Peter Bronksi recently published a very popular blog post empowering the celiac community to embrace a positive attitude as they manage a gluten-free lifestyle.

Sometimes, I think it’s easy – especially when first diagnosed with a condition that warrants a gluten-free diet – to see going gluten-free as the unpleasant mound of snow. It’s a negative, a liability. That’s a shame, because going gluten-free is actually a super fun igloo…

…Being sick, with diminished quality of life, pre-gluten-free was the negative. Going gluten-free is inherently a positive thing. If pre-gluten-free was a dirty mound of snow, then going gluten-free is a gorgeous snowy igloo of fun. Know what I’m saying?

In fact, going gluten-free was just the entrance to the igloo, and inside, I found all sorts of cool things I wouldn’t have if I had never looked at that mound of snow and decided to tunnel into it.

Peter highlighted five personal achievements he accomplished thanks to his celiac disease diagnosis.

1. In abandoning gluten and the gluten-containing grains (wheat, barley, rye), I discovered an entirely new (to me) set of alternative gluten-free grains that have brought wonderful diversity to my cooking and baking…quinoa, millet, sorghum, amaranth.

2. The necessity of scrutinizing ingredients labels carefully has made me much more aware of what I’m putting in my body (and what I don’t want to be putting into my body). As a result, I’ve purged high fructose corn syrup, refined processed foods, preservatives, artificial colors, and other “objectionables” from my diet.

3. Going gluten-free pushed us even more toward from-scratch cooking. This helped us to better preserve the food traditions of our families, passed down through generations, and also deepened our understanding of techniques and ingredients, and why they’re used in certain recipes and how they function.

4. Us being gluten-free brought out a new aspect of the love of family and friends, who graciously and quite willingly adjusted their own cooking to accommodate our family’s dietary restrictions.

5. Lastly, going gluten-free connected us to you, the amazing network that is the gluten-free community

Read more from Peter’s incredibly motivating blog entry here:

http://noglutennoproblem.blogspot.com/2011/02/you-can-take-your-gluten-and-shovel-it.html