Some of my friends think I’m extreme when it comes to my diet. I can handle that. I can’t recommend any type of diet to my clients until I’ve tried it out for myself and see the results.
Wheat free, gluten free, sugar and dairy free, vegan, vegetarian, raw, high carbs, low or no carbs—I’ve tried them all and know how easy or hard it is to follow.
Once I had children, I realized they had a negative reaction to what I ate, while breast-feeding, and that was a game changer for me.
Food sensitivity testing proved to me that my first baby was reacting to foods that I ate and after I avoided the foods that we both reacted to, her symptoms (and mine) of gassiness, diarrhea, rashes and fussiness improved.
I avoided my favourite foods and swapped them for gluten free cardboard like bread, and lived on rice cakes and crackers. I followed a restricted diet, not to lose weight (but I did) or to deprive myself, but so my daughter was more comfortable and symptom free.
Seven years ago when I first embarked on a new way of eating, there really wasn’t the variety of alternatives that I see today. There’s gluten free alternatives to most foods, including the unhealthy ones.
Over the years, I’ve found great gluten free foods and eaten many which I just had to spit out.
One day I found a bread and muffins that didn’t taste like cardboard, but like what I used to eat. Peachy from Organic Oven and her delicious gluten, sugar and dairy free baked foods, was my saviour and I was in heaven.
Both my daughters have grown up, for the most, part gluten free, and haven’t seemed worse off because of it. I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, that if I avoid giving them gluten (and other foods like dairy and sugar), “Won’t they react more when they do eat it?”
When they have pizza at school once a month, or head to a friends or birthday party, they’ve told me about their bellyache afterwards. But, when asked “Was the pizza was worth it”, their reply is often yes, so now I leave them to make that choice.
As for when they are at home, they don’t know the difference between wheat, rice, kamut or spelt bread unless I tell them what’s coming.
I change around our bread, morning cereals, pasta and muffins.
I Keep it fresh and different and they don’t complain about what they don’t have, because they don’t know what they are missing—oh other than a sore tummy.
Is your child sensitive or allergic to anything that you’ve had to avoid?
Have you been hearing “gluten free” more lately? It seems to have become a buzzword these days, but not always alongside a disease associated with living a gluten-free life, called celiac.
More and more people are trying a diet and life without gluten-containing grains of wheat, rye, barley and for some oats (depending on what facility they are processed).
Is it really necessary to deprive yourself of your daily bread?
The terms, celiac (sometimes spelled coeliac), gluten allergy, sensitivity or intolerance, wheat intolerance or sensitivity can be interchangeable but above all, confusing for those not suffering from eating gluten.
What is Gluten Anyway?
Gluten is not a protein itself but rather a protein composite composed of the proteins gliadin and glutenin found in wheat (bread, pasta, cereal, sauces, flour, bran, and most baked goods), secalin found in rye (pumpernickel bread) and hordein in barley (grain and cereal), which are elastic proteins.
Gluten exists in the grass-like grains above (including kamut and spelt) and provides an elasticity and glue-like ability to hold its flour products together and gives a chewy texture to these grain products.
Allergy is Celiac
Those diagnosed with celiac disease have an allergy to gluten that leads to taking all wheat, rye, spelt, kamut and barley off the menu forever. Oats, if manufactured in a gluten free facility and avoid cross contamination, are often tolerated. Celiac disease is a true allergy (meaning antibodies are produced by the body), causing damage to the lining of the small intestine.
This creates an impossible task of absorbing adequate nutrients from food and so malnutrition ensues. Celiac disease is diagnosed by a doctor performing a blood test and endoscopy.
Sensitivity is Not Allergy
Without a diagnosis of celiac disease, going gluten-free seems rather extreme. But when you’ve suffered from:
- bloating
- gassiness
- eczema
- acne
- headaches
- weight gain or weight loss
- dark circles under the eyes
- arthritis
- constipation and/or diarrhea (sometimes Irritable Bowel Syndrome—IBS)
If you notice digestive issues and feel better with avoiding gluten, it might become worth the effort to shake up your food routine. There are many reports that as gluten-containing grains are avoided, symptoms fade away.
This is not to say that if you are suffering from symptoms above that you shouldn’t seek medical attention, but if by making a change in diet improves wellbeing, living without your wheat and gluten based products of pasta, bagel, bread, pizza, cereal, prepared or snack foods might be worth a try.
How To Go Gluten Free
- Keep a food diary for four days. Write down what you consume, when and beside make a note of if it contains gluten or not. Look for flour, wheat flour, wholemeal, bran, anything not specifically labeled gluten-free, modified starch, rye, barley, Kamut or spelt flour.
- On your next shopping trip, start to look for gluten free options to your usual purchases. Crackers, cereal, bread, muffins or pasta for starters. Your local supermarket or health food store may have gluten-free sections to make this task easier.
- Decide on a day to switch to gluten free. After finding alternatives to your usual foods, replace those foods and try them out with the family.
Don’t expect the gluten-free alternative to taste the same, and the brand of products differ also. Some alternatives have been likened to cardboard, as with most gluten free bread found in the freezer section of your local supermarket.
Without toasting it, it may not be worthy of your sandwich fillings. Ask around, check out www.organicoven.com for instance or look online at comments about gluten-free foods and products. If you aren’t celiac, a few slip ups here and there shouldn’t send you back to square one, but you might find a few of those old symptoms show up again.
Test It Out
A lifetime without gluten may not be on your wish list, so bring the avoided foods back into your diet after four weeks to see how you feel. If symptoms re-appear, avoid it again for another few months. After a longer time of avoidance, tolerance to it might improve.
Note: if diagnosed as celiac, this re-introduction does not apply.
Whatever the motivation for trying gluten free, it will at least get you out of a rut of eating the same foods daily and introduce new foods to the family that may just win everyone over, even if the gluten free lifestyle doesn’t.
