Discover the truth about going gluten-free, gut health, celiac disease, and wheat sensitivity. Make informed dietary choices for better wellness.
Exploring the Benefits and Myths of a Gluten-Free Lifestyle
In recent discussions surrounding gluten and its effects on health, personal experiences and scientific insights reveal a nuanced perspective on gluten, celiac disease, and the reasons some individuals may feel better after eliminating gluten from their diets. While many attribute their improved well-being to the absence of gluten, the conversation dives deeper into the complexities of food intolerance and the potential influences beyond gluten itself.
One surprising element explored is the difference between European and American wheat. Research suggests that the agricultural practices and the type of wheat grown in these regions may contribute to varying health outcomes for individuals who consume them. Additionally, the potential link between glyphosate, a common herbicide, and health issues raises questions about the broader implications of modern farming practices on gluten sensitivity and gut health. This multifaceted approach encourages a more thorough examination of dietary choices, emphasizing that symptoms may not solely stem from gluten consumption.
Unraveling the Myths: Navigating the Gluten-Free Maze for a Healthier Gut
Does ditching gluten or going on a gluten-free diet improve your health? And who is it appropriate for? Uh, this is something that I have played with personally in different capacities over many, many years. Um, for me, I want to preface this by saying probably in 2005, so 20 years ago, I noticed that when I was eating a lot of things like.
Baked goods or Satan, which is sort of a wheat meat that a lot of people use as a a meat-like protein substitute in uh the vegan diet, I noticed that I just was not feeling so good. My gut my my gut health wasn’t feeling so awesome. And so for many many years, probably for close to a decade, I did a gluten-free diet. I am not gluten-ree anymore. I’ve.
Reintroduced gluten back into my Did you feel different though? When I reintroduced it? No. When you stopped it, you did it for 10 years. Did you feel different? I did feel different in the sense of um my gut health felt better. I again, I didn’t go in and test for any of specific bacterial strains in my microbiome. I didn’t go that far. It.
Was it was strictly paying attention to how my body felt. did feel better and I went back to it um a few years ago, probably 2015. So, I was about 10 years on a gluten-free and now 10 years with gluten back in. I do it in moderation, though. And I always make sure that I’m choosing uh really really high quality wheat organic if I can do glyphosatefree.
Non- GMO. And I’ll get into that because there’s some interesting new research about glyphosate and the connection between glyphosate which is an herbicide uh in Roundup uh and potential connections to gut dispiosis when it comes to gluten tolerance. But let’s let’s start at the top. So I feel like you know gluten gluten-free diets have.
Been this big big thing. Um, you know, when I moved to LA 17 years ago, it was just kind of starting and it’s just feels like it’s it’s been in the lexicon of the the health industry and and wellness seekers for a while now. Um, so so gluten is a protein first of all that’s found in in many grains including wheat and barley and rye and it’s you.
Know it’s common in foods like breads and pizzas, pastas, cereals and gluten itself does not actually provide any essential nutrients. So um people with celiac disease which is a very sort of advanced immune reaction that gets triggered by eating gluten. So so people with celiac disease will develop um in inflammation and damage in their.
Intestinal tracts and other parts of their body when they eat foods that contain gluten. Um current estimates I I think are around 1% of the population has celiac disease. So um people who do have it a gluten-free diet is absolutely necessary to eliminate inflammation in the body and related symptoms. Um now if people don’t have uh celiac disease or.
Haven’t been diagnosed with it a lot of people still embrace sort of this gluten-free mantra um and current estimates actually estimate that that uh 20 to 30% of the US population follows a gluten-free diet or has done so in the past. I am part of that. Um, so aside from that, people can classify themselves as sort of gluten.
Sensitive, which means that they don’t have celiac, but when they do eat foods that contain gluten, they could experience things like bloating, uh, like I did, diarrhea or cramps and abdominal pain. So, one cause of this is is a is a wheat allergy. It’s a disorder that you can diagnose by by skin testing. So, some have been calling this.
Nonseliac gluten hypersensitivity, which is kind of a a loose term. I It’s not really something I think that’s caught on in mass in in the medical field. But the point is people are like, “Okay, I want to do a gluten-free diet cuz I don’t feel good.” Like I did back in 2005. They can go like, “Okay, maybe I feel inflamed. Maybe I feel bloated.” Uh.
Although there’s really no evidence supporting the increased inflammation in the body for people who don’t have celiac. So, there’s no actual research supporting that. Um, a lot of people have done it because of of marketing or celebrity endorsements or seeing their favorite athlete or entertainer going gluten-free. Um, the thing is we there’s.
A downside to this, right? And the downside is that people can be losing out on a lot of the good nutrients in foods like folic acid, iron, there’s minerals and vitamins in in glutenous foods. So my whole thing is like I think we need to be mindful of whether or not we actually have to do this or whether it is something that might be I don’t.
Know psychosmatic but there are I want to say this there are reliable tests if someone is suspecting that they might be celiac. Um you can do genetic tests you can do blood tests that detect certain antibodies and you can actually go as far as an intestinal biopsy. So, you know, there are other conditions that might be unrelated to gluten, um, like.
Crohn’s disease, uh, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome. So, if if you, dear listener, dear watcher, have noticed that there are symptoms that come up when you do consume gluten and you’re concerned, if you want to take it that far to see if you, you know, have something like celiac, you you really need to go and get tested for it. Um, so.
I’m curious. I I want to throw that back at you, Alexandra. You know, what is your experience with a gluten-free diet? Have you followed it? Have you experimented with it? Do you currently eat gluten? I’m curious where you’re at with all this. By the way, a gluten-free diet for a lot of people isn’t that I mean, someone with celiac has to really.
Watch it and not have any gluten. And um for folks who might be on a gluten-free diet because they feel uh better on it, they don’t have to be as specific. So things like that, we don’t eat like so soy sauce has gluten in it and malt products. So beer and um certain uh stouts I guess I don’t know I thought that was a beer but um teriyak sauce.
They al also have gluten and then we we associate it with wheat but um and and there’s so many different kinds of wheat it’s it’s so you have to really be careful but if you’re just avoiding gluten in general one of the reasons I suspect that people might feel better is because they’re they’re avoiding a lot of processed wheat which is quasal and.
Things like that although although interestingly if you go to Europe they don’t have nearly as much gluten in their wheat as we do because they use something called a soft wheat for most of their breads and such and we use a hard red wheat which has a lot of protein in it and actually we’ve put even more protein in it which means we.
Put even more gluten so um a lot of people might go to the Europe and have their bread and not feel so you could go to Europe and eat as many quones as you want and maybe you’ll feel just fine Um, right. So, anyway, for me, I did take a test once just of general allergies and it said that I had a sensitivity to glyodin, which is in.
Gluten and um, so I kind of don’t eat bread just because it’s not sweet, so it’s useless to me. I I love sweet things and it’s not a vegetable, so it doesn’t have as many um, you know, I know it has fiber and such. Um but so I just basically don’t eat meat. Um mostly most cereals and stuff I don’t Yeah, beans but not as many grains I would.
Say. But it’s sort of not a gluten-free diet at all. It’s uh and I didn’t I don’t feel a difference really if I eat wheat. So I don’t know if my if that was a lot of allergy tests you have to be careful for. They’re not necessarily.
