Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Subway Gluten Free

Yep, that's right, Subway has jumped on the gluten free bandwagon, and I must say, they've done a stellar job educating themselves on what it takes to make a gluten free sandwich, from start to finish. Here's my review:

Subway has branched out and is testing gluten free bread and brownies in 700 Dallas/Ft. Worth locations, so it's not at every store, but hopefully it will be someday! It looks like they train their staff about the dangers of cross-contamination. I don’t know if this trend is gonna stick around though, since they said my sandwich order was only the 6th order they’ve had in 3 weeks. But, I’m hopeful. I’m actually surprised that they are using this store as a test market. We’re kinda out there in the middle of nowhere! Okay, so here’s what happened:
I walk in and tell them I’d like to try the gluten free bread for my sandwich. The girl tells me she’s got to wash her hands and change her gloves, and she’ll be taking care of me. So, she gets out the pre-packaged bread(looks like a hamburger bun, but a bit larger) with knife included, on a separate sheet of paper away from everything, cuts it, puts it on a tray and puts it in the oven to toast. She then asks me if I’d like her to pull all the toppings from the back so there’s no cross contamination. Of course I say yes. So, every topping that I got was from a fresh container, including the veggies. She was the only person that ever touched my sandwich, and I watched her the whole time. Granted, it did take longer to get my order, and about 8 people went in front of me while mine was being made, but it was worth it to know that I was getting a gluten free sandwich from a restaurant for the first time in 4 years. I can imagine that it might be difficult at different locations, where the employees speak a different language to communicate your needs, but if all the stores with the test markets are being trained properly, then it shouldn’t be a problem. Oh, and the bread is fantastic. I was very impressed. I also tried the brownie, by French Meadow, and loved the fact that it is completely grain free, using only potato starch as the flour. Very moist and flavorful, but then again I love chewy, dark, chocolatey brownies. They also display a list of all the ingredients that are gluten free(most of them) excluding the meatballs, seafood, and chicken teriyaki..and I think there might have been one other thing. They even have a list of dressings and chips that are gluten free(I think most of the chips are too, since they’re by Frito-Lay, and Frito-Lay has an extensive list on their website of gluten free chips. Anyway, Subway in Aubrey at Providence on HWY 380, east of Denton rocks! Oh, and Subway does have a list of allergens on their website, including gluten free toppings here: http://www.subway.com/applications/NutritionInfo/Files/AllergenChart.pdf

One of the employees also gave me an ingredient list for the bread:

Egg whites, corn starch, modified corn starch, tapioca starch, palm oil, sugar, distilled monoglycerides, organic honey, organic apple cider vinegar, Contains less than 2% of the following: yeast, rice bran and germ, salt, leavening(sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), pectin, xanthan gum, carbohydrate gum, guar gum, enzyme. Contains Eggs manufactured on shared equipment with soy

Brownie Ingredients:
Sugar, expeller pressed canola oil, eggs, potato starch, cocoa alkali processed, natural vanilla flavor, salt, xanthan gum, natural chocolate flavor. Contains eggs, manufactured on shared equipment with soy.

I do wish more people would take cross contamination more seriously. For full blown celiac disease, cross contamination can cause serious issues. There are several people out there that just don't worry that much about cross contamination, and that's why so many restaurants don't understand what the big deal is about it. I know there are varying degrees of gluten sensitivity, and I can actually usually handle a bit of cross contamination, but I feel like for everyone's sake, cross contamination should be a universal concern for all restaurants attempting to cater to the gluten free diner. So kudos to Subway for being educated in that department. Now I want Jason's Deli to follow suit! They offer gluten free bread but make no attempt to avoid cross contamination. If you have a different experience there, please share!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Pregnant!




Yep, that's right. I'm pregnant. I found out about 5 days after my last post on here! I'm due May1st, with a little girl. I'm 24 weeks pregnant now, and super excited about meeting our new little addition! Well, I guess I haven't posted all of fall and now we're already into winter. Ethan and I have kept busy going to play dates and generally just keeping busy with the day to day, house maintenance stuff. I had been feeling okay in the very beginning of my pregnancy, but by week 6, I was starting to feel the nausea. From week 6-11, I felt nauseous every day and pretty much laid around all day or tried to get out of the house in the attempt to distract myself from the nausea. Luckily I wasn't as sick this time as I was with Ethan. And it didn't last nearly as long! Thank God! I feel pretty good now, and the only food I can't tolerate is tomato sauce, like spaghetti, lasagna, pizza, etc. Which is sad because I love those foods dearly :( Every time I eat them though I throw up. It may not happen right away, but it does come back up later.

