Ingredients

Relearning how to eat is one of the things you need to do when you find you can’t eat gluten. Eliminating an entire class of processed foods is difficult. The other “food groups” had to fill in the gap. More meat, more fat and more vegetables was what we did. I feel like I have eaten more vegetables in the past year than the 10 before it combined.

Supermarket produce departments are often a crapshoot. Even those that have organic veggies are getting them from thousands of miles away or even overseas. These simply aren’t fresh. We have paid a lot more attention to the sources of our food lately, but after seeing the movie Ingredients (2009), we realize we need to do more. It has prompted us to look at what we can grow at home and to make more of an effort to visit our farmer’s markets.

The filmmakers present a very good case for Community Sustainable Agriculture (CSA) by interviewing small farmers and restaurant owners/chefs. I think the best thing about this film is that it isn’t heavy handed in any way. It could have gone after industrial agriculture in a big way, but respects that you likely don’t have to hear Monsanto’s crimes read to you one more time.

This is not a film just for vegans or paleo or gluten free. It is for anyone who cares about what they eat. Although the segment on lambs will probably make vegans uncomfortable, please watch.

You can see this movie in the following places:

Official Site — DVD, Arrange local screening
Netflix — Watch Instantly (Streaming)
Amazon — DVD, Purchase Download and Rental (Streaming)

I was turned on to this film by Andrew Badenoch, who recommended it on Twitter (@evolvify). Thanks!

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What is your Phase 2?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gnomes_plan.png

South Park Underpants Gnomes Business Plan

The Underpants Gnomes of South Park had a business plan with a nebulous Phase 2. Besides having spawned a lot of serious discussion regarding business plans and capitalism in general, it can help us in how we get to healthy. Whether you are celiac, gluten sensitive/intolerant or avoiding gluten on general principle, you are trying to get to healthy. But everyone is different and, like business plans, there are so many things that we need to do in Phase 2 to get us to our goal, Phase 3.

What is your Phase 2?

Phase 1 was hard. Gluten was freaking everywhere. In everything. I couldn’t turn around without seeing Gluten. It’s like I owed it money.

And I was broke.

You know what helps get through this?

You will need to do some research. Read some books, blogs, tweets and facebook pages. Learn to read food labels. Cook.

And probably go through boxes and bags of anything in the market that said “Gluten Free” on the package. That’s what I did. I found every food analogue I could. Couldn’t eat pizza? Found a Gluten Free crust to make it. Couldn’t eat cookies? GF cookies to the rescue.

Actually, this Gluten Free thing was pretty good. Felt a hell of a lot better and, since half my meals were pre-packaged GF stuff from the store, it was easy.

So, I was now gluten free. Phase 1 Complete!

So why wasn’t I healthy?

Phase 2 is when you recognize that there is a lot you have to do to get to healthy. It’s a looooong phase.

You have to cut down on all the prepackaged GF stuff. No way you would have eated this much prepared snacks prior to going GF. I understand the transition was tough. You needed the cookies. I certainly needed them. But put them away for a while. Those people on the forums and blogs making cakes and pies and that amazing thing with the chocolate that is just like an oreo have been in Phase 2 for a long time. Maybe even Phase 3. They can handle sweets. They have learned to control themselves. You recently ate a whole bag of something just because it said “Gluten Free”. The whole darn bag. Didn’t you? No shame it that. I certainly did.

Cut down. Stop if you can.

You have to find out what damage was done by the Gluten. Research time. Even more research than before. Because there are few doctors that seem to understand this process.

It hit me hard when I saw that dairy could be causing issues. I stopped eating dairy. There are no good dairy analogues that don’t have other issues. Processed Soy Milks have additives and processed soy is not that good for you. Neither is the stuff that is added to the Almond Milk. Don’t get me started on fake cheese!

I got through that. Now GFCF, I looked at how much sugar I ate. And, boy, did I eat a lot. All of the GF processed food from the store had sugar. The “safe” food bars had agave or brown rice syrup. The final straw was the Spice Cake mix* I had at Christmas. I needed to cut out as much sugar as possible.

I just couldn’t handle it. Nor could I handle nightshades (Tomatos, peppers, potatoes).

This was becoming a bummer. I can’t eat anything**!

I didn’t lose any weight the first 8 months being GF. Not an ounce. When I finally listened to my wife and ate what I needed to eat, I lost weight. Excepting the unfortunate sugar binge at Christmas, I have lost nearly 20 pounds in two months.

Kim is keeping me going throughout this. She is the nutritionist and cook. She is the one who points out, patiently, that I am not well enough to tolerate the very things that got me through the first months of being GF. That it was junk. It served it’s purpose but now it is done. I can eat it again in moderation when I am better. As you can see, she’s really the brains behind all this.

