work (well, the ones that require zero cooking). Since I shy away from salads most days due to soy (soybean oil is used in 99.9% of salad dressings and my thyroid acts allergic to itself when I consume soy...and what is salad if it does not have Ranch? Give me steamed asparagus over Ranch-less salad any day), I'd rather pick up something made from scratch for lunch. As far as a last-minute lunch-on-the-go, this fits the very restricted requirements of my nutritional plan.
I'll be completely honest with you...I restricted so many carbs from my diet that I had to add some back in! The doc limits his thyroid patients to 60g of carbs a day, but that number excludes vegetables. I bring this up because Glutino is not a low-carb food choice just like Udi isn't low-carb either; however, I knew adding back carbs was a move I had to make and this is one more option I can enjoy. I hadn't realized these existed until I went to eat at a Denny's with a friend of mine and the menu offered gluten-free English Muffins. I had to seek them out and found them at my local Walmart in their frozen section. For the most part, you simply cut them in half and toast them. I've slathered on buttered and even the 6 year old wanted one of her own. If the others in my family steal my sugar-free, wheat-free foods, I know it's tasty.
One word of caution, though, is that this product contains soy. Please read my note about soy at the end of this article.
A friend of mine found an off-shoot of Veggie Straws (same company) that resembled Pringles chips. She had read the label for offending allergens for my diet and found they had zero soy (you can see why she's my friend). Sometimes, you just want chips with lunch!
Now, potatoes themselves are not a symptom-inducing food for my thyroid health. I can eat a baked potato, milk-free mashed potatoes, or french fries, but it's not daily and rarely twice in one week. If I eat too many potatoes, I gain weight. It's just the nature of my body; however, do I try to behave? Well, I often behave, but some days you just want chips. I don't allow myself too much garbage in my diet, but these are certainly an easier choice for on-the-road munching. I feel considerably better about buying that for my family. The Ranch flavored Veggie Straws are a house favorite.
One of my favorite lunch sides is Snapea Crisps' Wasabi Ranch because I enjoy foods with a little punch. The wasabi seasoning isn't so strong as to make your noise cry, but it's an easy way to get some fiber down!
This is an excellent side to throw in a bag depending on what you've packed for your lunch. It probably wouldn't be so good next to leftover gluten-free spaghetti, but I've thrown it in my lunch bag with a container of either BBQ hamburger patty or pork chop (my brother makes the best BBQ meat and he's awesome at finding dry rubs or seasoning mixes; I'm sure the type of meat he chooses is paramount to a good burger. I go cheap and for frozen bags since I'm constantly and futilely trying to fill up some black hole stomachs.
Needless to say, it's one of my favorite easy lunches. I just pack a real fork (no fake ones to cut my burger with!) and snapea crisps and I took under 3 minutes to pack lunch.
This is an excellent side to throw in a bag depending on what you've packed for your lunch. It probably wouldn't be so good next to leftover gluten-free spaghetti, but I've thrown it in my lunch bag with a container of either BBQ hamburger patty or pork chop (my brother makes the best BBQ meat and he's awesome at finding dry rubs or seasoning mixes; I'm sure the type of meat he chooses is paramount to a good burger. I go cheap and for frozen bags since I'm constantly and futilely trying to fill up some black hole stomachs.
Needless to say, it's one of my favorite easy lunches. I just pack a real fork (no fake ones to cut my burger with!) and snapea crisps and I took under 3 minutes to pack lunch.
Where would I be without this bread? This is a low-glycemic bread and my doctor quotes it in his book, The Genesis Strategy, as the only suggested bread for his patients.
You'll find Ezekiel bread in the frozen section of a grocery store and some stores, like Sprouts, carries more than one version. I simply refrain from picking up the raisin bread because raisins automatically increase the sugar intake. Since Ezekiel bread is low-glycemic, I have zero symptoms when I eat it. Therefore, there's often a bag in the freezer.
One slice of Ezekiel has 15g of carbs and zero sugars. It brings back to the menu an oldie but goodie: the grilled cheese sandwich! There are times I watch my children order a grilled cheese sandwich at a restaurant because I don't make many meals that include bread anymore. My heart sinks. There's always that Mommy Guilt about how rarely my children eat McDonald's or eat grilled cheese sandwiches or their favorite restaurant: Chinese. This is why my husband and I agree that on some late tutorial nights, he takes the girls to McDonald's when he picks them up from school at 4 and I'll eat a GF pizza when I get home closer to 6. But because of this bread, grilled cheese sandwiches do not have to be a thing of the past. I don't have to make two meals (I hate making two separate meals for my family and for myself...that's too much work and too many pots and pans to wash).
