Picture this: We're an active, healthy couple whose weekends are spent running marathons, carrying 45–65 lb packs deep into the backcountry, and climbing mountains in pursuit of bears and huckleberries. We live life at full throttle, eating healthy foods we harvest ourselves—venison, wild berries, home-grown veggies.
Then one Sunday morning, Marie’s whipping up her famous buttermilk biscuits slathered in butter. But lately, those biscuits have been fighting back—bloating, crippling joint aches, and bone-crushing fatigue that no amount of coffee could fix.
It all came to a head when Jason was rushed to the hospital for an emergency blood transfusion. After a battery of tests over the following weeks, we learned he’d been silently battling Celiac Disease for years. The severe malabsorption had left him dangerously anemic.
Marie, on the other hand, has been fighting her own autoimmune battles for years—diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). We’d tried everything: medications, physical therapy, various diets. But nothing brought lasting relief.
That’s when we made a shared commitment: ditch gluten, soy, and processed foods entirely to reclaim our health. (We're also incorporating some elements of the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet to reduce inflammation.) Welcome to Our Gluten-Free Soy-Free Life - our little corner of the internet where we’ll spill the (soy-free) beans on recipes, tips, tricks, and the occasional epic fail to help you thrive through autoimmune and dietary challenges.
Completely removing gluten and soy from your diet is daunting. It can feel incredibly lonely being the only person at a potluck who can’t dig in. Forget fast food runs or grabbing pre-prepped meals at the grocery store. We’ve leaned heavily on our medical teams, support groups, official celiac and autoimmune resources, fellow bloggers—and even Grok—for guidance.
Even with all that help, we’ve had plenty of failures. Like the time Marie forgot to check the ingredients in cough drops and spent a four-hour flight in full flare. Or the early attempts at gluten-free baking that produced bricks worthy of construction sites.
That’s exactly why we’re adding this blog to our website: to share simple, realistic recipes, practical tips and tricks, and our honest failures so others navigating diet changes for autoimmune health have a trustworthy, been-there-done-that resource.
We prioritize recipes that are straightforward with minimal specialty ingredients and tools.
No recipe is worth buying eight new bags of exotic flours just for one muffin batch. We focus on real, nutritious, whole-food meals you can make with a basic kitchen setup. When we do recommend a special tool (like the Ninja Foodi for homemade Greek yogurt), we’ll break down the pros, cons, and cost so you can decide if it’s right for you.
Early results from these changes have been encouraging—more energy for hikes, fewer flare-ups, and the joy of delicious food that actually nourishes us.
We hope you’ll join us on this gluten-free, soy-free rollercoaster. Drop a comment below: What’s your biggest diet struggle right now? We’d love to hear your stories and support each other along the way. Have a favorite food that you want to make gluten-free? Let us know, we’d love to help with trial recipes!
