Wheatless in Seattle

Okay, so after watching my Mom find results by cutting wheat from her diet, I've decided I'm going to try it too. I don't know for how long (with my affection for all things carb-related, it probably won't last!), but I'm going to attempt this as long as I can. I picture it being maybe a month. :) We'll see.

Mom is down six pounds since she began. She started it because she thought she might have a sensitivity/allergy to wheat, but after a few days, told me that it also really kept her from snacking without thinking. I find this a very good selling feature for this "diet" so I'm starting too. I never knew how much I loved wheat until now. I used to think it was funny when people said bread was their big dietary vice, because I've always thought ice cream and all things sweet were my big thing. But I've found that this diet limits me greatly. Last night, we had chicken parmesan, and I couldn't eat the pasta or the toasty french bread. And tonight, we had fajitas. Mom and I had the goodies on top of brown rice instead of using lovely tortillas. I've been eating a massive amount of rice, in fact. We have lots of sticky rice made up when we have Japanese girls in the house, and I am taking advantage of that. It seems like each morning, breakfast includes rice. However, I just found out this morning that Cocoa Pebbles contain no wheat. Score! The other morning, though, I was in great distress when Mom made chocolate chip pancakes for the kids and forgot that I was on the diet. She began handing me a nice, warm, chocolatey pancake, and then said, "Oops! I'm so sorry! I'll see if Gary wants it." I went and got a bowl of rice and tried to enjoy the process.

But tonight I was reading about William Carey and his wife Dorothy. Apparently, they had some co-worker missionaries who didn't handle their finances too well and lived very well on money they didn't have. As the book says, though, "Unable to afford anything better, the Careys were forced to live in a marshy malarial area, where gangs of robbers roamed." Anyway, the excerpt that I found interesting relates to this diet:

"They were now eating curry and rice, day in and day out--a far cry from what those in the European quarter were enjoying, and probably a far cry from what the Thomases themselves were eating. Carey scribbled in his diary: 'My wife and sister too who do not see the importance of the mission as I do, are continuing exclaiming against me, and as for Mr. T., they think it very hard indeed that he should live in a city, in an affluent manner, and they be forced to go into a wilderness and live without many of what they call the necessaries of life, bread in particular.'"