My name is Michelle Gunther. I live on the Gold Coast with one husband, two kids and two toy poodles. I am a full time mum, part time cook and occasional writer.
In another life I worked in the Financial Services industry in Software and IT services. Now I work as a volunteer cook at the Surfers Paradise Anglican Crisis Centre(SPACC) cooking for the poor and the homeless. I love what I do!
My daughter Elizabeth and I are gluten-intolerant. As soon as we made the change our physical, mental and emotional health improved dramatically.
Going gluten free is a life long journey and as a family we are still fairly new along the road. There have been stumbling blocks and great breakthroughs. The biggest thing I have learned is that I need to keep pushing myself to read more, learn more and play in the kitchen more. The more I learn, the more passionate I am about my cooking and about serving the right foods for my family's long term health.
Celiac disease is a unique illness because there is no pharmaceutical treatment for it. Food is your poison and also your medicine. Quite often the foods we crave the most, are what makes us the sickest. It's irony of Shakespearean proportions!
I have learned that I have to have a great relationship with my food in order to stay healthy and happy. I have to enjoy "taking my medicine" as well as shopping for it and cooking it!
According to the University of Chicago Celiac Disease Program there are more than 250 symptoms and health conditions associated with Celiac disease. Everything from malnutrition, delayed growth, osteoporosis, cancer, miscarriage, fertility problems, liver disease, learning difficulties, depression and other psychiatric issues can be triggered by it.
According to Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic, if left untreated, a person with Celiac disease is between 9 and 34 times more likely to develop a malignant cancer than the rest of the population. Strict adherence to a gluten free diet can reduce these figures very dramatically.
If I could offer you a magic pill that would significantly reduce your risk of cancer, would you take it? Of course - most of us would jump at the task of taking a tablet every day, if it was able to offer this. For people with Celiac Disease, our magic pill is strict adherence to a gluten free diet. The good news is that my home-baked cookies and cakes taste so much better than any medicine I ever had to take! The bad news? It is not that easy living gluten free in a gluten overloaded world.
My home and my kitchen is my Gluten free sanctuary. I have fully converted my pantry, my methods of cooking and the whole family to our new way of eating. I don't think I could have coped with preparing separate meals for each half of the family. By investing my time, energy and money in reading about gluten intolerance and changing the way I cook, I have effectively learned to prepare my own best medicine.
I am not perfect - l sometime slip and give in to temptation and eat something I shouldn't. Boy, do I pay for it latter with pain and discomfort and frequent sprints to the bathroom! By learning to love cooking gluten free foods I have an arsenal of comfort foods to fall back on when I feel tempted by what I can't have. I don't feel like I am missing out on anything anymore.
