Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive Dissonance:  It's a term used in psychology and marketing.  Specific to the field of marketing, cognitive dissonance is that horrible pit in your stomach after you've made a big purchase and you're sure you've made the wrong decision.  It's wondering if you should have upgraded to more memory or not paid extra for all the bells and whistles. 

And cognitive dissonance is purposefully counterbalanced in almost every purchase you make.  It's the reason that sales people are trained to say, "If you get it home and decide you don't like it, you can always take it back," as though the ability to take it back makes you want it more.  And who are we kidding, it usually does.  I imagine Nordstrom makes ten times the money they lose on their liberal return policy.

Maybe cognitive dissonance is about retaining that feeling of power, even after you're not being wooed.

I've been feeling cognitive dissonance about this detox over the past days.  To tell the truth, "detox" didn't come out of my mouth with out the word "stupid" proceeding.  I've had cravings for junk, ridiculous things really - diet soda being craving numero uno, followed in a close second by chocolate chip cookies.

There were a few neat moments over the past days that have helped me overcome my doldrums.

First, thanks to my wonderful friend, Bethany, who limits sugar in her diet, I have an amazing cookie recipe.  There's no sugar,  no wheat, no dairy.  There is chocolate, but according to the bi-laws of the detox, I'm only permitted chocolate during extreme hormonal cravings.  The main ingredients of the cookies are oats, over-ripe bananas and almond meal.

The recipe can be found at:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/nikkis-healthy-cookies-recipe.html#comments
** I used butter instead of coconut oil since I don't have to be dairy-free...and I don't have coconut oil.  Also, lesson learned, when removing chocolate, use less salt.

I made the cookies over the weekend.  They were so good, so natural, we ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day!  They were amazing with whole-fruit raspberry jam. 

Second alleviation to my detoxing regrets: This weekend my Mom came up to Oklahoma to celebrate Mother's Day.  She paid me an especially meaningful complement that has encouraged me to keep trucking.  She said she noticed  that Kevin and my faces look especially bright, glowing and healthy!  (I am NOT pregnant.)  What a complement.  It's also further affirmation that this isn't a diet.  It isn't about restriction.  It is about eating what is good for us.  If the choices we are making are effecting our skin so noticably, I can't fathom how else they're effecting our bodies, metabolism, tummies and chemical reaction to sugar/sugar substitutes!

Third, I saw once again how much my taste buds have changed.  They've been realigned.  I had a small amount of mashed potatoes on Sunday and they were so rich.  It was amazing how much better they tasted when I wasn't craving them and over-eating.  In fact, my appetite in general has taken a dive bomb, most of which I attribute to my lack of sugar.  I had a little sugar cookie from Starbucks today, mostly in honor of them now carrying g.f. cookies, and afterwords I felt AWFUL.  I chewed three pieces of gum in quick succession because my mouth tasted so gross and sweet.  The cookies didn't just make me feel lethargic and shakey, they tasted gross as well.

Who am I?  Where did the old "never-me-a-cookie-I-didn't-love" me go?

In the end, my cognitive dissonance waned.  I did not return the detox for a newer, easier model. I'm happy with my purchase, content with my progress and marching onward and upward.

Oh, and full disclosure - I had some diet root beer from Pop's in Arcadia.  I took my mom there for a Mother's Day treat!

Gluten-Free Starter Manual

I pass this guide out to people several times a month.  It's a compilation from several years of knowledge, newer knowledge, new information, and trial and error.  It's now up here for everyone to see.  Enjoy!

So You Just Found Out You’re Gluten Free…


I had a stomach ache from 7th grade until my second semester of graduate school, when I was finally diagnosed with gluten intolerance. I had thousands of dollars worth of tests to find out that: I was stressed, needed to do yoga, relax, eat less acidic foods, might be lactose intolerant…maybe, and (wait for it) just had p.m.s. (that one was from one of the top allergy doctor in Dallas). My favorite diagnoses came from the OU doctor in grad school: “Well, isn’t the human body a mystery.”

No, it wasn’t a mystery. It was actually the most common genetic disease for people of European descent. The last statistic I checked said that 1 in 100 people in America are gluten intolerant and 1 in 3,700 are properly diagnosed. Since I got off of gluten and all of it got out of my system, I’ve felt so much better! In fact now if I have a significant amount of gluten (about a teaspoon) I throw up for a few hours until my body is empty of gluten. If I have less than that, I get puffy and bloated and get a rash that looks like measles all over my chest and face.

