Many people eat out a lot on vacation and during the Holidays and my family is no exception.
Getting a decent restaurant meal that won’t give you a headache or make you feel sluggish the next day is challenging enough, but for those who are gluten-free, it can be nearly impossible.
While I personally do not eat gluten-free all the time, I make an effort to avoid conventionally prepared wheat in restaurants. Â I have observed over the years that while the organic wheat I grind fresh and carefully prepare traditionally at home by either sprouting, soaking or sour leavening causes me no trouble, restaurant pasta, bread, croutons, and other processed wheat items make me feel extremely tired and sometimes achy for a day or two.
So, when I discovered that a family gathering was scheduled to go to dinner at The Olive Garden a few weeks ago, you can imagine that I was not all that excited at the prospect.
The Olive Garden could aptly be called the “Pasta Capital of America”. Â The dishes are embarrassingly huge with pasta and bread flowing nonstop from the moment you sit down until you roll out the door a couple of hours later. Even if you order a nonpasta dish, you get an obligatory side of spaghetti that could feed two people by itself.
While the food at The Olive Garden tastes ok, how it makes you feel is quite another matter. My husband and I like to joke that those who eat at The Olive Garden likely collapse on the couch in front of the TV for 3 hours straight after getting home. Either that or an emergency stop at the 7-Eleven for a Big Gulp coffee would be necessary to stay awake!
I ended up arriving at the Olive Garden before the rest of my family, so I had the opportunity to chat with the hostess for a few minutes before getting seated. I was surprised to discover during our conversation that The Olive Garden has a gluten-free menu, complete with Penne Rigate and salad without croutons. Non-pasta dishes were served with gluten-free penne pasta.
After looking at the menu for a few minutes, I asked about the ingredients of the gluten-free pasta. Â I was thinking it was probably rice or quinoa pasta, which would have been fine with me.
I use arsenic-free rice or quinoa pasta (brand) myself at home occasionally, and a pasta meal once in a while is not going to be problematic within the context of a nutrient dense diet the majority of the time.
I really wanted to order pasta as ordering steak or fish at a pasta restaurant is not usually a good idea. Ordering the restaurant specialty is the way to go if you want to get a decent tasting meal.
Unfortunately, the news from the waitress was disappointing, to say the least. She told me the gluten-free pasta was made primarily from corn and not organic corn either.
While I don’t have an issue with corn, I definitely have an issue with genetically modified (GMO) corn which has been linked with all manner of serious health problems and was found to induce huge tumors in rats (this study was quietly retracted during Thanksgiving due to the messy public relations it was causing the biotech industry, not because of bad science).
Since basically all nonorganic corn nowadays is GMO, ordering a gluten-free dish at the Olive Garden was definitely a no go. However, the most disturbing thing about the GMO gluten-free menu was the children’s Penne Rigate with Marinara.
GMOs served to vulnerable, allergic children? Â Unconscionable.
I ended up ordering the parmesan encrusted tilapia that was absolutely terrible (it tasted like microwaved dish soap, no kidding). Â At least the asparagus on the side was good.
Eating Gluten-Free? Â Watch out for the GMOs!
My experience at The Olive Garden got me to thinking about the silent and very serious GMO problem that exists with supposedly healthier gluten free products.
Examination of typical foods stocking the gluten-free aisle at the supermarket and at the health food store in the days after my Olive Garden experience confirmed my suspicion that those who choose to eat gluten-free processed foods have unknowingly exchanged gluten for another ingredient that is much, much worse: GMOs.
Glutino, one of the biggest gluten-free brands, is prominent in both supermarket and health food stores. I checked the ingredients of 10 of their products and every single one contained GMO corn, GMO soy, GMO sugar and/or GMO canola.
I realize that Glutino has gone on record supporting the Non-GMO Verified Project Seal, but as of this writing, many of their products are still loaded wtih GMOs and dangerous to consume.
It is possible to make gluten-free items also free of GMOs?
Absolutely. Here are a few brands I checked that offer both gluten free and nonGMO options: Andean Dream, Enjoylife, and Pamela’s Simplebites.
If you have issues with gluten and have decided to go gluten-free even going so far as to make gluten-free flour at home, make sure you continue to read labels and ask about ingredients at restaurants! Â Even if a product proclaims itself “gluten-free”, it is not necessarily any better and might be far worse for your health.
I was diagnosed as gluten intolerant and I prefer to eliminate altogether, rather than replace. Looking at the ingredient list of most GF products isn’t much different than those with gluten.
Link is. Not working in phone bur I agree processed food no good anyway is better Make from scratch even Gf baked
The GMO content is my biggest issue with gluten free foods. I’d much rather have a little gluten in some sourdough bread or even pasta, which is at least durum semolina wheat. Unfortunately my daughter is sensitive to gluten. Fortunately we hardly ever eat out.
