Yes, I want to be the meme.
The glutens hurt my tummy and I feel awful about the meat industry.
Can someone point me to some learning resources? I'm hopelessly lost.
I have celiac's disease and have been gluten free for ~8 years, but I'm not super knowledgeable on veganism so here's an info dump that may or may not help.
Have you got any other allergies or dietary restrictions? Lots of gluten replacements in recipes or vegan replacements are nut based, use soy, or involve coconut, or the replacement is nonvegan/nonglutenfree. Make sure you aren't trading a stomach ache for an anaphylactic reaction (my cousin literally almost killed himself eating vegan tacos made with cashews).
You're gonna want to get comfortable with naturally gluten free meals, many of which are also naturally vegan: rice, potato, bean, and chickpea dishes, or veggie based meals like salads, chilis, curries, and soups, or start using veggies to replace the things you cut out (cauliflower wings, lettuce wraps, vegan cheese, spaghetti squash instead of pasta, etc) until you find gluten free versions of stuff you like that are also vegan.
Celiacs like me often replace gluten based staple foods with storebought gluten free versions but those versions aren't necessarily healthier for you (and often aren't vegan); if it's carbs/sugars/artificial ingredients in the glutinous foods that are upsetting your stomach then the gluten free substitutes might actually be a lot worse for you. Consider asking your doctor or having your mom ask hers for a blood test looking at transglutaminase levels (do it before you go gluten free or it wont tell you shit) or ask for an endoscopy to look for damage from gluten intolerance/celiac's disease/crohns/colitis; they can be very similar in effects but how you change your diet to adapt to them is very very different. A lot of the gluten free substitutes off the shelf are both heavy in corn (will make you fatter) and expensive - i think i paid $8cdn for 6 frozen english muffins (had eggs and milk), and like $4-6cdn for frozen bread (one brand was vegan, one had eggs). If you want to make your own breads you will need to research a lot of flour mixes and the upfront costs may be very high while you figure out your preferred method (you will almost certainly want xanthan gum if you won't be adding eggs).
Assuming gluten is the issue, here's a shit load of things I've learned, I err on the side of caution due to celiac's but you might be able to be a bit looser about cross contamination if you haven't got that:
- if a label says 'may contain wheat/made in a factory that processes wheat' treat it as though it says 'contains wheat',
- toasters are never clean no matter how much you scrub them, just get a new one and only use it for gluten free breads, keep it up high so no one spills crumbs or flour near it or accidentally uses it for regular bread
- avoid oats unless specifically labeled gluten free (they are often stored or shipped together and there is always cross contamination),
- avoid anything that says barley, barley malt, or rye as they have gluten, (but weirdly hard liquors are okay for some people as distillation should remove all proteins but unless the bottle is labeled gluten freethere's no guarantee you won't feel sick),
- check your soy sauce bottles as most have wheat for some reason, and most worchestershire sauces have wheat as well,
- be careful of anything that starts with a roue because that's often wheat; make it yourself instead if it isn't labelled gluten free,
- when experimenting with recipes and flour blends keep a log or journal or jot notes on your recipe card; specifically note the flours/flour blends you used and when you try a different one write that down too and write down how you compare it to your initial recipe; fluffier, tastes gritty, crumbles easily, very wet, requires longer to cook, etc. you may also have to do this for butter or egg replacements so a good organized binder of recipes and notes will probably help a lot
- gluten free beer does exist but don't get one like Daura that says 'gluten removed' because that's literally russian roulette of cross-contamination, stick with one made from other grains like rice, sorghum, or millet
- be super extra careful in grocery stores as many places put the vegan, organic, and gluten free items all together in one section: some items may be all three but usually there is a gluten free item that is very not vegan next to a vegan item that is full of wheat next to an organic item that is neither gluten free nor vegan; read the labels very carefully
- avoid eating out/ordering in unless the place is known for their strict policies for allergies (pizza or sub places often have gluten free options but their kitchens are hectic and you can easily get flour somewhere accidentally),
- lots of local places have gluten free chefs, bakers, and owners and are often perfect because they want to be able to eat their own food (these places are not always vegan, but many vegan places understand gluten intolerance and can find you something) i find local thai, vietnamese, and mexican restaurants are the safest
- fast food places like mcdonalds and burger king are generally a bit too risky for me (minimum wage isn't enough to care about cleaning an area to prevent cross-contamination for one order when you're being yelled at to make shit faster, everything gets done in the same places by the same people doing everything else)
- lots of places with smoothies or ice cream or syrups are a trap; having worked in a few, most of their ice creams or sorbets are made in the same factories as their breads and cookies so there's no guarantee any of it is gluten free (they're labelled as may contain wheat on the big buckets but not the up front buckets so most employees never notice it unless they know to look for it/don't realise that may contain means not gluten free)
- if you order anything from a restaurant start by asking them about their gluten free options or specify you want the item gluten free; lots of stuff is only one ingredient away from being safe but if 'gluten free' isn't on the chit it won't be made safely
