Lenten Food Challenge - Going Gluten Free

Most years, if I do a food challenge during Lent, I give up eating red meat. 

If you said to me that giving up red meat wasn't much of a challenge, I wouldn't argue with you. It's not much of a challenge. You just don't eat red meat and they don't tend to hide meat in places where you aren't expecting it. 

(I define "red" meat as being any meat that comes from animals with four feet, so pork counts, ostrich does not. Kangaroo also counts because I said so and it's my challenge -  although I (almost) never eat kangaroo anyway, or ostrich come to that).

I didn't do a red meat challenge this year.

Gluten is a whole different challenge. Quite tricky. They hide gluten in all sorts of unlikely places. I have cousins who have coeliac disease, so I do know about hidden gluten. Even so, it came as something of a surprise when I went through everything in my pantry and fridge and checked the ingredients. I knew that soy sauce has gluten in it. I did not know that light soy sauce usually does not. Tamari may or may not contain gluten depending on the brand. Tomato sauce does not. Brown sauce does. Vegemite does. The mirin in my pantry does, the cooking sake does not. Baked beans in tomato sauce are fine. Milo is not. Za'atar does not usually contain wheat but it is just as well I checked the ingredients on the bag I bought when I ran out because it did have wheat in it. My Lebanese friend was unimpressed when I told them

You can, of course, buy gluten free bread, even gluten free Vegemite. But mostly I didn't. There didn't seem to be much point in doing a gluten challenge and simply replacing everything with their gluten free equivalents . Also, I didn't want to go out and buy new stuff just for Lent. I did buy gluten free for things I ran out of but mostly I ate from the gluten free items I already (accidentally) had.

I got a bit tetchy with people who asked if I was losing weight during this challenge. It was not a weight loss challenge, and I didn't go particularly low carb (rice is gluten free, although Rice Bubbles are not). 

I quite enjoyed my gluten free Lent. It was an interesting challenge and meant I had to be both vigilant and mindful about what I bought and ate. I am hugely grateful, though, that in my case it was a challenge by choice and not a medical necessity. I was dreaming of ham and cheese toasties by the time I got to Easter! I also discovered that I could have been eating scotch finger biscuits, even the chocolate covered ones. Arnott's does a range of gluten free alternatives for some of their biscuits. But again - not really in the spirit of the challenge!

I didn't quite make it to Easter Sunday. I bought sourdough hot cross buns (definitely not gluten free) from my local cafe on Good Friday. It seemed appropriate.

Easter Monday breakfast at the Pompeii cafe.
A fancy pants toastie.
Egg, bacon and cheese on a sourdough calzone,
hot chocolate on the side