can you be gluten free and not go broke?

Okay, I don't have celiac disease but in trying to lose weight I decided to live without bread and other wheat things.  Once I got used to it, I felt much better and my body functioned better (you know those bathroom things we can't discuss in mixed company). 

So I decided to go a little further and explore gluten free products.  Okay cereal was just like everything else because Corn Chex and Rice Chex are gluten free.  I can handle that.  But I missed cookies and crackers.  So I started checking out the gluten free sections of the local grocery stores.  Oh my, sticker shock right away.  However, I did buy a box (very small amount inside huge box) of pecan crackers.  They are pretty good although the major ingredient is rice flour.  And probably cost 5 cents a piece.

Then I saw a small package of vanilla cookies, gluten free.  I forget exactly what they were made of but no wheat.  And they are scrumptious.  Now what I have to remember about the cookies is that while they are gluten free they are not calorie free.  And they were also a little more expensive than I would normally pay.

Walking down the baking goods aisle, I happened to glance down and, oh my, Bisquick makes a gluten free baking mix.  And yes, sticker stock again.  But I thought, it would be worth it to have biscuits one morning.  And I found lots of recipes on line.

There are lots of low carb products on the market but like fat free they add a lot of sugar.  So you have to balance off.  Still, I keep reminding myself, I am 10 pounds lighter (although a lot of that was stress related weight loss) and I feel so much better.  I have less feeling of being bloated.  And I have to admit, once you get used to it, you manage pretty well without BREAD.  I get to eat bread, chips, and other high carb and gluten full food when we go out for dinner (which is not very often on our retirement funds) or have company.  That helps to remind me how much better I feel when I do without BREAD.

Since this seems to be a new dieting trend as more and more people become aware of celiac disease perhaps the prices will go down.  I hope so.

silence or noise

"Why are we embarrassed by silence? What comfort do we find in all the noise?"

Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

I wrote recently about how nice it was to have my quiet house back.  I like quiet.  But I didn't always.  I went through years of having to have something going--radio, television, stereo.

I don't know if it is because I'm older or more nervous.  But I like quiet now.  I cherish quiet now.  When the window a/c in the studio kicks on, I'm agitated.  When the washer or dryer are going, I get agitated. (They are just off the studio).  When someone is playing music or the television in the house, I get agitated.  I even bought wireless earphones for my hard of hearing hubby.  He can watch all the Fox News or old westerns or war movies he wants. 

I don't mind some sounds; like birds singing, windchimes ringing, or water flowing.  My Mom lives just off a 8 lane highway that has traffic twenty-four/seven.  It is really distracting and makes me very nervous.  I luckily live in a quiet neighborhood except for a few dogs that like to bark a lot.  Oh yeah, and a jackass that lives 3 houses down.  But he only brays when he's hungry.

It could be because I worked in a noisy newspaper office for so many years.  My first desk was so close to the pressroom that noise was off the scale.  Then I moved to where there were numerous machines, clicking and clacking.  Some of that went by the wayside when we got computer systems.  But there was the ever present, insistent telephone.  How I hate that sound.  Since I was the credit manager the last 15 years of my so called career, most of the calls were about past due accounts which could sometimes be very noisy.  I hated that job. 

So I will take quiet with the nice sounds listed above.  I'm not at all embarrassed by quiet and I find no comfort in noise unless it's someone calling me to dinner.