Getting the Gluten Out
Feeling bloated? Tired? Cranky? Depressed? Having trouble going to the bathroom? These are just a few of the milder symptoms your might experience if you have any level of intolerance to gluten. Think gluten intolerance doesn't apply to you? It's one of the most under-diagnosed health issues facing Americans today.
If you’ve been food shopping lately, you may have noticed an increase in the number of gluten-free products on the shelves. This isn’t because someone was bored or felt like creating something new; this is because more and more people are learning that they do not tolerate gluten or may even have Celiac’s Disease.
What’s what here?
What is gluten anyway? Gluten is the protein found in wheat, barley, and rye—it’s the stuff that makes dough sticky. Many of us crave it a daily basis. (When it comes to non-anaphylactic food allergies or sensitivities, often times our bodies want what we’re allergic or sensitive to. We really do always want what we’re not supposed to have!)
Celiac’s disease is an autoimmune disorder, caused by gluten, centered in the gastrointestinal system. It is the most extreme form of gluten sensitivity or intolerance that a person can have, and it is diagnosed once the microscopic villi in the intestinal walls have already been damaged by gluten.
To give you an idea of the reality of this problem, 3 in 10 people in the United States have some level gluten intolerance; 1 in 133 people suffer from Celiac’s Disease. The scary thing? Most of the time, they don’t even know it.
Food sensitivities work in mysterious ways. With non-anaphylactic food allergies, people don’t know that they have an allergy until they take the culprit out of their diet for a period of time (usually about two weeks) and then add it back in. Sometimes people will notice an immediate change in how they feel after removing it, but most of the time it’s the reaction when they add the food back in that is the most telling. With gluten, there can be any number of reactions that might take place, ranging from depression or headaches to extreme constipation or diarrhea.
You might be scratching your head, wondering if you have any level of insensitivity to gluten. Celiac’s Disease or Gluten sensitivity can manifest itself in unusual ways. Many times gluten sensitive people suffer from a variety of physical problems—diabetes, MS, lupus, arthritis, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, and forms of dermatitis/psoriasis—that mainstream doctors haven’t linked back to the cause, gluten! When gluten is removed from these people’s diets, the symptoms improve, dramatically for some.
The why behind the what
There are several different theories as to why so many people have trouble with gluten, and most of them have to do with nature. Humans evolved during the Paleolithic period before milled grains were introduced into our food supply. Simply put, gluten was not part of our diet as our bodies were developing and evolving into what they are today. Not only do our bodies consider gluten to be foreign, for many of us, our bodies consider it to be toxic.
Add that to the fact that the average American consumed 139 lbs of gluten in 2003, and you’ve got yourself a potential problem. Talk about gluten overload! Why so much? Because gluten is in everything. Gluten is in almost all processed food, and you will even find it in things like soy sauce, canned soup, and barbeque sauce. So not only are we consuming it when we eat processed foods bought off the shelf, but also when we eat fast food or go to restaurants.
Bioengineers are spending a lot of time figuring out how to add even more gluten into wheat to enticing us consumers. The stickier the better as far as they’re concerned. Our wheat contains 90% more gluten than our great-grandparents' wheat.
I’m afraid, my friends, that gluten is always lurking at the edge of your plate...
So what can you do?
Well, for starters, try taking gluten out of your diet for a few weeks. I know, I know—that does indeed mean taking beer out, too. (If that’s just too much to fathom, I hear that gluten-free beer is on tap in San Francisco, and I hope it will be available in Boston soon.) Eat whole grains, but stay away from wheat, barley, and rye. There are plenty of other options out there these days, such as quinoa, brown rice, and buckwheat—they taste fantastic and they support your health tremendously.
Stop buying all that chemical filled, artificial junk food! It’s not good for you or the environment. Processing plants not only sneak gluten into every little package they produce, they are also heavily pollute our air and water. Plus, the gluten comes with an entourage of other additives and chemicals, none of which make your body feel good. I'll save my fast food rant for another day, but you know why they aren't healthy. Buy natural, whole foods that support your body and the world we live in.
Once you’ve taken gluten out for 14 days or more, add it back in like nobody’s business! Eat every little glutenous thing your heart desires, and see how you feel both physically and emotionally. If this doesn’t tell you enough or you just don’t trust your gut, you can always get a blood test done to test for gluten antibodies.
Now that you've figured out whether or not you have a gluten intolerance, you may decide to keep up your gluten-free diet. Have fun with this! Get a few friends together and make a pact to go gluten-free for a couple weeks. You can rotate from home to home for gluten-free dinners each night and see who gets the most creative. Perhaps a six pack of gluten-free beer should go to the winner. Food for thought!
Feel free to contact me if you need a few ideas. Please share your gluten and gluten-free adventures here for others to read about—after all, this does take a little ingenuity and who better than the IzzitGreen community to provide us with that?
Kendra Strasburg, Holistic Health & Wellness Consultant, helps her busy clients everywhere to enrich their lives with healthier eating, living, loving, and moving. For more information, visit www.healthiswellth.com.
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Image from Flickr user iLoveButter shared with a Creative Commons Attribution License.
