Being Gluten Free Isn’t Just About Being Gluten Free……

……….or, at least, it shouldn’t be. What on earth do I mean? Well, let me attempt to explain.

More and more people are finding out they are gluten sensitive, intolerant or have celiacs (not to mention the endless food allergies popping up these days). It’s probably far more common than we realize, because gluten is very very hard on the digestion, way more than we know. Here we are, several generations down the path of consuming processed foods,  store bought bread being one of those that tops the chart in consumption quantity. Bread that no longer is made the old fashioned way, by grinding the flour at home, by slow rising and baking fresh. Nope, it’s now made from grains raised to produce more gluten, grains that are stripped of any nutrition, grains that are not properly prepared to reduce the phytic acid that binds the minerals. Then it’s made super fast with additives and usually sugar too, to sit on the shelves for as long as possible. Basically, these loaves of so called bread are devoid of any nutritional value whatsoever!  I’d venture to say, no nutritional value and only detrimental value. Okay, so if that isn’t bad enough, there’s the gluten factor, this lovely little protein that is SO difficult for the body to break down. Over time it wears away at the lining of your gut, the little villi that have a major role to play get hammered. They begin to wear away, and instead of being able to filter things well, they begin to allow particles of food into the body. That is not supposed to occur. When this does occur however, the body responds and reacts by causing inflammation. The more inflammation that continues to occur the more the immune system is weakened, and often times causes autoimmune disorders in time.

So you see this is a serious problem, one that doctors won’t explain to you when you finally do test for gluten. They will just tell you how to avoid gluten. And yes, avoiding it will relieve a lot of the symptoms that were plaguing you. However, your body is left to deal with the ramifications of a compromised gut lining. And if you have read my blog at all for any amount of time, you will have heard me say that the gut is anywhere from 70-85% of your immune system. That’s major!! It’s like your second brain!! Taking care of and healing your gut is crucial!

So here you are, you’ve gotten the diagnosis and you are working to cut gluten out of your diet, maybe your trying out all these gluten free flour mixes and your shifting into this new way of life – yet you are missing a crucial factor. Your precious gut lining wants certain things to help it heal up, so that it can return to doing it’s job properly. Additionally, there are certain foods that will only agitate your condition and I am not just talking about gluten. I am talking about starches. Research has actually shown that almost all normal people (not just celiacs patients) fail to absorb a large amount of the starch of wheat flour. Not only that but certain starches such as disaccharides and polysaccacharides require extra work by the intestinal cell enzymes to be broken down.

In a person who has discovered they can’t have gluten anymore, the intestinal villi and enzymes have been damaged, in some cases extremely damaged. So what happens when these people ingest starchy foods is, their body can’t fully digest the starches. Their little villi who once acted at a barrier and did the work of breaking the proteins of the food down further can’t do their job. Often times this results in undigested food particles being left in the intestines which increases microbial fermentation. This causes all types of problems.

So what can be done about this conundrum? Well the person who has discovered they are gluten sensitive should now know they are mostly likely sensitive to starchy foods as well. A healing diet for the gut lining should be considered for a time and then a slow re-introduction of the starches should follow after a considerable time. I myself have found this to be true. It’s interesting to me that now that I have removed gluten, and feel a lot better for it, I am much more highly sensitive to most carb foods. I can eat a little bit, but an accumulation of too much really affects me negatively. I personally plan to undergo a gut healing diet shortly. I already choose to eat pretty low carb and am gonna take it just a step further. I hope this post has proved to be helpful to someone else. Stay tuned as I chronicle more of my journey in healing my gut…………..

In the meantime check out these videos by Donna Gates of the Body Ecology diet and Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride, there are 6 in all, just click on the second one and so forth after the completion of the first…….they address autism, but they also discuss the health of the gut very thoroughly!

I am contributing this post as a part of ‘Monday Mania‘ over at The Healthy Home Economist!