Going gluten free is hard at first because you think about everything that you CAN’T eat. Slowly your mindset changes and you think about everything you CAN eat. You adjust, figure out where you can eat out, learn to plan ahead and then one day you wake up and it’s a non issue.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye, barley and contaminated oats and all of their bi-products. So here's the list of things not to eat:



The Basics:

WHEAT – pasta, bread, breaded chicken, bulger, spelt
RYE
BARLEY
OATS – you can buy gluten free oats at health food stores. Oats themselves don’t contain gluten, but they’re grown, harvested and stored with wheat. Several companies now make g.f. oats in decontaminated fields and with dedicated equipment.

- oddly enough there are oats in almost all brands of canned chili.



Things that Hide in Ingredient Lists:

MODIFIED FOOD STARCH, FOOD STARCH, WHEAT STARCH, WHEAT PROTIEN - check lunch meat, already-cooked frozen chicken, bbq sauce, salad dressings, ice cream, powder sauce/dressing mixes such as some brands of taco seasoning or alfredo sauce mix, fruit flavored candies, pudding, gravy... check anything that comes in a package.

** Jello Brand pudding is okay unless it specifically says “wheat” in the ingredients. They say that their food starch refers to corn food starch and will say if it is a gluten-containing ingredient.


- MALT FLAVORINGS - these are in all cerials that do not explicitly say "Gluten free", for example Rice Crispies are not safe. Also Malted Barley. This means no Whoppers (the malted milk ball, not the burger)    **Cerial: Chex has just made most of their cerials g.f.

- BROWN ALCOHOL - all beer, whiskey etc.

- MALTED ALCOHOL

- SOY SAUCE - can get g.f. soy sauce at the health food store. But this means being wary of food marinated, as most marinades contain soy sauce. Also at many restaurants vegetables are marinated too. Cheesecake Factory marinates their veggies. There’s basically no safe food there (although they do have 2 g.f. cheesecakes!)

- KRAB WITH A K – fake crab, commonly found in cheap sushi.

- MEDICINE AND VITAMINS -
You need to buy vitamins that explicitly say “no wheat” on the back. You can get those at any health food store. I take Bluebonnet brand vitamins.

You need to tell your pharmacist about your gluten intolerance and ask them to put a note on your account. You need to check every bit of medicine you take.

www.glutenfreedrugs.com



THINGS THAT TASTE GROSS:

Avoid cookie and brownie mixes that contain a lot of fava bean flour – this flour gives a great texture, but tastes unmistakably like beans if it’s not fully cooked. I like my brownies and cookies chewy and also without a bean aroma! Bread and roll mixes are usually fine because they are more thoroughly cooked than cookies and brownies.


THINGS THAT TASTE YUMMY:

- Arrowhead Mills All Purpose Gluten Free Baking Mix is my two favorite all-purpose mix. I use it to make pancakes, pizza crusts and sweet corn fritters.

- Namaste brand G.F. mixes - good cakes, brownies, etc.

- Best bread: Udi’s bread, found in the frozen section of health food stores

- Pamela’s Mixes

TIPS:

Save yourself trouble and make gluten free without all of the worry by making things that already are g.f. Potatoes and rice are gluten free (but not most rice mixes). Chicken with lemon pepper and olive oil is gluten free. Pork and balsamic vinegar is gluten free. Cook with real food, raw ingredients and stay away from anything packaged that has a long ingredient list and you'll be fine.

**If you go to Central Market, Market Street or Whole Foods, they both have aisle by aisle guides for g.f. foods.



EATING OUT:

Menus:
Olive Garden, Chili’s, PF Chang’s, Pei Wei, Outback, In the Raw, Iron Star, Red Robin’s, Chipotle, Qdoba, the Melting Pot all have GF menus. At Olive garden and Chili’s, they have to print the menu off for you. The other two have menus already printed. Outback even has g.f. cake!

Other places without g.f. menus, but with safe meals are: Sweet Basil Thai in Norman, Tarahumara’s Mexican restaurant in Norman and Misal’s Indian Bistro in Norman, Louis’ – the grilled chicken, fries and chipotle honey mustard are all safe.

When going to a new restaurant:

• Google it before hand. I usually search “restaurant name” and “gluten free” or “celiac”
• Ex: “red robin” “gluten free” or “red robin” celiac
• Talk to the manager and tell him or her your allergy
• If getting chicken, ask if the chicken is marinated. Unless it’s marinated in something innocuous like lemon juice and olive oil, stay away.
• Ask if their fries are fried in the same oil as their battered items.
• Remind them to not put rolls or bread on your plate.
• Avoid rice mixes unless you’re at an Asian restaurant and you know it really is just rice.
• If you’re going to a super fancy restaurant, call ahead. The chef will accommodate.