Here is the thing we are learning about Phase 2: There are a lot of layers to it. Just when you figure one thing out, something else comes up. I basically ate wrong for decades. It’s gonna take more than a year to get healthy.

What is your Phase 2?

*Yes, I reviewed the cake along with a whole lot of other sweets/convenience foods on this blog. The irony is not lost on me.

**Hyperbole. I eat quite well. Kim is a great cook and I have very hearty healthy meals. I just miss my crunchy, salty, sweet GF snacks that I used to eat constantly.

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Next Phase

The first 45 days of Gluten Free City has gone pretty well. We have over 85 followers on twitter and are in regular contact with several members of the Celiac/Gluten Free Community. Besides offering reviews of snacks and pizza, we have been sharing beginner resources and educational videos. We will continue to do this throughout 2012 and beyond.

Our next phase is to start development of a directory of Gluten Free Resources. These can be online or in “The Real World.” As I said in our About Us page, Kim and I have extensive backgrounds in Directory Development and Delivery. We can’t say that we will be the biggest right out of the gate, but we will be striving to be among the best.

We also know that two people can’t do this by themselves. There is a huge Gluten Free Community that we will continue to work with. If you are interested in helping to test or contribute to this project, please let me know at gfc_steve@glutenfreecity.com or in a comment below. I will be glad to share more details about our plans.

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The American Diet – A Historical Perspective

This is a must see lecture by Stephan Guyenet. He explains how we got so large and unhealthy in 16 minutes. You can read more about this at his site, Whole Health Source.

Thanks to @balancedbites for tweeting this video today.

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The Devil

Ok, so I am stealing a bit of The Gluten Dude’s thunder by spoiling his “What is Gluten?” article, but his calling gluten “the devil” is spot on.

The longer I go without gluten, the more I realize how many things have changed for the better. I no longer have severe migraines. Heck, I don’t even have headaches anymore. I have lost weight, reduced my anxiety to a functional level and so many other good things.

I don’t want to get all crusade-y on you, but there is more and more evidence that gluten really isn’t good for you, even if you don’t have a recognizable sensitivity to it. Go read the article.

Interview with Dr. Tom O’Bryan

Sean Croxton at Underground Wellness interviews Dr. Tom O’Bryan about testing for gluten sensitivity and celiac disease. It is a great introductory video and it also has technical details about the latest testing advances. Disclaimer: Dr. O’Bryan owns the testing lab. Regardless, his Gluten World section has a lot of good articles and I have enjoyed hearing him interviewed before on the UW podcast.

Hat tip to @evolvify for posting the original link to this video on twitter.

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Withdrawal

Many people use the beginning of a year to make changes in their lives. One of them can be to eliminate gluten from their diet. This is commendable, but can come with some short term negative effects.

From the article, Giving Up Gluten (Living Without, 2010)

One theory is that digestive by-products of gluten–peptides (proteins) called gliadorphins–enter the blood stream more easily in people with leaky gut syndrome, a condition thought to contribute to celiac disease and certain other autoimmune conditions. When these peptides bind with opioid receptors in the brain, they can mimic the effects of opiate drugs like heroine and morphine. Abruptly eliminating gluten cuts off stimulation of these receptors and may trigger withdrawal symptoms, explains Parker.

Support for the theory that peptides from certain foods exhibit powerful opioid effects gained ground in the late 1970s. Researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health demonstrated the conversion of gluten into peptides with potential central nervous system (brain and/or spinal cord) activity in 1978. However, the research was preliminary and conducted on laboratory mice, not humans.

To date, subsequent data confirming an opioid effect in humans has not been published.

In 2007, Dr. Charles Parker noted in his article, “Celiac Notes: Opiate Withdrawal from Gluten and Casein?

Opiate withdrawal from discontinuing gluten and casein? Cautionary note: sounds absurd until you see it.

You might want to warn gluten sensitive, celiac and casein sensitive patients about this odd, frequent, and painful clinical phenomenon: Withdrawal after stopping wheat or milk products can be painful, exhausting, and depressing, with weakness, anger, and brain fog as subsequent downstream effects that can drive the uniformed back to their comfort foods.

Micki, at the Truly Gluten Free site, has a post called “Gluten Withdrawal Symptoms” that mentions the Living Without article above as well as some links back to two March 2011 pieces she wrote.

I am currently helping a particular chap who, we assume, is suffering with ‘gluten withdrawal’. This is a pretty common phenomenon when you remove what are essentially very addictive (and opoid-like) substances from your body.

Bottom line, you might have some issues when you make the transition. Try to stick with it. You are kicking what is essentially a drug.

