Ginger Cookies

innocent little ginger cookies

“MMMM…. Ginger Cookies, whoa, these are the best cookies. Just right - chewy. Try them. I mean anybody would love these. You wouldn’t think they are wheat-free at all.”
I was going on and on about the cookies as I helped my daughter unpack in her new apartment. We had been busy getting her arranged and had not formally stopped to eat breakfast or lunch. I had purchased the cookies at my home grocery and had brought them as part of my wheat-free safe food stash. I had already consumed about ten of the fabulous little cookies when I was pitching them to my husband and daughter. “Really you have to try them…” I reached in the bag for another cookie (remember I missed breakfast and lunch) put it in my mouth and flipped the cookie sack over to read the ingredients. I had to know what made these cookies so good. It had been a while but I had purchased this brand of Ginger Snaps in the past and had found them to some of the best packaged Gluten-free cookies, but I really had not remembered them being this good. As I bit into the cookie I read the first ingredient and simultaneously spit the cookie out. I was immediately sickened. WHEAT! The first ingredient was wheat! Oh, my gosh! Damn, what have I done? How did this happen. No wonder they tasted so damn good. I was mad and scared that I had messed up my diet. What’s next stomach pain, gas, diarrhea? I had a plane trip later that day. I immediately said a prayer that the alien in my stomach feeling didn’t hit mid-flight. I then became mad and sad that what I had found so satisfying was not to be ever again. Damn, how did this happen?

Okay, I was at the grocery shopping in my special health food department. I remember picking up the package marked “Gluten-free Ginger Snaps” in the cookie aisle and putting them in my cart. Oh yes, there was new packaging that caught my eye. Ginger Snaps, the same brand positioned right next to the bag I had just put in my cart, As a designer I was drawn to the new fresh styling so I picked up a bag and eyed the package. Hmmm, I liked the design. At first I wanted to buy the second bag just because it was prettier but then I noticed the freshness dating and compared it to the date on the bag of cookies in my cart. Ah ha! Boy, am I smart I told myself the new packaging is fresher. So I exchanged the bags of cookies and strolled off with the prettiest bag of cookies in my cart.

Now, sitting on my daughters freshly made bed I was thinking of the bed I had just made for myself. I turned the “pretty package” of cookies over to the front. “Ginger Cookies”, just “Ginger Cookies”, not “Gluten Free” at all. Luckily my digestive system was none the worse for wear, you know ginger in general is said to comfort an upset stomach. But alas, I was not to escape Scot free.

On route home, aboard the plane that night the cramps began. Leg and arm cramps. Restless legs are so bothersome in all ready restricted quarters. The cramps and pains continued for another four days mostly noticeable as I each night as I tried to ignore them and fall asleep. I had plenty of time to think this all over and over. Unless I mess up and consume wheat, I live my life pain free, which is so amazingly wonderful. I am so extremely happy that I have found out what had made me get sicker and sicker for 20 plus years. As another commercial came on the TV tonight telling sufferers of painful cramping legs that there was a name for the condition “Restless Leg Syndrome” I thought “so what”. Actually I thought “so the #$#$#$ what”. What is in a name? Just like I was told I had “fibromyalgia” – unexplained muscle pain, or “irritable bowel syndrome”- a gut that hurts all the time, duh. Just names, not rhymes or reason. Just learn to live with it my doctors would say or maybe “try this new drug’.

So maybe it’s easier to take a drug than avoid the cause but even with all the drugs I took, which each posed new health risks, I never had a totally pain free day. So, it is my mission to inform the world that I am cured. My trigger appears to be wheat. There maybe more but at the current time I am do quite well when I avoid anything with any association with wheat. I’m certain that some of the other millions out in this big world that deal daily with the same health issues that I have dealt with are being affected as well by something they are ingesting on a daily basis. I am not a doctor, and never intend to be. I see a lot of ignorance in our medical community. If there is not a dollar to be made then no one cares. If you are healthy, cured and no complaints where will the next dollar come from. Do doctors really want cures? Do drug companies really want cures? The way I see it, no they don’t they want treatments, therapies, drugs, and x-rays and blood work.

I just want to spread the news that I'm better and maybe you can be too.