Happy May - Celiac Awareness Month

May has arrived with abundant sunshine (vitamin D) and all is in bloom. Out of nowhere everything is bathed in a soft palette of green, pink, white and lavender. I can ignore the pollen sticking to my contact lenses in favor of appreciating the beauty all around!
And, with May comes Celiac Awareness Month... and I will do my part to help spread the awareness. My awareness tip of the day (and a pet peeve of mine) :
Contrary to popular belief gluten does not add flavor to baked goods.
When baking cake, cupcakes or muffins it's the chocolate, the vanilla extract,the almond extract, the orange zest, the bananas, etc that supply the flavor. Not the gluten.
Texture, yes. Flavor, no.
Though with all the brilliant gluten free bakers out there these days - there are more and more recipes and mixes that have fantastic texture sans gluten. And, of course, flavor.

Peacocks, Kidney Stones and Gluten Intolerance

"Peacock" watercolor on paper, 8x10, copyright Erin Rogers Pickering

A peculiar combination you say?  Not for me.
I am currently obsessed with finishing my peacock painting (#12 painting a week challenge) – and getting rid of a kidney stone, the appearance of which has greatly hindered my painting progress.

The Doctor informed me on Wednesday that the cause of my recent pains and problems was none other than a kidney stone.  Took me about 1 minute of google searching to find out the very real and common connection between kidney stones and celiac.  I may have been surprised by the kidney stone diagnosis – but was not at all surprised at the celiac connection.  Seems it all comes back to the same root cause.

If I understand correctly most kidney stones are calcium based.  They build up as a result of the body processing calcium inefficiently.  To absorb calcium efficiently, an adequate amount of vitamin D must be present.  Ah, there it is – my insufficient vitamin D thanks to malabsorption from gluten intolerance.  It's proving difficult to get it back in the range where it should be.  And, it invited the kidney stone in.

So I painted with lemon water for drinking on my left, and paint water for my brushes the right, and did my best not to confuse them... as the peacock eyed me warily.