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Current Reading List

Besides seeming to be on twitter all day (@glutenfreecity), I have been trying to read about gluten, celiac disease and various diets. As you have probably experienced in your research, there are several “in progress” books on my desk and Kindle. Here is my current reading list:

  • Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis — About a quarter of the way through. The story of how modern wheat (last 30 years or so) has so much more gluten than previous wheat is scary.
  • Celiac Disease and Living Gluten-Free by Jules E. Dowler Shepard — Just started this today. Going well, nothing too scary, yet.
  • Against the Grain by Jax Peters Lowell — Just got this today, haven’t started it. “The slightly eccentric guide to living well without gluten or wheat” is the subtitle. In the grand scheme of Gluten Free books, it is one of the older ones, but I have read good things about it.
  • Optimal Digestive Health (A Complete Guide) by Nichols/Faass — My leaky gut is not gonna fix itself, so when I saw this huge reference book, I had to buy it. Even if it only has one good article, it is worth it.
  • The Paleo Solution by Robb Wolf — I have been reading chapters at random. I need to just do a complete read of this. We have been eating Paleo (Well, Kim has, I am on my way, though) so the more info I get the better.
  • I was POISONED by my body by Gloria Gilbere — This has a chapter on leaky gut, so it is on the list of things to read.
  • Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes — I know he is a polarizing figure in the fructose/glucose scientific world, but I think his exposing of mid-century food studies that demonized fat makes this a worthy read. I tried to read his previous book, Good Calories, Bad Calories, but couldn’t get through it. Kim has read both and says this one is way more accessible.
  • And, finally, Under the Dome by Stephen King — Man cannot live by science alone. Sometimes you need a creepy little town in Maine…

What are you reading? Do you have a book you’d like to recommend?

Currently, there are no affiliate links above. They are all links to the authors site or a neutral Google Books site. If this changes, I will update this statement.

 

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Forbidden Food

Forbidden Foods from "Eat and Grow Thin (1914)"

I love old books and have many more than I am able to display. One of my favorite topics is Self Improvement. This covers everything from diet to behavior. The late 1800′s and early 1900′s had a lot of books about this, seemingly more than are even published today.

The book “Eat and Grow Thin — The Mahdah menus” was written in 1914 by Vance Thompson and, as you can see from my scan above, espoused a gluten free diet. I mean, a lot of other things are on the list as well, but given the time period, it was interesting to see someone say wheat was not healthy. Dr. Kellogg would not have approved! I also have an original copy of Kellogg’s “Colon Health” book and will be mining that for a future post.

I am talking about this book for a couple of reasons:

  • It is an interesting historical document that shows people have been trying to figure out the optimal human diet for a lot longer than you might have thought.
  • There are some things we can learn from reading these old books. Many modern researchers have cited findings from work done and forgotten decades ago. Sure, some of it is nuts, but so are a lot of the diet books out now!

Since this book is long out of copyright, you don’t have to scour estate sales to find it. Here is a link to the Open Library scan of “Eat and Grow Thin” for your enjoyment. You can even get a free copy for your Kindle.

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Doing better for yourself in 2012

Happy New Year!

A new year always brings thoughts of self-improvement. The sheer number of nutrisystem ads I have seen in the last week attest to that.

For those of you who choose to eat gluten free, this is a great opportunity to keep investigating how what you put in your mouth affects your body. See if there is anything else that could be keeping you from being as healthy as you can. Sure, there is conflicting information and you are going to be pushed in several directions by the latest studies and celebrity fad diets. You have made it this far, please keep moving forward.

Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.

For those of you who have to eat gluten free, this is the time to understand that you can’t eat gluten any more.

None.

No cheating.

Are you some kind of grain addict?

You can do this. There is a whole community of incredible folks who are in the same position. We are learning together to eliminate the pain from our diet, make the permanent lifestyle change we need to make and support each other.

Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.

Don’t be shy about your needs. Gluten is hurting you.

Refuse to eat food you are unsure of.

Be concerned about cross contamination.

Ask questions.

You are the one in control of your life. You can make yourself better.

2011 was my transition to eating Gluten Free due to a reasonably severe sensitivity. I made a lot of mistakes. I downplayed the problem, ate things I was unsure of. My wife and the GF community have helped me a lot.

2012 is going to be a time of recovery and a Celiac disease test. Years of damage can’t be overcome quickly or easily. But I am going to do it.

Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels.

Notes:

After writing this post, I saw that Fiona Childs from FoodIntoleranceInfo.com used “Nothing tastes as good as healthy feels” as a slogan. I was just riffing on “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, but wanted to let you (and her) know I didn’t take it from her site.

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