Gluten poisoning!

Yesterday morning I woke up and my insides didn’t feel right. All-day no matter what I was doing I was focusing on how bad my insides felt. I don’t know why it takes me so long to realize I am having a gluten reaction to something. Marty had a little something going on as well he told me this morning. 

Whenever I eat gluten or if my food has been cross-contaminated it takes between 12-24 hours for the reaction to start. When we have eaten out or at a friend’s house and start reacting I know I was slipped a gluten Mickey. 

Most people think a gluten reaction is like having a lactose reaction which I also have been lactose intolerant also. A lactose reaction is severe stomach cramping then a few trips to the bathroom. The whole thing is done in under 5 hours. 

Now if a gluten reaction was like that I’d be flying down the NY Thruway on my way to White Castle, real pizzerias, sub and bagel shops, Italian bakeries and to Chinatown for dim sum. Unfortunately, it’s not. 

A reaction for me is a 3-5 day ordeal depending on how much gluten I actually consumed. It starts with my insides feeling like I ate a handful of thumbtacks. I can feel the thumbtacks slowly making their way through my body. I feel like I need to run to the restroom constantly and do because you never know, but nothing happens. My insides start to throb and the only thing that helps me a tiny bit is a heating pad. I can’t sleep and the pain is constant. My belly gets so bloated and hard. Finally, when the gluten has run its slow and tortuous course, I am in the bathroom for hours. 

People who think gluten intolerance is a bunch of bullshit can go straight to hell. I wish they could go through a reaction just once. I wouldn’t wish gluten intolerance on my worst enemy….well maybe I would. 😉

This gluten reaction was a sneaky one because we haven’t eaten out. Marty and I started going over everything I ate or drank in the last 48 hours. It took us until this morning to figure out where it came from. 

When people think of gluten they think of bread, pasta, and other carb foods. News flash…Gluten masquerades around under lots of different names.

• Vegetable protein/hydrolyzed vegetable protein: Can come from wheat, corn or soy
• Modified starch/modified food starch: Can come from several sources, including wheat
• Natural flavor/natural flavoring: Can come from barley
• Artificial flavor/artificial flavoring: Can come from barley
• Caramel color: Now considered a safe ingredient, but if you’re in doubt, check with the manufacturer
• Modified food starch
• Hydrolyzed plant protein Hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP)
• Seasonings: May contain wheat fillers
• Flavorings: May contain wheat fillers
• Vegetable starch: May contain wheat fillers
• Dextrin and maltodextrin: Both sometimes made from wheat

It took me a long time when I needed to go gluten-free and of course, I learned the hard way to realize these ingredients were actually gluten. In the beginning, I didn’t know that soy sauce in most cases has gluten in it! 

Marty is actually gluten intolerant as well. This came as a complete surprise to us. He was just being the person he is and was eating what I was. I still made the kid’s food with gluten because it was the last thing I needed to do to them and completely unnecessary. 

One day when Marty was out without me he ate something with gluten in it. He paid for it dearly. His reactions are more immediate and he is not as sensitive to cross-contamination as I am. When his mother was still alive she blamed me for his gluten reaction. When Marty starts with a reaction I know mine will start about 12 hours later. 

Like I mentioned earlier we finally solved the gluten mystery….it came from that fucking hippopotamus meat! That cheap ass shit I bought for my beef wellingtons! Ugh!!!! Talk about rubbing salt in the wound! I didn’t even eat one piece of the meat, but the juices were soaked up by the puff pastry which I did eat. I also ate the bacon because Frugal Fanny just couldn’t throw it away after I unwrapped the beef. I ate maybe 7 bacon bits on my bleu cheese salad. 

I bought Cattlemen’s Ranch bacon-wrapped beef filets. I am always so careful when I am shopping and check labels, but for whatever reason, I didn’t check the ingredients. I know better than this. I also didn’t see that it was a beef “chuck” filet or a heel of a shoe.

There were a lot of reviews of this product and none of them were good ones. Everyone said the same thing I did about its toughness and would not be tender no matter what you did to it. 

It took us a long time to even find the ingredient list for this product. We got the filets at Aldi. The reason why I love shopping at Aldi is that if something is gluten-free the label will say so, if it doesn’t it’s usually not. This cuts down on me having to read labels before I buy something saving me time. 

After digging around on the internet I found the ingredients on the website Fooducate. It had hydrolyzed vegetable protein from soy as an ingredient. Basically, it was the seasoning they used. I never thought they would season a piece of meat wrapped with bacon, but when you are trying to sell hippopotamus meat to people, it needs seasoning I guess.

So the moral of the story? Life is too short to be a cheapskate and buy shitty ass hippopotamus meat wrapped in bacon. Also, If you are gluten intolerant read the damn labels and don’t be a dummy like me.