Feeling robbed since cutting the wheat out of your diet? Try broadening the scope of what you eat, venturing into new grains and daring to try new dishes, and you’ll fend off deprivation.

Years ago I went vegan for ethical reasons, and cut out all animal products from my diet. This was excruciatingly difficult, but I could have made it much easier on myself. I slipped in blocks of tofu where a slab of meat would have been, sautéed tempeh with my rice and vegetables, whipped up tofu-merengue pies, and put several packages of processed, fake-meat material between two slices of bread each week.

I was bored with the food I prepared myself, but panicked when I tried to eat meals in restaurants, feeling there was nothing I could have.

So what was the problem? I never sought out new foods in the place of animal-based proteins. Why I didn’t master split pea soup and cornbread or add toasted almonds and sunflower seeds to salads, I can only attribute to lack of imagination and culinary know-how. Reducing my palate by cutting out foods and not expanding it with new options left my belly full but my body void of satisfaction. Not to mention most meat substitutes are wheat derivatives, so before I discovered Celiac, I was harming my health further without realizing.

So I can stock you up with recipes for wheatless crepes and cornmeal pie crusts, but until you consider quinoa on its own or dare to try foods that don’t remind you of how you regularly ate in your gluten days, you might feel you’re seriously missing out!

Thankfully, an abundant variety of fresh foods is available and building in alternatives to the diet can be easy when you take the risk to experiment. So cook up some vegetables and quinoa or discover the art of tomato-basil polenta, and see if your pining for wheat doesn’t lose some of its fervor!