Gluten Free Lunch 1 - The Sandwich

Nothing in GF-lunch-dom is more elusive or missed than the simple sandwich. Bread, meat, cheese, tomato, condiments... mmm. Not to mention cheap, easy to pack, easy to eat, quick to prepare, and "normal". Gluten free only deletes one word from this list - cheap. Sure, meat, cheese, tomato... all of these are usually gluten free. Your favorite condiment... most likely. Unless someone else in the house or office uses it on normal bread. (Label your condiments prominently with GF or your initials to prevent this sort of mistake!)

But bread. Bread holds it all together. Without bread, you need a fork and knife, not to mention a plate. What on earth is a gf lunch bringer to do?

Gluten Free Bread
Here's the obvious one, but it's also the most expensive. Buy gluten free bread. Gluten free bread costs about the same as a quality organic loaf of bread in your average supermarket, but is harder to find and is... usually physically harder. Cheaper brands tend to fall apart, require toasting (a no no in the cafeteria!), have the wrong consistency, or just taste wrong. Recently, Udi has come out with a bread that is almost exactly like normal bread. Buy it at $5+ a loaf at a grocery store near you, or order it from their website. Yes, it really is worth it if you have to have gf bread. But if you're a little less picky, and a little more stingy, there are other options.

Corn Tortillas
Relatively inexpensive, gluten free (always check!) corn tortillas can be found at most grocery stores. These are not a great bread substitute, but they will hold your sandwich together. Don't try to make a wrap out of these small tortillas (they break unless warmed and won't hold much), instead use two tortillas as substitute slices of bread. I'll admit, I haven't done this much with normal sandwich ingredients. I prefer, instead, to turn my sandwich into something a bit more "tex-mex" by choosing meat and cheese that will go well with avocado and the salsa I like to dribble on top just before eating. Try them with leftovers from Mexican night and microwave it for an even better experience. Or heat up with marinara and mozzarella cheese for an imitation pizza.

Crackers
This is a personal favorite of mine. I substitute my sandwich for cheese and crackers. Try different kinds of cheese on rice thins or nut thins (these are good alternatives to expensive gluten free crackers, but the nut thins are better imo, and my non-gf friends love them!) with a variety of fruits, meats, and jellies for a different experience.

Lunch Meat Rollups
I used to envy my best friend who brought these every day to elementary school. Forget the bread, and roll your lunch meat into sticks. You can even roll cheese, condiments, and diced tomatoes inside like a sushi roll. Use a toothpick if necessary. Eat it with your hands.

Lettuce Wrap
A lot of restaurants sell this as a low carb option, so keep your eyes peeled when eating out. What you need is flexible, large leaf lettuce. Put whatever you want in it (I love this with some chicken salad, with grapes and nuts) and then close the lettuce up around it. It can be somewhat messy if you stuff the lettuce too full, but the bonus is that making a second or third one instead of stuffing the first one to the brim will result in eating basically the same amount of food. Lucky you!

Sandwich Salad
And, if all else fails, take everything you want on a sandwich and turn it into a salad, with or without salad greens. Bring your favorite dressing to drizzle on the salad just before eating so everything stays fresh.

Here's what I've got, and it's making me hungry. Any other suggestions?

Eating Gluten Free - At School or Work

I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease just after my 17th birthday. At the time, I had just finished my junior year in high school, and eating gluten free at school was a challenge. I had always packed lunches, ever since elementary school (when I refused to eat sandwiches), and so I was used to bringing lunch. But what do you bring to school when you can't eat most of the snacks and staples of the packed lunch?

College was worse. I ate in a dining hall at a small liberal arts school. The school was too small to accommodate food allergies effectively, and I saw people with serious allergies have to leave the cafeteria because of contamination. In comparison I was lucky, but I still felt cheated. I ate primarily off of the salad bar, and quickly became bored of the few gluten free foods on offer.

During the last six years, I have only occasionally had access to refrigerators, microwaves, kitchens, or gluten free prepared foods. I have learned, little by little, to be self-sufficient, proactive, and creative. I think some of the skills that I have learned could be useful for others who search for quick, cheap ways to eat gluten free, even when out of the house. I want to master the bag lunch, which so many normal people take for granted.

These days, I am a graduate student, and I am able to bring a lunch, store it in a refrigerator, and microwave leftovers. But I still have to watch my peers devour pizza at seminars, down beer at the end of the week, and disappear to eat out for lunch. Also, I tend to go home for dinner because I would rather not bring two meals.

My aim in this blog is to share what I do to affordably eat gluten free on a graduate student schedule and salary, and to solicit advice from others in the same predicament. Shall we pack our lunches together?