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.
Hopefully this isn’t a stupid question! I’ve had blood work showing a sensitivity to gluten, so have been avoiding ALL bread/pasta/etc to do a gut reset. If I’ve found non-GMO wheat flour, will that cause the same problems? And you mentioned sprouted grains. Do sprouted grain breads not cause the issues?
There is no wheat that is GMO currently on earth … and all wheat has gluten. Sprouting grains does not eliminate the gluten either.
Tilapia is another bad choice, you might want to do some research on how dirty a food that one is
Just starting my gluten free, non gmo life style.
Actually, this really is nothing new, just something only recently shared throughout the public thanks to the informational freedom our modern technology facilitates. Even the ancient Greeks knew of celiac disease and it’s links to gluten and observed children who failed to thrive because of it.
This new food system has made it impossible for me to eat restaurant food except for salad and steamed vegetables. I do not even eat restaurant olive oil as it may be cut with canola. I order lemon slices and get my carbs and protein before or after at home eating healthy meat from somewhere else other than any grocery store, including Whole Foods. The butcher in one of the stores told me the meat case has no organic meat.
Just an FYI about Olive Garden and nearly every other chain restaurant of that caliber out there – they MICROWAVE the majority of their food, and the meats are a far cry from the healthy, natural meat one would find from a local farmer. If one must eat out, then please be informed before you dine.
Good point!
I made a wonderful dish with organic vegies and ancient harvest organic penne pasta. I don’t do well with gluten and have had really bad reactions to regular pasta and barley.
I had the same reaction to the penne and also broke out in hives. I called my daughter who is a ND and she said our grandson had a similar reaction to the same product. It is supposed to be gluten free organic and non GMO
Watch out for it if you are sensitive to gluten!!!!
It is made from organic quinoa and organic corn. I think you have been sensitized to corn when we were bombarded with GMO corn in the beginning of this mess and we didn’t know we were eating lab manipulated food.
I’ve given up on thinking there is any item in a restaurant I should eat. I am very fortunate to live in a large city where a few progressive businesses exist. So there are three or four places where you can be sure to get non GMO foods, real healthy oils instead of vegetable oils, pastured meats, &c. If I must go to a restaurant for social reasons, I either do not eat at all (trying to not be obvious about it because for some reason other people get upset when one person is not eating) or, if I’m hungry enough that I feel I need something, I am pretty much a vegetarian when I go. A few non-organic vegetables a few times a year my system can deal with. Life has changed so much. No stores or restaurnats hardly at all anymore. Only farmers markets and trading with neighbors.
Odd, that humans have consumed wheat for forever, now so many have gluten related problems. I wonder,,,,what else is going on? I would sure like the big picture and feel this is only a small part of it.
What else is going on is that the whole issue has very little to do with gluten. What hasn’t been consumed forever is the glysophate which is sprayed on the wheat just before harvest to insure all the wheat berries are “ripe” at harvest. Glysophate is taken directly into the wheat or barley and YOU eat it. It significantly alters the bacteria in the gut and causes all kinds of digestion deficiencies. Do your own research.
It says right on the menu you that you can ask for vegetables to be substituted for the pasta. I happen to find this quite delicious.