gluten-free sucks

this gluten-free thing is not really working.  we have done 4 days so far, and if anything, i feel *worse*.  i know it takes time to get out of your system, blah blah blah, but the truth is that i wasn't feeling bad while i was eating gluten.  pudgy?  yes.  but bad? no.  and here is the thing: eating gluten-free in prague is really hard.  

it's not that it takes a lot of willpower, like if the gluten-free option doesn't look tasty but the gluten-full option looks delicious.  it's hard because it's really really difficult to find gluten-free food at a restaurant.  dinner and breakfast at home are not bad at all and of course there are a lot of options.  but really, when you're out it is hard!  and of course my czech language skills are terrible, but i know the word for gluten-free (bez lepkova!) and it doesn't seem to help.  most people don't know what that means, and even if you can explain it, sometimes people will say something has no wheat flour in it even when it does!  i understand that vegetarians here have a similar issue, in that they might get served something with ham chunks in it because it's just a small amount of meat, and meat is not the primary ingredient. i have seen people insist that there is no flour in a dessert even with a little cookie on it, because it's primarily fruit.

so when i finally find something, it's not actually all that healthy.  eating gluten-free is not like a low carb diet where you can just buy a hamburger and not eat the bun, because if the bun has ever touched the burger, that burger could have gluten on it, and the damage is done.  if you have an issue where gluten tears apart your GI system, you cannot risk that exposure.  so that only leaves potatoes, and vegetables cooked separately.  most czech meals come with sauce, and sauce almost always has wheat flour as a thickener.  soy sauce has gluten, so almost all asian food (again, in restaurants) is out unless you have the language skills to really specify it (and i do not).  what was available today?  i bought yogurt from the grocery store and then ate this potato-bacon-sauerkraut mix.  it was heavy and not very appealing, but i didn't know what else to get. i'm eating worse than ever now, and feel bloated (and the absence of bloating is supposed to be one of the great benefits of eliminating gluten from your diet).

so, what are the options?  i could bring my lunch to work.  this wouldn't be so bad now when i'm working in the office, but it wouldn't really work for the teaching days.  and also it would hurt our already scant social life if we couldn't go out to eat with people.  or i could try to switch to some other crazy diet, and then continue gluten-free with kimmo in the evenings if he wants to do it (though i'm not sure he is too eager, because he really misses the beer).  the beer is a big hindrance to low-carb plans in general.  maybe just eat muesli and yogurt at lunch?  i need to keep thinking about this.  in the meantime, however, i think i may drop this gluten-free thing.