Gluten Cross Contamination

Being newly married, we are just getting to setting up things in our apartment, picking out furniture, buying food etc. Being that my husband is not gluten intolerant and can eat whatever he wants, does make it hard to cut out or cut down what gluten foods can be in the house.  Growing up and living with my parents and sister after getting diagnosed,  they got rid of almost all gluten foods from our house,  seeing as how easy it is to cross contaminate things.  Even something as small as someone eating a bagel then using the computer without washing their hands, then if I used the same keyboard and say touched my mouth or ate somthing, I would then get sick and my lips would blister up.  After I began healing they did keep gluten foods in the house, but they stayed on a separate shelf along with other kitchen appliances, like the toaster.  We had to buy a separate toaster so if I wanted a gluten free bagel…I could toast it and not worry about cross contamination.  Even things like washing the dishes, we had to make sure the dishes and utensils were completely washed before I could use a knife that may have once cut bread, or a pan that baked a gluten pizza.  And, of course, not double dipping (wich did make me sick quite a few times if we had family over who didn’t know better).  We had to make sure that if a jar of mayonayse was being used to spread onto gluten bread, that it never touched the bread and went back into the container, leaving it with cross contamination… not always easy to remember!  This also leads to why eating out is always risky…because you never really know what goes on unless you can see it being made, and even then its hard to tell.

So now out on my own, I have the challenging task to feed a husband who can eat gluten, and isn’t always to thrilled with eating chex cereal or some gluten free muffins for 3 meals a day and would more like to eat a burger with a regular bun and all the stuff that comes with it.  Although he is sweet about it and does eat some of my gluten free foods, it is challenging to go into a grocery store and have 5 things to pick from, unless he eats one meal and I eat a totally different meal, making two different meals at one time, yet not cross contaminating anything.

Complicated