Do you know if Bob’s Red Mill GF products are GMO free? My kid loves the homemade shortbread cookies I made from Bob’s GF shortbread flour. Do you recommend of any other good brands for shortbread flour for cookies?
The Bob’s Red Mill website says that their products come from non-GMO seed but they don’t guarantee that it’s free of GMO contamination.
I have seen olive garden signs, but, I have been unable to find the garden.
How scary…. I would never dream of eating at olive Garden, ever ! GMOs aside, another caveat for the mushrooming GF market out there…. (read labels): 99% of all processed GF packaged foods are made from nasty starches, (JUNK), which equals high carbs, which leads to diabetes
and other disease. Whole foods, preferably organic, made from scratch is what our
bodies crave and thrive on ! Isolating one nutrient from another is not what nature intended… you can never fool mother nature, or the wisdom of our bodies.
The natural synergy of “WHOLE” must be cultivated. You must love yourself enough to care ….
Buon appetito !
I have a child with Celiac, so the entire family went gluten free. To me, it wasn’t a choice. I agree with you that I’ve found more nasty little creepy ingredients in the premade food, including trace gluten elements, spelt (which has gluten in it and only part of the people with gluten allergies can tolerate at all), or are simply- at best- empty calories or junk.
Because of this, my family rarely eats out and it is typically only for drinks or smoothies. I invest a lot of time making everything from scratch. I’m talking grinding my own flours from scratch just to ensure that I know the food foot print, who grew it, etc. It may seem paranoid (my extended family thinks that I’m crazy), but food sustains you, right? It can’t be full of poisons.
And for all of my hard work, the second ‘soup’s on’, every member of my family is there in a heartbeat and we all sit down together. I call that a success.
I have never eaten at OG, but I know many people who have, and yes, the crash for the rest of the evening is what happens. Although, many I know crash anyway because their diets typically are the usual American processed fare, so that’s the only life they seem to know.
The local big box grocery stores have a health food aisle, but there really is very little to buy.
I have never cared for The Olive Garden period. We eat low carb foods, not necessarily gluten-free, but close, I guess. One thing I find that makes going out to eat easier is if we choose diners, instead of franchised restaurants. I basically eat meat and salad and if they put croutons on my salad, I just remove them. Most of the time they will do what I ask. Breakfast is eggs and bacon or sausage or an omelet, hold the toast and potatoes.
The above comment which says that food allergies are fake, has no idea what he is talking about. Why did they suddenly become allergic to these things? Maybe because the foods available for sale in restaurants and stores is all chemicals, and GMO foods and they have affected us after all this time. He needs to wake up and get his head out of the sand.
You were expecting organic gluten-free pasta at Olive Garden? Get serious. If you go to a crappy restaurant, expect crappy food. The percentage of Olive Garden’s pasta-sucking, alfredo-slurping market that demands organic, gluten-free options is so absurdly small that it’s not worth their while to offer it. Also: when did the dining public turn into such pussies? Our species has thrived for many millennia eating delicious, gluten-filled wheat products as a staple of our diet. Then, all of a sudden, in the last decade or so, millions of whiny, entitled Americans suddenly became allergic to it? Gluten is everything, and it’s delicious? Bread? Delicious. Pasta? Delicious! Donuts? Delicious. Going into a national chain restaurant and asking for organic, gluten-free ingredients is the quickest way to piss off your server and the kitchen (who all know that your “gluten allergy” is fake, anyway).
Wow, Bill. I hope you (can) have a nice day. 😉
@Bill- You clearly don’t know someone that truly can’t tolerate gluten. The effects of it on some people are far from “fake”. They are obvious, detrimental, and rather quick to appear. For some it may be a fad, but for many of us it is serious health threat.
Bill, wheat was hybridized in the 1980’s to such an extent that the gluten has become undigestible to millions of people. Hybridized, not genetically modified; still not fit for human consumption.
No Bill, people did not suddenly become allergic to gluten in the last decade. Rather, they have finally figured out what has been making them feel so crappy, sometimes for several decades, and perhaps for generations before that.. Do you actually believe there is no such thing as a problem with gluten? I have a blood test and small intestinal biopsy that say otherwise. If I were to find out that a restaurant server and kitchen staff were not taking my request seriously if they provide a gf menu, rest assured that restaurant would be hearing from me again, and possibly my lawyer. Personally, I have never had a problem, nor have I been sickened.
Nothing infuriates me more as someone with celiac disease than people saying gf is a fad. One, how is it anyone’s concern if people choose to eat gf? And two, how incredibly callous to assume that just because you don’t have a problem with gluten (or do you?), nobody else should, either. I know I am probably wasting my time responding to you, Bill, as I suspect you have no interest in learning the truth.