I’ve been browsing through some old photos, looking for things that I could post on my blog. In doing so, I’ve come across several food photos (and a couple of drink photos) that are of things I’ve had to give up – or at least change – since going gluten-free in late 2014.
Here are a few of my favourites – or the things I used to like, anyway…
Let’s go through these pic by pic…
The first two pics are of two separate Chinese takeaways. The first is chicken chow mein with spicy prawns, and the second is kung pow chicken, also with spicy prawns.
I so miss Chinese takeaways! However, all is not lost: my wife found a gluten-free Chinese in Surbiton that we’re definitely going to try out.
The third pic is a Domino’s pizza. We’ve had their gluten-free pizzas, and they’re not bad.
We used to have a lot more takeaways back when these photos were taken, so maybe being gluten-free isn’t the worst thing in the world…
In the fourth pic, we have chocolate cupcakes, made by Lauren. We’ve had gluten-free cakes since then – both bought and home-made – but nothing like these in a really long time.
Next up: jaffa cakes. There are gluten-free jaffa cakes, but the ones I’ve tried are not good at all. This is something I definitely miss.
After that, we had Tuc cheese sandwich – a savoury cracker that I used to like a lot. This pic is a good placeholder for lots of other savoury snacks – there are rather a lot of things I can’t have anymore.
Pics seven and eight show one of my big weaknesses: Krispy Kreme doughnuts. This is one thing we haven’t found gluten-free equivalents for. I love them. A couple of months ago, we launched a project at work and our Product Manager very kindly bought Krispy Kreme for the team. Sadly, I couldn’t have any. Maybe one day…
Finally, there’s London Pride (the drink, not the event). Beers and ales are hard to come by these days, although a few gluten-free beers exist. Having a gluten-free Peroni at Pizza Express is something I’m very glad I can still have.
To conclude
There are lots of comfort foods I used to eat before I went gluten-free. Some have GF equivalents, but not all.
What’s particularly clear to me is I ate a lot of unhealthy food back when these photos were taken! Mind you, I’ve found plenty of junk that I can eat even now…
