As many people know, my stomach and I are never really on the same page.  I have gone most of my life having my stomach get angry at me for pretty much everything; from wheat, to meat to even water.  Yes, you heard me, water – be it cold or warm, it gives my stomach cramps and pain.  Doctors, Naturopaths, Acupuncturists, Medical Specialists, and all sorts of “healing” professionals have tried to figure out to no avail. I have tried eliminating wheat, dairy, meat, sugar, fruit, gluten, chemicals, preservatives, caffeine, chocolate, alcohol, you-name-it from my diet, and while I now am able to live a bit more normal of a life not rushing to find a washroom all the time, that living off of chamomile tea, rice & chick peas really does suck.

My quest to figure out which foods I can eat has taken me the past 9 years of testing and trying.  I have narrowed down my main problem foods, and try to keep on a certain list of foods that I know wont hurt (too much), mainly some sort of rice, corn, fish, bean concoction, and non-alcoholic beer.  Now here is the thing, I LOVE to go out for dinner to a restaurant and enjoy a meal that a someone else has made, relax with friends or family, in an environment that isn’t my own kitchen.  The problem is, I can never just order something directly from the menu and be able to eat it, without having my stomach rebel at the excessive wheat or dairy used in North American cooking.

When I pick up a menu at an Earls, Milestones or a local restaurant or pub, I look at the yummy appetizers that likely are loaded with wheat filler of some sort, and quickly disregard the ever common chicken wings, calamari, nachos, or some sort of flat bread with a tapenade.  Scroll right past the salads and soups section, since I haven’t found a salad anywhere on the West Coast that tastes as good as the price I get charged for it ($15 for a couple pieces of lettuce with oil, vinegar and a few pine nuts & goat’s cheese. Really?)  Then typically there is a Pasta, Pizza and Burger section, which for someone who cant eat wheat without having extreme stomach pain and ramifications for several days later, is literally a section that I avoid like the plague.  My friends and colleagues who have Celiac’s Disease, IBS, Crohn’s Disease or gluten allergies have the same stance it seems, there is no section of restaurant menus (other than the salad section) that has a wheat-free or gluten-free option. If I want to pay $25 for one of the non-red meat entrée items, that consists of a piece of fish, potatoes and some veggies covered in cream sauce, I could fork out my hard earned cash for a meal that is completely too filling and likely will still hurt my stomach because of the dairy and potatoes.

You may ask – How do I end up finding something to eat with options like that?  Well, I end up ordering a side of fish, a side of rice, and a side of corn tortilla chips.  I ask nicely for the kitchen to make the meal interesting, but I end up ordering a side of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to give my meal some flavour.  Oh well, at least I was able to enjoy some plain non-stomach-hurting food while visiting friends or family & listen to fun music at the restaurant. But Wait! The bill still will arrive at the end of dinner, and lo-and-behold, my simple, plain, dietary meal that held no real ingenuity from the kitchen costs me double what anyone else at the table is paying – and that includes the guy who ordered the 12 ounce steak!  How is this fair? Well it is NOT, but it is how things go in the world of someone who needs a customized meal.  Why is my meal so expensive? Alas, here is the usual breakdown.  The server has charged me $18 for the small “side” piece of fish (keep in mind if I had ordered a salad with a “side” of fish, the piece of fish would have only cost $6),  the rice gets billed $7 or $8, and my tortilla chips have been rung into the server’s ordering system as “Chips and Salsa” at a whopping $10 to $12 (though I only got 12 chips on a bread plate).  All in all that meal has now cost me about $36,  but wait, that little side dish that held my Frank’s Red Hot Sauce to make my bland rice taste better also cost $2.  So the grande total is $38 for my food, and I find that just ridiculous! Don’t you? On top of that I end up tipping way more than anyone else, as my waitress or waiter has likely gone out of their way to take the time to deal with the kitchen to request these substitutions, so my meal ends up costing the same as 2 people’s.

I have asked numerous waiters and waitresses for different wheat-free options for a meal, and they typically will point at the $25 fish dish on the menu.  As one would assume that that meals can have some substitutions, my request for Corn Tortilla Chips, Hot Sauce etc. instead of potatoes and vegetables will get billed on top of the actual meal price, thus making my meal once again über expensive and lacking any creativity from the kitchen.

Why is it that I pay more than anyone else at my table for my meal, just because I have stomach problems? Is making a nice wheat and dairy free meal really that hard? I can prove that making delicious meals that don’t have wheat, dairy and red-meat is actually quite easy and fun, yet most restaurant kitchens are unable or unwilling to try to accommodate that request.  I have asked many a server to just tell the kitchen to surprise me with something meatless, wheat and dairy free, only to get a bowl of edamame soy beans and a baked potato.  It’s not their fault, they just aren’t used to the request I guess, yet everywhere I turn these days I am running into people who are vegan, or Celiac, or are avoiding wheat for weight loss, so there must be some demand.

I am looking forward to the day where I can go out for dinner, go to the menu and see more than one item I can order carté blanche from the menu without having to change a thing.

I can dream, can’t I? Or is that going to cost me too?