· You can usually find something at: Mexican, Thai and Steakhouse restaurants.



In a pinch?

Chick-Fil-A chargrilled sandwich, no bun. The fries are safe, as are most of the condiments…so are the milkshakes J (except the Oreo).

Taco Bell: crunchy beef tacos

Braums hamburger, no bun, and fries are safe. Grilled chicken is NOT safe.

Gluten-free menus for Wendy’s, Chick-Fil-A, and Sonic: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/278281/dining_gluten_free_at_fast_food_restaurants.html?cat=22

Here’s a good little PDF. It’s for kids to take to their teachers, but I found it quite useful: http://www.celiaccentral.org/SiteData/docs/Gluten-Free-Candy-List/370e802df5a4b099ad419d940cf8fe22/Gluten-Free-Candy-List.pdf


RECIPES:

The best flour mix ever: http://foodphilosopher.com/assets/docs/glutfree.cfm



Brown Rice Flower Mix:

2 c. brown rice flour (Authentic Foods brand http: www.amazon.com/Authentic-Foods-Brown-Flour-Superfine/dp/B00021639Y )
2/3 c. potato starch flour (NOT potato flour)
1/3 c. tapioca flour.


Here’s a good recipe to get you going …you can’t tell the difference

Tollhouse G.F. chocolate chip cookies

- Tollhouse choc chip recipe on the back of the bag of chocolate chips

- The recipe calls for 3/4 c. brown sugar and 3/4 c. white sugar. Modify with 1c. brown sugar and ½ c. white sugar. (this helps replace the mouth feel of gluten because brown sugar is chewy)

- Replace wheat flour with the same amount of brown rice flour mix above

- Add 1 tsp Xanthan gum (which replaces the binding properties of gluten)

- Chill dough before baking.

- Bake like normal…or if you’re like me, eat cookie dough like normal!

Good luck!

Empowered

It's day three of my detox, and I must say, I'm feeling encouraged, even empowered.

First, I feel my body changing and my reactions to anything sweet changing.  I had a meal high in carbs a few days ago and came home and slept for two hours.  I didn't have dessert, but I did have potatoes and yummy rolls made from a brown rice mix - no yeast, and fruit salad (it's hard to turn down my mother-in-law's amazing cooking).  It's effect was very clear, though.  I'm already feeling accustomed to the substance of my new exclusive carbs - brown rice and quinoa.  Before this meal, I had been wavering on potatoes or no potatoes for this detox.  I'm now leaning closer to no or to maybe in the smallest moderation.

One of my biggest worries going into the detox was my love for diet root beer and Fresca.  I have such a sensitive tummy and carbonation usually does the trick to settle it.  Then  I remembered my best friend, SarFaye, who introduced me to Izze Sodas.  They're part fruit juice and part soda water.  No sugar.  I found them at Dodson's, and low and behold, they've come out with Izze Esque, which has even less fruit juice and more soda water.  It's a bit expensive though, and so in a moment of genius, I figured out how to make my own.  About a quarter part Naked blackberry fruit juice and the rest soda water does the trick!  Crisis averted.

I'll probably dedicated an entire post to breakfast, but for now I'll say this: I was shocked.  Sugar everywhere!  Sugar in my plain corn Chex, corn syrup in every turkey breakfast sausage I could find.  What gives?  I've taken a leaf out of Shauna James, author of Gluten Free Girl, and made popped amaranth cereal.  Here's the recipe.  Don't believe the bad rating, though.  I had no such issues.  http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=1724955
I served my popped amaranth with cold milk and fresh blackberries.  Tomorrow I plan to put in a little dollop of all-fruit blackberry jam.  It'll be a good experiment.

It's been three days now since I've had sugar or corn syrup.  I thought this would be hard.  I thought I'd crave and writhe in pain and feel sorry for myself.  Not the case.  I feel so good.  I'm less hungry at meals and I'm less snacky during the day.  Like I said in my first post, we're not eliminating sugars found in fruit because it's my hope that post detox, I will crave fruit rather than sweets. 

I'm already starting around that bend, feeling gitty that my fridge is full of blackberries and strawberries and black grapes.  I have a large mound of clementines on the counter and a few apples for an apple/asparagus/blue cheese salad to bring to community group tomorrow.

As you can see, I am not feeling deprived.  I am, however, feeling satisfied.  And that's empowering.