A Gluten-Free Vegan Lifestyle

Katrina lives a gluten-free vegan lifestyle in a picturesque little corner of Vermont with her husband, 6-year-old daughter, and their 16-year-old dog. Her blog is The Gluten-Free Vegetarian, where she shares recipes, as well as tools and resources for meal planning. Her recipes are primarily designed for busy parents who want to cook healthful meals that are also quick and simple to make. She became a vegetarian in 1992 and has dabbled with being vegan, ovo-lacto vegetarian and pescatarian. Katrina became very sick in 2018 and the general practitioner suggested she cut gluten from her diet. She has a severe sensitivity to gluten and it inspired her to learn new ways of cooking and enjoying food. She is grateful to feel healthy again.

Katrina, I want to know a little bit about the vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian lifestyle?

A vegan diet eliminates all animal products, including meat, dairy, eggs, and other items such as a gelatin or honey. An ovo-lacto vegetarian diet omits meat but includes dairy and eggs. An ovo-lacto pescatarian diet includes dairy, eggs, and seafood, but no other types of meat.

I first went vegetarian in 1992. Since that time, I’ve been vegan, vegetarian, and pescatarian during different periods of my life, so on my blog, you’ll find different recipes that meet each of these dietary requirements. All my recipes are gluten-free.

From my perspective, the greatest thing about vegan and vegetarian diets is helping animals! In addition, there are wonderful environmental and health benefits of reducing your meat consumption.

You write a lot about a gluten-free vegan diet. Walk me through this diet?

Gluten is a protein found in foods including wheat, rye, and barley. Some popular foods that often contain gluten are bread, pasta, muffins, and pancakes. The great news is that a gluten-free diet is easier now than ever. Food manufacturers and restaurants are more aware of consumers who cannot eat gluten, whether due to a sensitivity or celiac disease (the autoimmune disease that causes an immune reaction to eating gluten). Therefore, we have more availability of gluten-free products and better product labeling than in the past.

In 2018, I became very sick for six months without understanding why. After much trial and error, I finally discovered that I have a severe sensitivity to gluten. At first, I saw this as a restriction on my diet, but over time it has inspired me to learn new ways of cooking and enjoying food. As I live a gluten-free lifestyle now, my health has vastly improved. My blog was born from my own journey of learning how to cook vegan and vegetarian food that is also gluten-free.

Talk to me about your favorite and the least favorite vegetables?

My least favorite vegetables are bell peppers and eggplant. It’s disappointing that I don’t like these vegetables, because they are staples in vegetarian cooking! Every once in a while, I try them again to see if my palette has changed, but so far it hasn’t. I hope that someday I will like them! Also, my husband has a deep dislike of mushrooms, so I only cook them when he is out of town.

I love a lot of veggies. For flavor, I love baby carrots when they are especially sweet, butter lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, and the special blend of cherry tomato varieties that my husband grows in our garden. Lately, I’ve been enjoying beets and leeks more than I used to, so it’s fun to experiment with those.

In terms of nutrient-dense vegetables, it’s hard to beat kale, so I use it a lot! I also love using fresh spinach and toss it into all kinds of recipes, from smoothies to pasta sauce and salads.

Give me one of your favorite smoothies, snacks, lunch, and dinner recipes?

I really love all of these!

Smoothie: https://gf-veg.com/chocolate-grapefruit-protein-shake/

Lunch: https://gf-veg.com/beyond-burger-with-quinoa-salad-and-hummus/

Snack: https://gf-veg.com/maple-pumpkin-overnight-oats/

Dinner: https://gf-veg.com/maple-veggie-sausage-skillet/

Vegans are known to be healthy. What is one of your weaknesses? I love chocolate.

Chocolate is absolutely my weakness! Fortunately, it can be good for us too, at least in moderation, so I can enjoy it without guilt in many recipes. Protein smoothie bowls are one of my latest obsessions, and I almost always have a chocolate-flavored bowl. These make a wonderful meal because they’re quick and simple to make, and you can pack them full of nutritious ingredients. For my last smoothie bowl, I blended together vegan protein powder, vanilla soy yogurt, and some mixed berries, then poured the mixture into a bowl. I topped the bowl with banana slices, almond butter, fresh blueberries, coconut flakes, and chia seeds. It was delicious. As an added bonus, smoothie bowls also look beautiful and satisfy your sweet tooth.

