My home is a haz-mat site

I was all set to post about a sugarless, flourless chocolate cake recipe Adrienne sent me for Valentine’s Day (Adrienne unwittingly gave me the perfect gift: an excuse to purchase a block of pure, bitter chocolate and have playtime in my kitchen).  And then she emailed me recent news articles discussing the evils of wheat.  I’m sending her positive peer pressure via Ethernet to induce her to post those links here and discuss her reaction to them.

My in-law’s are visiting me from out-of-town, and so I’ll get to today’s topic: wheat and sugar addiction.  My MIL has Celiac disease.  She thinks it’s just an iron issue, that the protein in wheat gluten prevents her digestive process’ iron absorption function.  So her physician gives her an iron shot (in the butt) periodically so she can continue eating toast and corn flakes and hamburger buns.

Screeeeeeeech!!! (my poor attempt at tires braking against pavement)  

Why isn’t my MIL sitting in my living room lecturing us all on how wheat is ravishing her body?  Why did we have to go to the grocery store and purchase the following ingredients to properly host them for the next week after my husband declared our house to be sugarless and flourless (and, therefore, fabulous):

·         A one-pound sack of white table sugar

·         The big box of Corn Flakes

·         A loaf of sliced white French bread – the kind that costs $1.49

·         One bunch bananas

·         One half-gallon non-organic skim milk

And why did MIL tell FIL that he couldn’t have eggs because his LDL is too high (he’s having Corn Flakes with sugar instead)?  And why, for the love of beautiful citrus fruit, is MIL putting sugar on her grapefruit.
 

While I understand it’s difficult to wrap one’s head around eating eggs containing animal fat when you’re on heart medication, I’m still muttering under my breath about eating cheap wheat when you’ve been diagnosed with Celiac.  I am not going to badger her anymore with data – I believe in living by example (and I've already badgered her).  I think she won't give up her drug of choice because modern strains of wheat, and certainly processed sugar, are so addictive that even people who have a medical condition cannot stay away from them.

And here’s the worst truth of all: I’M JONESING FOR A PIECE OF BUTTERED TOAST.

I stood in my kitchen last night looking sideways at the loaf of bread lying beside the toaster I hauled out from under the cabinets, and I can taste the toast: hot, buttery, crunchy.  Maybe some cinnamon, too.  Nah, just the Irish butter made from grass-fed cows who moo, “Top o’ the mornin’!”  The toast, the toast…my kingdom for a piece of toast.

Don’t worry, I didn’t eat the bread.  But it reminded me how addictive these Franken-foods can be, even with just a visual reminder.  This morning I had to throw a kitchen towel over the loaf of bread so it wouldn’t look at me with its come-hither gaze.  MIL wants to know what I'll do with the leftover sugar.  I told her it would be dumped in the garbage (with everything else in the list above excepting the bananas).

Ooh, no, I could make a sugar scrub.

Are you a wheat-free evangelist? How are you handling the nay-sayers who live in the same house as you (even if just for a short time)?  Are you above temptation, or are there still tempting “foods” that you just can’t be around?

Rebekah