Don't Eat the Cake

I've been vegan for 10 years and gluten-free for 3 or 4 months. I realized that gluten and wheat was causing me to feel very tired and bloated. Not good to look preggers and not good to have so much inflammation in the body. I've felt really good being off gluten (we can eat oats though), but I miss baked goods. I love baked goods. One summer I worked in Moscow, Idaho in the USA and they have a fantastic co-op there with a great baked goods section. That summer I spent a lot of my wages on baked goods and gained weight even though I was walking in the woods every day. I love those crusty breads with the soft middles, flaky scones, warm muffins, cookies and cake. Ahh I love cake. I have found a recipe for gluten-free cake that is pretty good. When I made it for Jared's birthday and ate massive amounts of cake in the following days I didn't gain any weight and my stomach didn't distend as it usually does after baked goods. Ah ha! This is pretty good I thought... I can eat a lot of cake and not show for it!

Several days ago on Sunday I went hiking with a group of people and afterwards we went to a coffee shop that has a Sunday special of tea and cake for R20. A very good deal. The coffee/tea is usually R10 and cake can range from R15-25. These were decadent cakes too, “American” style cheesecake, black forest, chocolate mouse... I wasn't even tempted because they weren't vegan and I don't like the taste of cream, eggs, or milk anymore. It's more than an ethical thing, I really don't like the taste. But I said to myself, if these cakes were vegan, even if they have wheat I would totally eat them.

If it were only that easy to manifest everything like this. Two days later, we went to a great Indian restaurant in Rondebosch, Cape Town and there were two vegan cakes. We've been to this place before, a simple no-frills cafe that does a lot of take-aways. Its all vegetarian and the lady told us today she is moving more and more toward vegan (Great!). After questioning her several times about the cake to make sure it was really vegan we got some.

That night we sat at home, having eaten the cake and drank some tea and waited to see what would happen. We were so tired anyway from a long day its was hard to say. We both felt a bit fuzzy in the head..but knew if we got bloated that would be pretty definitive.

The next morning my excema flared up. I've long heard that wheat exacerbates excema. Itchy itchy scratchy scratchy. A few days later and I'm still trying to calm it down. After I went to bed that night Jared said he could definitely feel the effects of the wheat. In the following days we both felt bloated and Jared felt tired.

Was the cake worth it? It wasn't as good as Sweet Pea Bakery in Portland, or A Piece of Cake in Sellwood, Portland (my favorite!), or that bakery in Eugene that has great vegan cakes, but it was good... at the time. The fallout though just isn't worth it. It's not good to eat something my body reacts so strongly to.