Follow my Gluten Free path......

My name is Taylor Wootton and I am a student athlete that goes to school and plays basketball at Drexel University i n Philadelphia, PA. I grew up in a normal household with a mom, a dad and a brother. The only difficulty my family had to deal with was "what are we going to eat" or "where are we going to eat." This was the case because my mom had celiac disease. Celiac disease is when your body does not digest the protein in gluten. Foods that contain gluten are breads, cookies, cake, soy sauce and many more foods containing wheat, barley or rye. When you have the disease and continue to eat foods that have gluten in it, the symptoms could be, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, chronic diarrhea, constipation, just to name a few. Some of the risks could be intestinal cancer, thyroid cancer or type 1 diabetes. My mother was diagnosed about 20 years ago. At first she cheated a lot because the gluten free foods that were available tasted horrible. All she wanted was good tasting gluten free foods, pizza, bread, pasta, cookies. She wasn't asking for much, but she felt all alone,  the diagnosis of Celiac Sprue (as it was called 20 years ago)was new to world. There weren't many companies that made gluten free foods, let alone good tasting gluten free foods. I wanted to taste some of the gluten free foods she ate, Yuck; probably the worst tasting food I had ever tasted and really expensive. I hated when my mom cheated, she would get sick,  but I understood because I could never eat the food she had to eat. As I got older my mom and I always tried to find good tasting gluten free products and gluten free restaurants. I would always try the gluten free foods because if someone that didn't have Celiac thought the food tasted good, it must of been amazing for her. This past summer I was in and out of  many doctors’ offices because I had stomach problems. The doctor ruled out that I had celiac disease but since my mother has the disease I could have gluten intolerance. This meant I could not have foods with gluten because it hurt my stomach. At the start of this school year I went on a gluten free diet and started to feel like myself again. I try not to cheat but it's extremely difficult to do because I travel so much with my basketball schedule.  I'm starting to learn to ask, "what's in this dish" and "how is this prepared".  I sound like my mom. Since the summer my mom and I were talking about a blog named "gluten free follow me".  We want to share with everyone where to find the best gluten free products and which restaurants offer the best gluten free foods. Today so many people have this disease or are gluten intolerant or gluten sensitive.  In my blog I will post about different gluten free products and gluten free restaurants.  I hope you can follow me on my gluten free path.