QUOTE(Speedy @ Apr 5 2007, 06:18 AM)

Im not worried at all about medical bills i do live in Canada and have full coverage of health and everything, same with to do with dented cans we dont do that here. Rice potatoes and al that ive been living off of pretty much forever. Im just so sick of this diet i dont like feeling sick all the time, not being able to eat things i really want...i dunno just cant stand it anymore. 18 years my whole life so far living in solitude, i feel trapped.
If you are willing to cook your own food then theres very little you are missing out on.... actually I'm a bit biassed because I don't even think about lots of gluten-free products and rarely buy any of them....hence I don't really miss them.
When I'm at home I eat "normal food" ; I chose from 1 of 50,000 gluten free recipees except I don't... I just chose recipees that are either naturally gluten free or really simply altered,
Food bills are one of those things..I can go and spend $300 at a supermarket quite easily and buy lots of luxuries or I can live of $20 a week.
One of my (well my girlfriends) fav things is chicken soup... I just buy the offcuts of chicken (not really because of cost but because they make better stock/soup) .. I know the wings are expensive in Canada so buy thighs and drumsticks...
I'll give you an example ...
I'll buy a bag of chicken drumsticks for a few $ meanwhile I'll also buy some fresh vegetables and I boil the drumsticks up with some garlic, herbs and the peelings from carrots, heads from celery etc. (give em a good wash first) ... BUT the thing is your not going to actually eat the celery heads and peel etc. your just taking all the vitamins, minerals and taste from them..
After about 30 mins at a low boil I fish out the drumsticks and let them cool, running them under a cold tap in a seive helps... and then I take off the skin, knuckles etc. and throw these back in the pot... and pull off the meat.. it adds up pretty quickly.. anbd soon you have a large pile of chicken meat...
Seperately I boil up the veg which was not "garbage", the actual carrots and celery, leeks etc. and add the stock I made but I reserve at least half ... 12 drumsticks makes A LOT... but basically the stock and the chicken meat just become some "prepared items" .. for the soup I just add the vegetables tothe stock and cook them and add some chicken meat 10 mins before the end.. you can make it into a thin asian soup and add rice noodles and sweetcorn or a thick hearty broth adding some rice or peas or lentils etc. indeed there are at least 1001 chicken soup recipees....
The OTHER reason I do this is because its an excellent source of vitamins and calcium!
With the rest of the stock I can make chicken curry, risotto or again a huge list of stuff ... in summer it can be a simple chicken salad using the meat etc. or a simple meal like fajitas using the meat...
Or take beef... I like stuff like bourguignon, stroganoff or goulash .. again I'll buy offcut meat because it tends to be tastier and a decent steak will practically have dissolved into mush after marinading for 24 hours then cooking for 12... (which is how I do my bourguignon) ... you can just google recipees and easily adapt them.. for instance for bourguignon I just use gluten-free flour in the roux.
There is one thing stopping you doing this (and its easy for me to say) ... and that is I have a well stocked larger...of basic ingredients. when I visit my mom she doesn't and it is incredibly hard for me to find stuff to make... and I end up eatng gluten-free bread and such because its all she has... the hardest part is getting the basics together.... once you do then its dead easy to just look for an idea on the internet to make dinner more interesting... and ITS A LOT CHEAPER.... and I mean really a lot. If you buy spices in bulk (preferably Asian stores for price/quantity) .. I always roast and grind for instance my own cumin and coriander (cilantro) and i buy large packets but so long as its still seeds and kept dry lasts for years... to be honest I rarely bother roasting, I just stick a saucepan on low and "roast" them that way and it takes 2 mins.. anyway what Im trying to say is the packet mix for say chilli costs 20x what it costs to make it yourself....
So I really feel that if you get into the habit of buying the basics and stocking up you will get a much more varied and exciting diet. You'll spend more time hunting down that ingredient than loking at the products you can't have in the supermarket etc. and if your willing to do it you can make it fun as well.
If your rushed we started a thread once with over 100 recipees could be cooked in the time it takes to cook rice or gluten-free pasta.
The logic being your not saving ANY time by using a packet or tin of you still have to wait for the rice to cook.