Food Expert Goes Gluten-Free for 2 Weeks. Here’s How It Changed Her Lifestyle
Bread has been an inevitable part of our meals for ages. Be it a home-cooked meal or a fine dining experience, people have a hankering for pieces of well-baked bread or puff pastries quite often. But food and lifestyle expert Taylor Murphy of Taste of Home shared her experience of ditching gluten for a whole two weeks. She revealed her greatest challenge was doing away with bread and related food items. However, the experiment shaped her mindset with a new perspective and also encouraged her to adopt dietary restrictions to keep her health in check.
Gluten is the protein found in grains like rye, barley, wheat, and others. It usually exists in bread, cereals, pasta, cake, cookies, and French fries in addition to many dressings, sauces, and other condiments, as Murphy pointed out. For people going gluten-free, it is important to skim through the ingredients in every food item they might be purchasing in supermarkets. Fresh produce and meat do not contain protein while they are abundant in processed foods.
Though skeptical, Murphy took up the challenge head-on and incorporated new gluten-free meals into her daily lifestyle. For breakfast, the food expert began with a plate of fresh strawberries, blackberries, and Greek yogurt. “Day one was certainly the hardest,” she quipped. She made a simple scrambled egg dish with cheese on other days and binged on gluten-free muffins as an alternative for her bread cravings. She concluded that the switch from her usual breakfast meals like French toast and Belgian waffles felt good despite her sweet tooth. Her gluten-free breakfasts were reportedly healthier and lighter.
The expert revealed that gluten-free lifestyles are common among people suffering from Celiac disease, gluten sensitivity, or wheat allergy. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder when the small intestine is overly sensitive to gluten and cannot digest it properly causing stomach issues. While Murphy did not have any particular reason to try out the diet, she was keen on the effects the lifestyle change would have on her internal health.
A light gluten-free lunch included a mixed green salad with Greek yogurt dressing or homemade guacamole topped with sliced cheese on other days. Murphy realized that these gluten-free meals did not fall far from her usual lunch routine. “I still applauded myself for steering clear of my favorite lunch wraps and sandwiches, though,” she shared. Dinner was her easiest meal of the day due to the variety of options available. A basic chicken rice bowl of brown rice, veggies, and grilled chicken was her go-to meal while choosing from chicken and steak recipes. Murphy explained that the dressing options were limited because most of them were not gluten-free including soy sauce and gravy.
Finally, for snacks, the food expert munched on apple and peanut butter or celery dipped in hummus while her usual snacks would range from cookies to cheese and crackers. She concluded that her snacks were a lot healthier after adopting the gluten-free diet for two weeks. Besides bread, Murphy struggled with her cravings and finding gluten-free items in grocery stores. After two weeks of her experiment, Murphy felt her priorities shifting as she became more conscious of her food choices and felt more energetic. “I experienced first-hand how incredible my body felt at the start of the second week, once most of the gluten was out of my system,” she reflected. The experiment pushed her out of her comfort zone and Murphy hoped to try it out once again in the future.