Last week I had the privilege of consulting with Joy of The Liberated Kitchen. I contacted her to find out if there are areas of my life that I needed to pay more attention to in regards to gluten. Having gone GF over 2 years ago now, I have realized I haven’t been as concerned as I should be in regards to cross contamination. I had an incident recently where I had a super weird reaction to some chocolate I ate, a new variety I had never tried before and it freaked me out. Thankfully, I had no issues the following day, so it likely wasn’t a gluten problem, but nevertheless it made me realize I wasn’t sure where there may be hidden gluten in my life. What I learned from consulting with Joy was that I need to be far more on top of this issue in my life.
Take the above picture for example. A simple shared plate of food at a restaurant that contained gluten. I personally didn’t eat the bread, but the person I shared it with did and used a knife dipped in the same containers as I did to spread on the bread. Not something that I even concerned myself about at the time. Now, I realize that was dumb.
Just to back track for a second, I never got tested for my gluten intolerance back in 2010. In retrospect, I kind of wish I had even though getting tested can be very complicated. The reason I wish I had is that I believe I would have likely taken the issue of cross contamination more seriously for one thing. Two, I’d have pushed harder to get all 4 of my kids tested. I am simply unwilling to go back to eating gluten to get tested, which is what Joy did and she would never recommend that to anyone. So, I am broaching this subject to make awareness for those of you who are either already gluten free and just somewhat lax about it, or for those of you who are considering it. Please, realize that if your food touches gluten it could be an issue. If you consume even as much as 1 gram of gluten it could have a serious effect on the villi in your small intestine. This is the primary issue in those who need to get gluten out of their lives.
Here is a brief video of me discussing my current thoughts on gluten cross contamination;
Further Reading & Resources:
Gluten Cross Contamination of Grains & Seeds
The Essentials of Sharing a Kitchen with Gluten
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I was just talking to my sister today and she told me she ate 2 cups of cheap-o mac and cheese and it made her gain 2 pounds overnight. I told her she should look into really getting the gluten out of her diet and she told me she hardly ever eats gluten, just once in awhile. I explained to her that just a tiny amount can cause damage to the villi for six months if you already have gut issues which I believe she does. On top of that, she has been tested for the genetic mutation MTHFR (as have I) and she has one copy of C677T (I have two). According to Dr. Ben Lynch, we should NOT be consuming gluten. Plus, I have thyroid antibodies (Hashimoto’s Disease), they are low and suppressed which is great, and probably due to the fact that I’ve been gluten free since Dec. 2009. But it would be a bad thing for me to start eating gluten again. Anyway, people really don’t understand what a problem gluten cross-contamination can be, and I’m glad you brought it up. I also learned more about cross-contamination from Joy when I interviewed her a couple weeks ago. And I read her experience with the gluten challenge. Awful!