- check your treats carefully; lots of chips are gluten free but lots aren't, and candies, nuts, and frozen deserts can often be made or packaged in facilities alongside wheat,
- look at your spices; some cheaper store brands are not gluten free, some more expensive spice mixes like steak rub or marinades can be full of gluten
- if you already make your own baked goods like cakes or muffins you will honestly not feel much of a difference with your deserts once you find a mix or brand of gluten free flour you like
- lots of people say you can't make anything good with almond flour or rice flour or bean flour or whatever but its all about what flavours and textures you like and what else goes in your baked goods; we've made pies, pizzas, breads, muffins, cookies, edibles,lasagnas, casseroles, soups, cakes, fried chicken, brownies, lemonsquares, cheesecakes, and pancakes all gluten free (most were not vegan though, so you might have to put in more trials to get good results)
- the only tough thing is puff pastry or phyllo dough; i've never seen a gluten free one for sale, let alone gluten free and vegan, you would have to do them yourself, but youtube has some good tutorials for everything, i was teaching myself the phyllo dough one just last night and while it will take forever, i can now make gluten free baklava
- be careful with things that should be gluten free like potatoes: lots of fries and wedges from restaurants are coated in flour before they are frozen/fried, and lots of those that aren't coated are fried in the same deep-fryer that cooks breaded things, some places have a fryer dedicated to only gluten free things but ask before you order (many gluten free people are split on this one but only once in my life have i seen a perfectly clean deep fryer and that's because i cleaned and filled it myself before the restaurant opened)
- for any spreads you eat like jam or peanut butter get a new one for yourself once you swap; lots of breadcrumbs end up back in the jars from scraping on toast and its honestly too much trouble to try teaching people to only scoop what they need for all their stuff then spread it without going back to the jar, just tell anyone you live with that your new one is off limits
- clean your dishwasher really well before you switch over; sometimes all the food scraps aren't drained out or it isn't sanitized properly if your dishwasher is old/shitty/hasn't been cleaned in a bit and this could have you ingesting old gluten for a while even if your new diet is perfect, since i live with people who aren't gluten free I just wash all my dishes by hand before i use them
- check things like your shampoos or medications, some people can be very irritated by wheat or oats in moisturizer or cosmetic products and it could be causing an issue you might have thought is unrelated
- looking up a product before you eat or buy it will become second nature, lots of blogs keep up to date on companies policies but trust what is or isn't on the label
- depending on what country you live in things may or may not be labelled gluten free, but also depending on what side of a border something is made it could have wheat contamination and not be marked or marked differently when imported (canada usa border is notorious for it, but likely other borders are similar)
- invest in a food processor; hummus is both gluten free and vegan and buying chickpeas and tahini to make it yourself will save you money over just buying containers of hummus, but you might also use it for mixing flours/adding something to your flours, or processing breads to make gluten free breading/panko, or vegan nut based milks or dressings
Huh. The shampoo thing has me wondering now, been having a lot of dry and irritation from the shower lately.
I need to look more into this, I do wonder if it might be something like that now. I don't have a doctor lol, but I might be able to find out more from my mom.
Thanks for the info. This was all really helpful.
Something like that happened to my mom who is celiac and my aunt who isn't but does have a gluten intolerance, but me and my siblings have never really had it. It could be unrelated though, some shampoo brands are just a fuck and wreck your scalp if you stop using it for more than a day or two; head and shoulders really fucked me up with that one.
Yeah, I've cut out regular shampooing mostly at this point. I try to shampoo like once every two weeks lol, but I use conditioners since otherwise my hair turns into white-guy dread locks.
It's probably unrelated, and I definitely don't want to seem like I'm coming at the Gluten-free thing from the angle of diminishing how bad it really is for a lot of people.
I just know when I've been cutting them lately my whole system really does feel lighter and less "hurty". But I'm mostly basing it on my mother's experience with it.
Going just keto might be the better option for me as well, I've done that in the past (never attempted to mix it with veganism though) and I noticed a lot of similar benefits to my digestive system.
Idk I turned 28 and I feel like my whole shit is falling apart now, so I'm going to be eating better no matter what lol
I feel that falling apart bit, I've gotta see an alergist in a few months because even after fixing gluten I'm still feeling like I'm held together with tape and meds that barely work. I've been loooking in the mirror like "well I gotta fix up this beard or get in shape for when my shoulder length hair finally decides to just vanish at 30 like my dad's did". I might try to swap to a conditioner wash routine, maybe that will buy me a couple extra years of my mane, or at least make it healthier and definitely a genetic hair loss and not my own damn fault lol.
Any way to eat cleaner will definitely help you feel better, so even if gluten free or keto or something else doesn't totally solve the issue, keeping vegan will have good health results in the long run. But you do cut out several similar things for both gluten free and keto so I'd bet you're right about the issue being related to wheat products somehow, its just a mess trying to figure out the exact reason for feeling off.
