German Food For Your Reading Pleasure

So this whole being a new Celiac trying to live in a foreign country is an interesting challenge and also kind of a pain in the arse.

My guts are totally f*cked and yet I still have to eat. Prepared foods and eating out is pretty much over. Whole foods and Home Cooking is not a bad draw. Really,, I am so thankful it isn't dairy I must avoid.


This is actually a fairly sparse cheese day in our little German fridge.

Those inventive Germans have found some way around their own law stating beer can only contain barley, hops and water. In addition they have come up with some pretty damn good brews from rice and sorghum. This is a nice medium dark rice beer I would have been proud of in my beer brewing days. Thanks to them I'm enjoying drinking a beer once and a while again, something I haven't done in years cause it always made me sick, DUH! This one sets me back almost 3 euros each so that part sucks.

Last weekend along come these little gems. I've always been a big fan of chocolate with a bit of puffed rice. The ability to translate German food labels isn't a skill I expected to need when I left home, but if I do say so myself, I excel. Necessity is the best classroom (after the bedroom of course). A quick scan of the ingredients and crispy M&Ms were on my "oh yeah" list. About 12 hours later I got that feeling of being punched in the stomach when you are not ready. It lasted almost three days and was accompanied by other pleasantries. Racking my brain trying to discover how I got glutened (new verb!) I finally reread the packaging a bit more thoroughly this time.

So I can read, but I'm not thorough enough. Starke is starch and can be from any grain and unless it says corn, rice or potato starch, I should avoid it even though it is often gluten-free. The next one on the list is Gerstenmalzextrakt aka barley malt extract. No ambiguity here. That is like a concentrated gluten party to my immune system. I'm on day 6 since being glutened and though I'm weak, I'm coming back and I'm smarter and more thorough!