Shalom and welcome to the beginning of Jewish Celiacs Blog-In at the very beginning of the Jewish New Year, 5765, which roughly corresponds with the world-wide, business calendar year, 2004. May things get better for all of us, whether we have, or never have had Celiac Disease. Happy Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur to everyone!
It’s not fun to have to restrict yourself to certain kinds of foods, though many of us have had to get used to not eating wheat bagels, rye bread, beef-barley soup, oat meal cookies, all kinds of cakes, pizza and even matzo after we had discovered that we had Celiac Disease, or Sprue as it is sometimes called. Finding tasty substitues that weren’t made from wheat, rye, barley and also oats was a real chore at first. However, white, brown and various wild rices, not to mention some other grains, began to taste mighty good to us. Many, like myself, began to eat more corn and soy products too. I imagine that a whole new world opened up for most of us eventually. Right?
Since most brands of ketchup (catsup), mustard, mayonnaise and even soy sauce contain wheat-derived vinegar, which puts them on the forbidden list, we have had to find either those food dressings without vinegar, or something entirely different like olive oil and lemon juice to pour on our meals. Where there is a will, there is a way! Nu?
Many Jews already enjoy going to Chinese restaurants, so it wasn’t hard for many of us with Celiac Disease to steer clear of most Euro-American restaurants, or markets, where the forbidden grains are the norm on the menu, or on the shelves and to have started going elsewhere; to Asian-American places. If you live in the U.S., and this is probably true for European, Canadian, Australian and Israeli Celiacs who are not native Asians, or Africans, that is mostly the case. Those who know are already aware that almost everything on the menu has that flour in it, or all you can see, row after row, in your local Acme, or Super Fresh (no plugs intended), is boxes of wheat cereals, wheat and rye breads, various cakes and so on. So, many of us probably have moved on towards Asian-American restaurants and markets, where the emphasis is on rice!
Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese and even Indian-American restaurants and markets carry a lot of very interesting and tasty items, which can be prepared in a kosher way at home, except for the fresh beef, poultry and fish, but it’s also like that in non-Asian-American markets. There are more than several kosher, Asian-American restaurants, practically all of which are vegetarian, so if you like beef, chicken and fish with your rice and vegetables, you will have a problem eating out if you are strictly kosher without going into further details. When you shop, you always can go to a kosher butcher.
When it comes to kosher, price can also be a limiting factor. However, I’m not suggesting that you give up being kosher, but I’m just stating the facts. You can eat entirely kosher and gluten-free at home and go to a kosher Asian-American restaurant once in a while, or as often as you like to. Euro-American, kosher restaurants (Jewish restaurants) serve lots of bread and pasta, but you can always ask if they will substitute something for the bread that comes with the meal. Otherwise, you will end up paying for bread that you cannot eat! Do you want to do that if you are on a limited, or fixed income? Probably not! You might have to wonder if some pasta “accidentally” fell into your salad by mistake at the places you used to go to often too. I experienced that problem and ended up in a hospital for five days where they kept bringing me meals with the forbidden grains! Five times!!! I had to complain to three dieticians and the cooks, or the dieticians still couldn’t get it right. Go figure! Right???
Those of you who live anywhere else than in the U.S. on G-d’s good Earth can join in and tell the rest of us here how you make out where you are. That includes our brethern in Yisrael and non-Jews everywhere. I invite everyone to visit Jewish Celiacs Newsletter, located at www.jewishceliacs.com, which I happily created in late 1999 to help my fellow Celiacs, and especially Jewish Celiacs with the added problem of finding good Kosher food. Log in and look around and stop back here to add your two cents to the equation.
Note: When you Post, or Reply to a post, please remember to check the time and the date on your post before you press Publish Post, or your time and date could be wrong.
Try to be kosher and gluten-free!
Shalom aleichem and L’chaim!