01/09/2025
In November 2024 when I was forced to close Hamira; a baking premix manufacturing company that had grown from baking of cakes I had been running it for 10 years. Manufacturing is not for the faint hearted especially if you are bootstrapping. By the time I was shutting it down, I had called myself for several meetings and decided that it was what I wanted to do. And so I invested in equipment and packaging.
The shutdown began in 2023 when I started having tummy aches after meals. At the time I didn’t know what it was. After sometime, I realized that the problem was wheat. So I stopped taking it and it felt so nice not having tummy aches after meals. In 2024, I started getting itchy whenever I touched wheat. Remember I had stopped taking wheat so when I started having an allergic itch, I didn’t think it was wheat because I was not taking it. By the time I was seeing an allergy doctor, I had suffered. But the diagnosis came with a devastating news, a recommendation that I stop touching wheat. How? That was what I had known for ten years and I had just decided to settle there and things were beginning to pick up.
I don’t know if I was annoyed, confused, angry or just shocked. Production had to stop! Machines tucked away as I thought of the way forward. I dint even have the time to think of the way forward because my gluten sensitivity was triggered even by the slightest contact. I had to separate my kitchen, started reading product packaging for wheat allergy advice and could not even eat at restaurants and all this happened in December! I suffered!
Fast forward to almost two years since I stopped taking wheat, I have found an alternative that I can use to make chapati. I missed chapati and bread.
I like to look at this as a blessing. The Bible says inn 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that we should give thanks in all circumstances. This has saved me money. Since I am gluten intolerant, the safest food for me to eat is food from my kitchen. My weight struggles have also been halved. I don’t snack as much because most snacks are made from wheat. And finally, I have found an alternative that works and is equally good and healthy.
This meal here, was one of the best meals I have had in two years.
More people are becoming gluten intolerant, if you have not gotten there yet, do it in moderation before your body does it for you.