How has marriage changed you? Did anything surprise you about it?

One of the most surprising turning points in marriage for me happened several years ago when I did a year-long exercise recommended by a pastor in a sermon I heard. Every day for a year, I wrote down one wonderful thing that my husband did or said. No matter how happy or how difficult the day was, without fail, I recorded one great thing my husband did. When I first started the project, my intention was that the journal I created would be Valentine’s Day present for my husband. It wasn’t long before I realized that the gift was actually for me. The exercise taught me to see my husband in a completely different light. It revealed how much he does for our family, how positive his intentions are, and how hard he works. It helped me to stop nagging (or at least do it much less often!) and to appreciate how much effort he makes. Honestly, I don’t think our marriage has ever been the same, and I don’t think I’ve ever been the same as a wife, in very good ways.

I see you have a beautiful daughter. How has motherhood made you look at life differently?

Thank you so much! Motherhood made me prioritize my faith. For years before I became a mother, I considered myself just a spiritual person without a particular faith. I thought I would figure out exactly what I believed in terms of God and my faith “later.” When my husband and I decided that we might become parents, I realized that “later” had come. I wanted to know what I believed before bringing a child into the world. I dug deep into a Bible study and asked myself the hard questions. I left no stone unturned and didn’t take any shortcuts or easy ways out. I found that my true faith is Christianity, and my belief and relationship with God have continued to deepen and grow over the years. My daughter is six years old now, and she’s starting to ask me questions of her own about faith and God. It’s fun, challenging, and engaging to try to answer them and explore them with her!

I have never heard about Proverbs 31 ministry. What is it all about and what was your role there?

Proverbs 31 Ministries is a wonderful organization. It is a non-denominational, non-profit Christian ministry that seeks to lead women into a personal relationship with Christ with Proverbs 31:10-31 as a guide. There are many facets to the organization, but I was involved with their Online Bible Studies. I volunteered with the ministry for almost three years. I served as a small group leader to work with online groups of around 20 women as they went through each Bible study. I also transcribed Bible study videos for hard of hearing and deaf study participants. I did the transcription work in honor and memory of my Gram, who was deaf and a woman of strong faith. I loved working with this organization and still benefit from their programs, including daily email devotionals and the First 5 app. The First 5 app is designed to help you spend the first five minutes of the day in God’s Word.

I want you to choose three women of your choice to have a meal with. What would you cook for each of them and you can ask only one question what would that be?

I would choose to have a meal with my mom and my two grandmothers. One of my grandmas (my “Gram”) is in heaven, and I live thousands of miles away from my other grandma and my mom, so I don’t see them very often. It would be amazing to have the four of us together for a meal. The one question I would ask them is this: how do they each pray for our family? I know our family has many blessings because of the faithfulness of each of these women. I would learn a lot from hearing about what their prayer lives look like and what they pray for.

Both of my grandmothers loved cooking and were excellent cooks, so I would be a bit nervous about preparing food for them! For the main course, I might make a gluten-free pasta dish with roasted vegetables, since it would be warm, hearty, and comforting. For dessert, I’d make a gluten-free, vegetarian lemon meringue pie. Lemon meringue pie was one of my favorite desserts my Gram made. Her meringue was a labor of love, and it was flawless. I’ve seen vegan versions online and would love to try one.

You made it to the pearly gates and you run into Deborah, Phoebe, Mary, and Martha. They ask you to prepare a 4-course vegan meal. Tell me about it?

What a great question, and what a great dinner party this would be! For fun, I’ve tried to come up with a meal using mostly ingredients that my guests would have been familiar with while they were here.

The first course would be a bread service with several types of gluten-free bread: unleavened, flatbread, and herb-crusted. I’d serve the bread with fresh olives, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar.

The second course would be figs with tahini sauce, drizzled with agave (a vegan substitute for honey).

The third course would be our main course: bowls with red lentils, quinoa, cooked apples, walnuts, and garlic.

The fourth course would be a grape sorbet for dessert.

Being in the company of these women would be an extraordinary opportunity to learn. I would ask Deborah what it’s like to hear directly from the Lord as a prophetess; I’d ask Mary and Martha to share what it was like to host Jesus; I’d ask Phoebe to tell some stories about Paul. Then at the end of our meal, I would encourage Martha to leave all the dishes to me.