Yeah. Thanks for the solidarity here. Made me feel a bit better, plus good info.
I don't actually have a great direction to point you right off the bat, but do you cook most/all your meals for yourself, do you eat out, or does someone else cook for you? If the first one, the main thing is to build up a good base of recipes that match those criteria more naturally; e.g. chili is easy to do gluten-free and vegan, breaded fake chicken wings maybe not so much. Gluten-free oats will be an easier, cheaper, and heartier start to your day than gluten-free cereal or toast.
What do you eat right now?
I cook for myself. Depends on the week, but I'm comfortable meal planning and prepping fairly involved recipes.
Vegan chili sounds dope, I could definitely start with something like that.
Aw man I typed out a response and accidentally cancelled it. Definitely try chili! Also red lentil curries, homemade fries, sweet potato chick pea burgers, mushroom risotto, the list could go on. For breakfasts try oatmeal, fruit smoothies bulked up with chia/flax/hemp hearts, tofu scramble, quinoa porridge, chickpea flour eggs, apples and nut butter, etc.
Thanks for the list. I'll be coming back to this because most of this sounds incredible.
Curry. Oh man.
See this is why I'm asking, I'm fucking dumb about this stuff and forgot that one of my favorite cuisines has just a shit ton of vegan options.
Yeah and its vegan already you dont have to substitute a load of expensive and hard to find stuff in there, and tasty.
hell yeah. i love to make indian-style curries with chickpeas or lentils, and thai curry with tofu
I'm not gluten-free but I like this site, and many recipes are gluten-free. https://simpleveganblog.com/category/gluten-free/ It includes chili and curry like other folks mentioned, even mac and cheese if you're into that. If I had to pick one recipe to recommend I would go with the jambalaya, I like to do meal prepping with that recipe.
By the way, if a dish you want to make isn't gluten-free don't forget you can always substitute ingredients (like, for example, using gluten-free pasta instead).
Btw, just wondering, how sure are you that it is gluten that's causing you stomachaches? Could it be something else?
What kind of learning resources did you expect by the way? Do you know what to look for in terms of nutrition? It's not hard to stay healthy at all but if you do zero research it's easy to miss out on a few nutrients (B12 is your friend). Some people recommend tracking what you eat with an app/website like Cronometer for a time so you can get a feel of what you're eating / potentially missing out on and then go from there.
My mom has issues with dairy and bread irritating her intestines/ bloat and lately I've noticed a similar thing happening. Could be something else, but when I don't eat bread so much I don't notice it.
I don't have like crohn's or anything, it might just be processed bread being shitty for you. Could also be too many carbs at once as well.
What to look for in nutritional terms is definitely helpful. It's just a whole new thing for me, so it's hard to say what I need to know since I know nothing. Y'know?
But so far everyone here has been very helpful. Recipe advice is much appreciated.
Right, that makes sense. There's a lot of resources and communities online so you should have no trouble finding help in the future when you have a more specific understanding of what you're looking for. In the mean time, here is some general-purpose stuff:
https://www.vegan.com/how/ https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/how-go-vegan https://vegancheatsheet.org
Oh and there's also a #veganism channel in the cth Discord server.
I would add that it's usually relatively easy to go vegan, contrary to what some may expect. You definitely don't have to transition over several months or anything.
Welcome to the GF vegan club 💚 I've been GF vegan for about 8 years now for both intolerance and ethical reasons. By already cooking for yourself, you're off to a great head-start. In addition to all the other advice here, I'd like to add two things that might help make the transition smoother:
- there are a LOT of gluten-free whole grains other than rice which are absolutely delicious and can help add needed variety: buckwheat, millet, quinoa, teff, etc etc; buckwheat flour is a must for me for GF pancakes
- a lot of people don't like vegan substitutes and get discouraged. When you're cooking, it can help to think about what it is that you like from the non-vegan option and then how you can make something that can hit the same flavor profile. For example split pea soup usually has ham in it to give a smokey, salty bite. So, in my split pea soup, I add chipotle peppers in adobo and it's AWESOME.
Oh wow. I love adobo, I wouldn't have thought to add that to split pea soup but yeah that makes a ton of sense.
check out this recipe: https://www.veganricha.com/baked-rigatoni-with-vegan-meat-sauce/
i've been gluten free for 2 years and vegan for 3 months. i grab GF pasta (avoid chickpea pasta, i enjoy rice pasta the most) and sub lentils for impossible beef if i'm feeling frisky. its delicious and doesn't take much time to put together at all.
I’m no longer vegan because I’m lazy but this is still one of my favorite meals:
https://www.hotforfoodblog.com/recipes/2015/09/08/crispy-sweet-sour-tofu/
Just make sure you press all the water out of the tofu. Cutting the recipe in half is perfect for one person. Maybe I reduce the sauce too much, but I use the same amount of sauce for 1/2 a brick of tofu.