Gluten Free...

While I don't have Type 1 diabetes, what I do have is a gluten intolerance.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye. A simple explaination is that when one has a gluten intolerance (or worse, celiacs disease), eating foods with gluten damages the villi in the small intestine and interferes with the absorbtion of nutrients from that food.

So basically, I can't eat foods that contain wheat, barley, barley malt, or rye. While this sounds limiting in what I can eat, it's becoming much easier to find gluten free (GF) foods. There are more and more items showing up in the grocery aisle that are specifically GF and are made from rice, rice flour, tapioca flour, garbanzo flour, etc.

The challenge lies in that most pre-made camping foods contain some gluten. AlpineAire is one company that has a whole line of camping foods that are GF. The other challenge is funds. While I would love to be able to buy 180 days of meals, that's just not practical on the pocketbook.

So, it's off to the internet I go. While I'm on the hunt for a food dehydrator, I'm also hunting down receipes that I can modify to meet my GF needs. Thankfully, I have an ace in my back pocket. My nutritionist Sally Hara. She is not only helping me to ensure I consume the right foods and level of carbs needed for training and the hike itself, but she understands a GF diet and can direct me to foods I didn't even know about. Yay for help!