Accepting that you're different

For those of you who have been reading Southern In-Law for a while, you'll know that I'm a little bit different.

As a hypoglycemic coeliac with way too many food intolerances, food can be tricky. With Jesse home, every night I have at least 3 pots/pans on the stove at once and often have the oven on too. Dinner leaves a pile of pots and pans and different cutting boards and utensils.

Why? I have a gluten eating fiancé with no food intolerances who thinks cheek-achingly sweet is just right and has now decided quinoa is a no-go.

But it's not just Jesse. My family and friends are the same so, generally speaking, I never eat the same thing as anyone else (the only exception is when Jesse and I have oatmeal or grits for breakfast and Jesse now eats gluten free pasta so I can make ours in the same pot).

Being a coeliac means that even traces of gluten make me insanely ill. I have separate pots, pans, utensils and chopping boards and I've got to be careful I don't mix things up when I'm cooking a gluten filled dinner for everyone else and a gluten free dinner for myself. 

When it comes to cakes and baked goods, I make things two ways. For my family, I follow my recipes as you see on the blog - while for me, they are gluten free but with a more tolerable amount of sugar. It's not because I avoid sugar or think it's bad whatsoever, my body is incredibly sensitive. If I eat sweet sweet foods without something else to offset the sugar (often times high protein or complex carbohydrate foods work) my blood sugar crashes dramatically and I end up with dizzy spells, nausea and have been known to black out. I've eaten this way for so many years that I love natural sweetness from fruits and lower sugar treats so I don't feel like I'm missing out at all. My family, on the other hand, are used to eating really sweet foods - so it's rare that they "love" my versions - especially Jesse.

The baked pancakes above were one of my not-so-sweet recipes. I thought I could get away with it since we were eating them with Nutella (for me, a small amount of Nutella is about as sweet as I can go without having an insane blood sugar crash) but I was wrong. Jesse is very much stuck in his ways (as are most people) and decided they didn't taste like pancakes were supposed to taste (read: southern style sweet) and if you put Nutella on top, they only tasted like Nutella (where's the problem with that?!) so alas, one of those pancake hearts was broken and half ended up in the bin.

This is a problem that many people with food intolerances or allergies have - accepting that you're different. It's tough - but once you realise how much better you feel when you're true to yourself, it doesn't hurt so much anymore.

So tell me, do you have food intolerances/allergies - or do you eat entirely differently to your family/friends? How do you cope? 

One of my bigggggest coping mechanisms is to be prepared. When you can't eat at dinner parties or when you're out and about - you have to be sure you look after yourself - because seriously, there's nothing worse than looking at food that you can't eat when you're about to chew your arm off! ;P