Since I keep the bread stored in the freezer (I eat it sparingly), it takes nothing to slather butter on one side and a slice of cheese on the other to start a grilled-cheese sandwich. The pan does a good job of defrosting the bread in no time. On some mornings, I'll toast a slice of Ezekiel and add butter or, even rarer, Polaner's sugar-free jelly (I don't care for the "with fiber" versions; it's just not as tasty). If I'm feeling particularly chef-life, I'll make scrambled eggs with sauteed mushrooms with a slice of buttered Ezekiel. Other times, when I really want a burger without a fork or wrapped in romaine lettuce, I toast some Ezekiel and enjoy a rare dollop of mayonnaise (again that dastardly soybean oil used in mayo that I avoid on a regular basis...but sometimes, just sometimes, I let myself enjoy a bit and I know there are recipes for homemade mayo, but I'm only a Betty Crocker during the summer).
If nothing else, I've packed sandwiches for a road trip to Six Flags. The facilities offer picnic tables near the front gates for families to enjoy a picnic lunch. It's certainly cheaper for our budget. Thus, I'll toast Ezekiel bread in the morning while I'm making regular wheat sandwiches for everyone else. I'll put ham or turkey with my ultimate favorite Pepperjack cheese (and maybe some mayo....maybe). So, Ezekiel bread can easily be utilized for a lunch box. It does not mess with blood-sugar, which is great for me. I will add that it's important to avoid peanut butter because it contains a good deal of sugar in just one tiny serving (read labels, we often use more than one serving per sandwich). Avoid sugary jellies and jams because you're just negating the entire purpose of using this alternative low-glycemic grain.
If you're curious to try other options, Ezekiel 4:9 offers tortillas and other alternative grain products.
Why I Limit Soy
For the most part, I limit my soy intake and some of the items I mention in this post include soy. Soy is often used in products that need to sit on a shelf and be preserved for a bit. It comes in many forms with various names (soybean oil, soy lecithin, bean curd, edamame, miso, shoyu, tempeh, textured vegetable protein (TVP), hydrolyzed soy protein....is just a START to the list of possible soy names on a label). Want to read more? The Kids with Food Allergies site has a great tips on how to avoid soy. It's near on impossible to avoid it in entirely and small amounts do not bother me so much. It's more quantity and daily consumption that would cause problems. Sometimes, you just need to satisfy that craving or you'll go mad with dieting. Daily? No, I'd feel the repercussions.
As someone who knows their body best, you create rules for yourself that are doable. My rule of thumb will always revolve around the question of what will give me the worst symptoms, because that's off the menu. I can't have sugar in large amounts at all. It's limited to under 9g per meal. Wheat is the second-runner up, and then soy and peanuts. I know if I eat sushi, my body will ache for the next 24-48 hours because of the high content of soy (even in the eel sauce I love despite the fact that I avoid dipping sushi in soy sauce). With soy or peanuts, my thyroid gland itself swells and my body aches like I have the flu because my body is experiencing an allergic reaction. I have difficulty breathing, swallowing, talking, (not to mention it's rather uncomfortable) if I eat soy products daily, which is why I don't eat Atkins products anymore. Yes, they are low-carb and sugar-free...but my body does not appreciate the over-load of soy.
For that reason, I limit my family's dinner-night-out to Chinese once a month because my body just can't take the quantity. If I have it twice in a week, I will be horribly sick and physically aching with stiff muscles for days. My stomach will act as if I have a tiny flea circus with their acrobatic show on replay. In contrast, if I eat a slice of cheese-cake with 34g of sugar...I'll pass out sleeping withing 15 minutes (there is no fighting it, I'm down for the count) and when I do rouse, I will have great difficulty thinking or even responding like a normal human being for some time. Sugar's effects on my body are immediate and debilitate me. I am unable to perform routine daily tasks. Soy makes me ache, so I move slower and need more Aleve, but I've learned to limit it and I do alright. Sugar...it's limited like the plague. I avoid fruit as a result. Fruit is a rare evening treat, much like a dessert should be. I feel the fruit sugar's effects more than you'd think is possible. I know that the fruit I do consume should be consumed after a high-protein meal to reduce the symptoms my body experiences.
The entire point is this simple: know your body and work around it's needs. I know my body cannot handle certain foods, so I have eliminated many of those food choices because I like feeling energetic and I certainly like a disappearance of horrible symptoms.
Summary
In the end, what is the entire point of eating the way we eat? We desire more energy. We desire less head-fog. We desire fewer symptoms of whatever health condition we live with. We desire, most of all, to not die a preventable disease. We desire a more comfortable quality of life and a reduction of symptoms affords us that luxury. When I look at those dieters whose health goal revolved around a certain pant size or a number on the scale...I don't wish them ill. I think how wonderful it must be to not struggle with weight, to make a simple goal and reach it through calorie reduction and exercise alone. I could not lose weight without a doctor's prescription to address my wonky thyroid. I could not lose weight without realizing the offending food allergens that make healthy thyroid function more challenging. My motivation has always been a reduction of health-related symptoms and a better quality of life.
Course, along the way...how much easier can I make this? Oh, look! Frozen food options. I don't have to be Betty Crocker after all. Yessss!
Happy Healthy Living!
