A good breakfast

I was naturally awake before 8am today, for the first time in weeks. I've been staying up late with Mark - him working, me reading and watching TV shows he'd rather not watch (i.e., Castle, Jamie At Home, Poker After Dark, etc.), and waking up late as a consequence (the luxury of not having kids or jobs to force me awake unnaturally, and generally living life a la Hodgkinson's "How to Be Idle"). I'm hoping it's due to a few days of exercise and good eating. So I was feeling good this morning just about that alone.

While I watched the morning news, though, I heard my stomach rumble and started to fret about what I had left in the house that was gluten-free for breakfast. Yes, I've survived two gluten-free days, including a couple of meals at Sandy's house (thanks, Sand, for supporting my hippy whims). In my hunger-induced irrational panic, I Googled "gluten free breakfast" for ideas, and was happy to find a list of gluten free breakfast suggestions. I'm not interested in buying artificially gluten-free foods to sustain this diet, so I dismissed all the suggestions that involved gluten-free bread, flour or cereal. The list did remind me, however, that I have eggs, fruit, and veggies already in my fridge.

I started with the idea of scrambled eggs and grapefruit, which then turned into something much more luxurious upon opening the fridge. Next thing I knew, I had put together a beautiful breakfast comprising a fluffy egg and asparagus scramble, grapefruit segments and raspberries tossed with brown sugar, and coffee to wash it all down. Needless to say I am very happy with my impromptu gluten-free, organic and local breakfast (except the brown sugar, not sure where it came from or if it's organic), and looking forward to a good day.

Gluten free?

I watched The View this morning, where Elisabeth Hasselbeck was promoting her new book "The G-Free Diet," and talking about Celiac Disease, and it reminded me of my brief and unpleasant encounter with gluten-free pasta. I remember vaguely a flash of media fervor about the health benefits of a gluten-free diet, or more accurately, how awful gluten was for your health. I didn't have lots of time then to explore the facts, and so I impulsively bought some gluten-free pasta to try and see if I could even stand eating it. It was inedible, so I tossed the rest of the package, and the idea of going gluten-free along with it.

Well, this morning's discussion on The View peaked my interest again, and this time, I spent some time looking at what a gluten-free diet actually might include (rather than exclude). Surprisingly, maybe because my eating habits have improved in the past couple of years, at least 70% of what I eat is gluten-free already. Since I'm already incorporating more fresh, organic/pesticide-free, local produce and free-range, cage-free, organic-feed meat into my diet, I figure going gluten-free can't be that much of a stretch. So I'll try it out for a week, and see what happens. It will help a great deal that rice, fruit, meat, vegetables, vegetable/olive oil, and nuts (even honey-roasted!) are all gluten-free.