I've been to New Orleans twice, and I loved the city and its food. I'm far from there now, a mile above sea level, and I've never really seen a destructive storm. Yet I feel like part of me has been ripped out from what has been going on there, and I feel a vulnerability that I don't know if I'll be able to ever come to terms with.

I've got to stop projecting this on myself, but that's hard to do when something like this happens in your own country in a way that you never thought it could happen. I feel so terribly sad for the children involved, and their mothers. If I were in that situation, I don't know how we could all possibly make it out of it. It's nice to see food finally getting to the people who have been without it, yet from my perspective those MRE's would be worse than continuing to go without food. From all I can find out, the primary source of protein in them is wheat and wheat gluten. Trust me, you don't want to be without plumbing or diapers if my son or I were to take a bite of that stuff...

Is there any option in a situation like that for somebody with our health condition? Are there any organizations that can bring gluten-free aid when it is needed? I'm pretty darn sure the answer is no, nothing. Even in hospitals, who should know what they're doing, often they don't know gluten from glucose. What then, could I do for my son? He is certainly better off without food than with gluten. He got hold of a tiny pretzel stick while the babysitters were here, over a week ago, and he's still sick, probably lost at least a pound. He's been keeping me up at night with diarrhea and gas, and the cold virus that almost always follows it, due to celiac disease diverting his immune system from it's proper function. But tonight I'm up while he sleeps...

I can't sleep. I only want to take action. I only want to make absolute sure that we never get into any situation remotely resembling that. I've been searching all day for food storage options and advice, but find nothing in regard to gluten-free disaster preparedness. A 72-hour kit is the first step of course, but I may make a couple extra to extend that timeframe a bit...considering that the first food we'd get access to in a disaster situation would most likely not be gluten free. Then there's long term food storage... so hard to adapt those recommendations to gluten free. I still have plenty-o-buckets-o-wheat from my food storage efforts before diagnosis...ha. No good.

I'll post up what I come up with and discover over the next few days. The good news is, I actually do have a manual grain mill and know how to work with such things, thanks to cooking so much of our own food from scratch, so I can actually use the food in rotation. So far I can't even find information on shelf life of alternative grains, but I'll get there...

It's so easy to be critical of the lack of disaster planning for something that really was forseeable, everyone knew that if a hurricane hit New Orleans it would be a huge disaster, but nobody knew what to do when it happened. Yet...I don't have my own disaster plan for my own little family, so I need to take action where it's needed and stop wringing my hands over something I have little control over.