In the past few months, my mom, sister and I have started a food co-op. We basically are the ones that do all the work and provide local, organic produce, meat, eggs, dairy, coconut products, and other natural foods to other people for a lower price. We don't make any money at it, but we are able to order in bulk, larger quantities which helps us pay less in the long run. It's been fun so far. And it's been nice to be able to make the choice of what produce to buy each delivery. I only wish I could get my hubby to stop eating all the processed food he likes to eat. I'd say our only vices are corn tortilla chips(organic, from costco), commercial cereal(E and I don't eat this often though), and hubby still has that darn soda habit. We are thinking about buying the soda stream soda maker though, which will save money and the mixes have less crap in them than commercial soda. Besides that though, there's not much crap we eat. It's just enough to annoy me! I've just recently bought some organic popcorn so I can start making popcorn from scratch with coconut oil and sea salt so we will stop using that horrible microwave popcorn. I don't even like having it in the house but we bought a huge costco size box about a year ago and it's not gone yet. When it's gone, I'm not buying that crap again. The holidays weren't great for my eating habits, but then again, I had to be careful what I ate anyway, or I was at risk of throwing up! I did end up making gluten free chex party mix and muddy buddies as my holiday snacks, but man, those processed carbs can get so addictive. It was hard to put them down. My mom did much better than me and didn't use refined sugar in anything, no grain, and pretty darn healthy! I was surprised at how filling the treats she made were. Oh, I also made chocolate peanut butter cups. Those were darn tasty! I used dark chocolate, natural peanut butter, honey and coconut oil, so those weren't too bad.

My brother came home for the holidays. He got in around the 21st I think? Maybe it was earlier, and didn't leave until Jan 8th. It was great having him in town that long since I didn't feel pressured to get in all my time with him in one weekend or so. I'm glad he decided to stay that long. We had a blast while he was in town.

We started going to a new church recently. The Edge Fellowship. I really like how small it is right now and just recently joined the worship team. It's been nice getting really involved with a church finally. I have nothing against the church we came from, but I just never really got involved and again, I like how small this one is, feels more intimate. So, my Saturdays are usually spend practicing for worship about 3 hours a day, then church at 5. It's been nice having church on Sat night and then having Sunday free to do nothing!

Mark's been working a lot more lately since I stopped working in April, so that's been a little hard on us, but I try to keep our days busy and spend time with my family when I'm feeling cooped up. He always has Sunday free and Saturday mostly, so that's been nice. The week is what's tough! Also, it's just gotten harder since Ethan turned 2. He's not hit the "terrible twos" per say, but he's been dealing with teething, constipation and general toddler tantrums lately, which is so tiring! He doesn't seem even close to potty training yet, but I'm not concerned. I really don't want to start trying that process until he seems ready, and he doesn't. I just don't want to make it harder on myself than it needs to be!

We've started working on the new baby's room in the past few weeks, but certainly aren't done. We just bought the paint yesterday, and already have the crib and a rocking chair. The next step is to paint, do wainscoting, and get the rest of the furniture. I do need to get another mattress, but I think I'm going to get a regular toddler mattress for Ethan's room and use our expensive organic mattress for the baby's bed. I've read lots of studies lately blaming commercial mattress chemicals for SIDS. This is one reason a lot of people think that turning babies to their back is what helped reduce SIDS. If they're on their back, they aren't breathing in chemicals directly from the mattress. There's no solid proof for this obviously, but I don't want to take any chances. We have an organic mattress topper for a commercial mattress for Ethan, so I think that's better than nothing. Plus, half the time E's in our bed, and I'm sure the new baby will be in our bed occasionally and ours isn't organic, but I tend to feel safer if my kiddos are next to me :) The pictures at the top of the page is our crib, and the one to the right is the bedding we just ordered for this little girl. So excited to see the room all done! I like it because I think it will grow with her. It's not a "baby only" design. Well, that's about all I've got for today. I'm gonna go help Mark make dinner and I'll blog again soon, I promise!