Stuff You Really Should Take Care of Before College.

As of this month, it has been about a year since I left Seattle, Washington to Denver, Colorado for my first year college endeavor. It also happens to be my 1st anniversary as being gluten-free! Yay! I anticipate some festive party hats and GF cake in my near future...mom....

Anyways, I have taken it about myself to create this realistic, not-yo-mamma type of back to school check list that I wish I had had possession of myself when I was a young lass leaving the nest a year ago.

Read on, young grasshoppers.

A Celiac's First Year Checklist:

• Find out the details about your dorm's kitchen/cooking situation. {does your residence have a communal kitchen? Personal kitchen? No kitchen? Microwave? Mini fridge? Be that obnoxious kid who needs to know all the nitty gritty details about the place before getting there.}
• Email the dining hall manager and see if you can set up a meeting with him/her. {take a look at the sample contact e-mail I wrote}
• Buy needed cooking utensils. Do this AFTER you get to college if you are flying there so that you don't have to worry about somehow getting all those pots and pans to your destination. {click here for my basic list}
• Do some online research about gluten free restaurants and grocery stores near your campus so that you have some options of places to eat out/grocery shop once you get there. 
• Talk with parents about a monthly or yearly budget for food/groceries. {Are they willing to pitch in for your food, aside from what is offered at the dining hall? Can you negotiate a budget for food spending money?}
• Consider what foods you like to eat at home, and think about how you can make (or modify) these foods at school. {This process will make you consider what kinds of kitchen utensils/equipment you need, which ingredients you should have on hand, etc.}

An In-General College Student's First Year Checklist:

• Uncover the magic of 8tracks. {Mixes on this website have gotten me through hours upon hours of studying.} 
• If possible, rent your textbooks online a week or two before classes start. {Are you really going to need "Calculus For Life Sciences" after the course? No.}
• PACK EARLY WITH A DETAILED LIST OF WHAT YOU NEED IN HAND.
• If you are flying to school, try to take an airline like Southwest. {They allow you to check in 2 bags for free! This is a godsend when you are pretty much moving your whole life.}
• Go on ratemyprofessor.com to be ahead of the game when it comes to knowing what to expect when you enter the classroom. 
• Buy lots and lots of comfy but cute lounging clothes. {Chances are, if you are at all like me, you end a long day of classes with a change into very un-sexy pajama type clothing. This can become a hindering of your friend-making capabilities when you are living in a dorm with fellow students and possibly peers of the opposite sex (gasp!). Trust me and invest in some cute yoga pants, nice sweaters, and slippers that aren't bunnies.}
• Check out the gym for the first time during off hours. {Wandering in confused and overwhelmed while the place is crawling with fit college students makes you look like an obvious new freshman, therefore making you look less cool.}
• Don't don't don't go into the showers without flip flops. {No lie, some dumb boy who had too much to drink one night decided to go #2 in my hall's girl's showers. Blehhhhhhh.}
• Bring enough quarters to attract attention from airport security. {Quarters are like gold to students with dirty laundry that has been sitting around for weeks.}
• Expect to encounter that one fraternity where all they seem to do is sit out on their porch day-drinking and blasting music while everyone else is trudging to class, feeling a little less cool than they did earlier. {When do these people actually go to class?}
• Anticipate meeting some weirdos, seeing some things you wish you hadn't seen, learning a lot {or a little}, encountering some of the smartest {and stupidest} people you've ever known, and experiencing one of the most exciting parts of life! 

New Celiac Tips Pt. 2: Hitting Up the Grocery Store

Tackling a trip to the grocery store can be a daunting task for a new celiac. The foods that used to be familiar are now new and foreign to you, and it seems as though you cannot feel safe eating anything unless it has "gluten free" printed across the front and costs three times the regular amount. However, gluten free grocery shopping is not nearly as tough as it may seem. Here are some tips that I would have liked to know when I was a new gluten free shopper.

1. Look up your most frequented grocery store on the internet. Most grocery stores these days have a gluten free shopping list on their websites- some may even have an entire section devoted to food allergies and other health concerns. If your grocery store does not have any information on their gluten free options either online or in person, you might want to consider trying another store. Natural markets like Whole Foods or Central Market may seem overpriced and overly trendy at first, but these are almost always safe havens for gluten free eaters. These stores will be worth any extra money you spend, just because they will save time and stress.

2. When in doubt, shop the perimeter of the market. This is where you will find foods that are almost always naturally gluten free: fruits, vegetables, dairy, and meats. As a gluten free shopping rookie, you might want to just keep it simple and stick to this outer area and the natural foods aisle (if there is one).

3. Take into consideration that although there are some great looking gluten free pastries out there, your body doesn't need those refined sugars right now. You need time to heal, and what your body could really use is anything fresh and unprocessed. I made the mistake of feeling deprived of baked goods right away after going gluten free, so I went and bought pretty much every kind of g-free cookie I could get my hands on. This resulted in a slowing of the healing process and me gaining weight faster than I should have. Remember that the best way to be gluten free is through focusing on fresh, all-natural foods.

4. Don't completely shy away from all mainstream brand names. There are more and more well known food brands that are embracing the gluten free community by offering their products in gluten free versions, or even altering the recipes to make them gluten free! This is especially the case in cereal- Chex, Rice Krispies, and Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles are some great g-free cereals that will cost much less than the lesser known counterparts. Lays potato chips, Yoplait yogurt, and Pace salsa are some mainstream foods that have "gluten free" right on the label.

5. Before putting yourself through the annoyance of reading all of the ingredients on a food item, look for anything saying "gluten free" or anything with this symbol:

Seeing this will save you a lot of time and strife.

6. Be careful when seeing foods marked as "wheat free", "organic", or "all-natural". Wheat free DOES NOT mean gluten free. Foods made with wheat can certainly be defined as organic or all-natural. You need to see the words "gluten free" to be 100% sure you can eat it (unless of course it is something like an apple or celery).

7. Bring your cell phone with you when shopping. If you are unsure if you can eat something, call up the company to ask them if they know the gluten free status of their foods. You could also call up someone at home who can look it up online for you. You would be surprised at the amount of forums discussing whether or not certain items are safe to eat.

8. Only go grocery shopping when you have lots of time: for the first few times to go, it will most likely be a long and stressful process. But don't worry- it gets so much easier with time! You'll be a pro soon enough!

9. Go with a list in hand. This will cut down the time it takes and will also keep the stress (and bill!) down to a lower amount than if you just wandered and picked up random stuff.

10. I know that this sort of contradicts what I just said, but... try to have some fun exploring new foods! Feel free to take some time exploring the natural/gluten free sections of your grocery store!