I’m a gluten intolerant veggie with a nut allergy and it sucks

It’s deadline/essay/dissertation time on campus and stress levels are running high. Really high. Have you been to the library lately? Silly me, of course you have.. well then I think you’ll agree that it is currently a hotbed of anxiety, tears, and panic. Horrible. Luckily for all of you blessed munchkins, these feelings aren’t a regular occurrence outside of deadline season.. but they are for me.

How about every time I need to eat something?!

Uni work stresses us all out, naturally, but it doesn’t stress me out nearly as much as my diet does. “But why?!” I hear you cry. Well, it’s because I’m a vegetarian who can’t eat nuts or gluten. At this point you’re probably thinking ‘oh poor you’ but I kid you not, it makes my life pretty much suck.

But all I want is some cous cous

Lets start with a little round up of what I can’t eat, shall we?

Peanuts, almonds, hazelnut, cashews, chestnuts, truffle, red meat, white meat, fish, beer, cereal, rice, bread, pizza, pasta, flour, baked goods, noodles, granola,  crackers, gravy, soy sauce, vinegar, anything fried in batter or breadcrumbs, anything with grain in it, ANYTHING WITHOUT A LIST OF INGREDIENTS ON IT!!!

Why, oh gods of dining, why?!

Nope. Not even the cous cous.

And if that list wasn’t enough to make you pity me, just have a read through this:

No one ever wants to cook for me

When you can’t eat 46% of the world’s food, a few things start to happen. People fleeing the kitchen always seems to be one of the first.

Picture the scene; you’ve been chatting to a cute guy on Tinder for a while now, and things are starting to heat up. He suggests a date. *cue energetic fist bump with flatmate*. You coolly accept. He suggests dinner. You cry.

Want to know what isn’t sexy? Dying because the dessert you tried to share with Tinder bae had a pecan in it. Know what’s a real turn-off in the sack? Abdominal swelling and cramping (not to mention gas) because the restaurant didn’t sell gluten-free pasta.

When someone hosts a dinner party and invites me, or even romantically offers to cook for me I need to send them a 340 character Whatsapp message of what they can and can’t put in the meal. They will 100% call/snapchat me from the supermarket to check that everything they are buying is suitable (it’s probably not), and even then I will definitely still have to look through all the packaging and ingredients before I eat any of it. Cue Tom from my ‘documentary film and tv’ seminar never inviting me to dinner ever again.

Just the usual.

People just think I’m fussy

Recently, diets and health fads have blown up. All over the world (and instagram), young 20 something, yoga pant wearing, smoothie drinking, Gwyneth-Paltrow-looking-white-girls are taking the internet by storm with their gluten free, cruelty free, additive free, fun free meals. Help.

Thanks to Lauren Conrad and her army of basic bitches, when I walk in to a restaurant and explain what I can and can’t eat, all I get are dirty looks from everyone present. I’M NOT JUST DOING IT TO LOSE WEIGHT, I DON’T EVEN LIKE TAYLOR SWIFT, I SWEAR!!!

This is as much yoga as I do, honest.

Chefs hate me because I have to ask them to alter things on the menu, waiters hate me because I test their allergens knowledge, my pals hate me because they can’t eat at Five Guys or Wagamamas when they’re with me, God hates me because WELL I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT HE MUST!

9 times out of 10, the whole situation will be so awkward and judgey and embarrassing that I’ll just throw caution (and health concerns) to the wind and eat the gluten. It won’t kill me, but man oh man does it screw up my little body! “Oh nothing here is meat, nut and gluten free? That’s okay then, I’ll just take the pizza with a side of heart burn, constipation, bloating and diarrhoea thanks”. Who even needs to poo regularly anyway?

Even a decent filter can’t get rid of the pain.

Travelling is a pain in the ass

The thing about a lot of allergies and intolerances is that they’re a western phenomenon. My enlightening ‘gap-yah’ summer spent touring Thailand with my pals turned a bit shit when I couldn’t eat Thai food. Due to the invasion of privileged British school girls, most Thai people now understand what a vegetarian is, even if they do still snort at the thought.

However, with my limited knowledge of Thai pretty much beginning and ending with “kap kom ka” it becomes a little difficult to start explaining that nuts will kill me and gluten will make backpacking and travelling extremely difficult for everyone involved. After 2 days of trying and failing to communicate I noticed that most people were pretending to know what I was talking about just to make me shut up, and then proceeding to throw noodles in to a pan with peanut oil. No no no.

I can balance it on my head, but can I drink it? Nope.

For my job as a ski rep, I spend a lot of time – you guessed it – in the French Alps. Know what the French don’t understand? Yes, apart from basic common courtesy and manners. Vegetarianism. “No, I cannot eat fish” becomes my bloody catchphrase once I get to a resort! A lot of the time they just refuse to feed me so that’s good. Merci, connard.

Aside from this, aeroplane food is a no go. Ever tried to ask the air hostess on a long-haul flight if the crappy food caters to your crappy dietary requirements? The answer is always no and the solution is always to go 27 hrs without food. But that’s okay, because who even wants to go travelling anyway when you practically need a bag just for your medications, epipens, and specialist food.

Anyone need some drugs?

It is shit and expensive

The good thing about being vegetarian is that you save a lot of money. Meat-free alternatives are generally cheaper and they last longer before going out of date, which is always a plus. Nuts can be avoided without racking up too much debt, in the UK at least, because lots of people here are allergic. Back when I thought these were the only foods I had to avoid, life was good and calm. Everything was right with the world.

Then good old Dr Ruinslives told me that the reason I had such a sore swollen belly after meals and a face with more spots than a leopard at the age of 20, was because I was gluten intolerant. Goodbye cous-cous, so long porridge.

Keeping Holland & Barrett afloat since 2K15

Any restaurants that do have gluten free alternatives will definitely charge you £1.50 just for being unfortunate enough to have to eat it. I can also promise you this; it will taste like shit.

If I want to find food that I can cook for myself, then little Tesco round the corner unfortunately just won’t cut it. I have two options: 1. Shop at Holland & Barrett’s and spend £42.50 on my weekly shop for food that will definitely only come in various shades of beige, or 2. Get a PRESCRIPTION for my food alternatives from Dr Ruinslives, hand that in to the pharmacy and have them text me when my wheat free, nut free porridge alternative from America arrives at Boots The Chemist. Either way it is not going to taste good.

So there you have it, the unfortunate tale of a life ruined to help ease the pain of study period. Don’t say I’m not good to you. Oh, and to make you feel even better, I have a slow metabolism so the diet from hell doesn’t even make me skinny. Now please, go and eat a cheese toastie for me.