Gluten free and Vegetarian?

[hippiemombian]

So I've been thinking about making the switch to both gluten free and vegetarianism. The gluten free part because I suffer with things like depression and fatigue. As well as an embarrassing case of BV which I can't seem to get rid of despite everything I've tried and from what little "answers" they have to it, eliminating sugar and carbs from your diet may help. So if there is no improvement on that front with eliminating gluten then I may incorporate it back into my diet. Anyway, I'm curious to see if there is anyone else out there that is both? Ultimately I would like to be mostly vegan if not 100% but from where we are starting it would be a drastic change. We have a terrible diet! We eat out most every day, our pantry is full of processed foods and refined sugars.. the "typical" American when it comes to food I guess. So I need some help from both ends here. How do I even start? That sounds kind of dumb, but I honestly am clueless! Help, advice, guidance etc would all be greatly appreciated!

[catnip]

I'd do it gradually. Swap in a few meals a week, and increase it as your comfort level grows. Gluten free vegetarian is totally doable, vegan is a little trickier, especially eating out, but I know several people who manage. Here are a few meal ideas to get you started:

Breakfasts:

Oatmeal with nut butter and fresh fruit. I like peanut butter and bananas.

Pancakes made with GF flour, hemp and flax seeds and topped with fresh fruit with tofu or tempeh (turtle island's plain is GF) bacon. Or a Wildwood soy burger.

Scrambled tofu with loads of veggies - I make mine with the base recipe from Vegan with a Vengeance, but I add a bunch of cabbage and kale to it - and either rice or roasted potatoes

Quinoa, popcorn, rice, polenta, or another GF grain with soy or almond milk and fruit.

Miso soup

Lunches:

Veggie sushi and edamame

Soup and rice crackers

Salad topped with chickpea 'tuna'

Hummus, tortilla chips or rice crackers and veggie sticks

Baked potato or sweet potato topped with Nacheez, hummus, or chili

Dinners:

Tacos

Enchiladas

Tamales

Soup

Curried dal and rice

veggie curry and rice

thai curry and rice

Chana Masala and rice

veggie stir fry

tofu fish sticks

GF pasta with whatever sauce

Tuscan beans and polenta

Chili

Lentil nut Shepherd's pie

Packaged foods to check out: Daiya 'cheese', Nacheez 'cheese' sauce, Tinkyada rice pasta, Tofu Pups vegan hot dogs, Wildwood Organic Soy Burgers.

Restaurant meal ideas:

Chipotle - salad, burrito bowl or corn tacos

Romano's Macaroni Grill has a couple of vegan sauces and a GF pasta option

Taco bell tostada or crunchy bean tacos ordered fresco style

Wendy's baked potato plain topped with the french or italian dressing from a side salad.

[SundayCrepes]

We are gluten free, dairy free, cane sugar free, and tomato free vegetarians.

I have been a vegetarian since June 11, 1984. I decided to try being a vegetarian for a week to see if I could do it. I found it totally manageable so have stayed vegetarian since.

In the beginning of March we tried gluten free to see if it would help our daughter's speech. Three weeks later her speech took off. We don't know if it was coincidence or related, but since we liked the diet we decided to stay on it. Our step into gluten free was overnight. One day we ate gluten, the next we did not. The difficult areas was finding a replacement for the boullion I used in just about everything I made. I ultimately decided to make my own veggie broth. I freeze it in ice cube trays then store in ziplock brand bags. Also tortillas were hard for us until I discovered http://spiceandmore.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/an-exciting-discovery/ Also, www.elanaspantry.com has so many amazingly yummy baked goods. 

In June we stopped eating cane sugar, tomatoes, almonds, and black pepper with no changes in our daughter's diarrhea. In mid July we also cut out dairy. Three days later her lifelong diarrhea stopped. We reintroduced almonds and black pepper successfully, but not the rest.

I love this diet and have not had difficulty doing it overnight. However, that is my personality. Not everyone will be able to do that. If you can, great. But if you can't, it's better to do it a little at a time. I've heard that starting with dinners is a good idea. There are lots of gluten free vegan dishes out there. Then after you've succeeded at that for awhile, add in breakfasts. Lunch can be hardest so add those last.

My success came from looking for specific items I wanted to either replace or add to our diet. So, when I wanted to replace bouillion, I posted specific questions here and googled for veggie broth recipes. When I wanted breakfast ideas I posted here. That's when someone mentioned www.elanaspantry.com. (Really, go there now and check out her recipes. I mean it, right now.) I bought vegan gluten free cookbooks from amazon. I got them used. 

Frankly, I think your hardest step may be going from processed, packaged foods to real foods. There are plenty of packaged gluten free vegan foods out there. That's easy.(Though they're expensive and probably not that healthy.) It's learning to take the time to cook with whole ingredients that may be hard. So, if it is, maybe your best bet is to figure out how to do that. I do meal planning when I shop. Friday nights I make my menu and shopping list for the next week. I know on Mondays I will travel out of town for work and my husband will do the cooking so I plan something easy. Usually something I froze. On Thursdays my son has BMX so i let him choose the recipe (though I know it's likely going to be Tinkyada brand rice pasta with sauce.) The other nights I try a new recipe I've just uncovered or an old faithful. I keep a list of our favorite recipes on the computer so I can have ideas in front of me. As i add a recipe to our weekly menu I look up the ingredients and put them on my shopping list. On Saturday I get all my supplies for the next week. I come home and place my menu on the fridge.

Cooking fast is hard with gf vegan so I also make batches of foods to keep in the freezer for "fast food." I make sauces and soups and freeze them in ice cube trays then store in ziplock freezer bags. I freeze cooked pasta and brown rice on wax paper covered cookie sheets then store in Ziplock brand bags for quick use. The pasta needs a light coating of water when you reheat it, the rice does not (in the microwave.) Also, tinkyada past cooks in 7 or 8 minutes, not longer as the package says. I also keep frozen tortillas (see above link) in the freezer. Same with cooked black beans, great northern beans, and pinto beans. The gluten free vegan cookbook has a great curried bean dip recipe. Easy to make with frozen beans. (Though to start out with, you might want to just keep cans of beans on your shelf.)

Eating out gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian is easy for me. It's the cane sugar part that makes it hard and the tomatoes really complicate it. Therefore we hardly ever eat out. Ironic since the best gluten free restaurants are Mexican, Thai, and Indian--our favorite foods to eat out. I have to worry about sugar in curry pastes and tomatoes in curry and Mexican. It's just not worth it. We are on our first motel car trip since all this. I made and froze soups, sauces, pasta, rice, tortillas, and breads for this trip. It was a lot of work, but it's working out well.

To sum up, I love this diet which is far more restrictive than yours (though we have our own chickens so we do eat eggs.) Meal planning will help tremendously. So will finding recipes you enjoy.

[SundayCrepes]

Oh, and when we're having pasta, instead of topping with parmesan cheese, I top with cashew nuts.

[SierraBella]

I am a gluten free (actually 100% wheat free, mostly gluten free) lacto-vegetarian. I've been different variations of vegetarian/vegan for 8 years and GF/WF for about 19 months. It was a difficult transition to GF, but totally doable. There are lots of GF options available now, including some amazing pasta. For eating out, we usually go out for Indian food, which is often both GF and veg.

[MrsSlocombe]

You have some great suggestions already.  I can only add a little since I'm not gluten-free (been eating a lot of seitan since I reduced my soy intake), but I've been meaning to try some recipes from this website:

http://xgfx.org/

Doesn't the food look awesome?