gluten

Yeah, wheat contains gluten, but related plants (grains) also contain gluten. It's what makes bread & cakes gummy & gives them structure (proteins).

I haven't had any tests to figure out what I'm deficient in. It's all based on me reading a lot, then trial & error. I stick to things that I read are probably deficient in a lot of people (like vitamin B12 & magnesium) that are hard to overdose on (if it's possible at all). Things that get washed out of you, water soluble ones, so to speak. For example, you don't want to take too much calcium - it will build up in your body in the wrong places & not get absorbed correctly. It takes magnesium to absorb calcium correctly. I took a wild guess that I was getting enough calcium in my diet but not enough magnesium. Same with vitamin B12...most people probably don't get enough, but you hear things like "oh only vegans would be low." The thing is, it's water soluble & stored in the liver, so it may take a while for it to get depleted (or for vegans to realize they are super low). But various aspects of some of our lives can lower it - chronic stress, excessive alcohol intake, antacids, etc. And then there's iodine...there are Support Forums for that here on CZ.

Ideally, I wouldn't have to take supplements at all. I'd get them from my food, strictly. Unfortunately, there are a number of reasons they're hard to get from food today.

More on gluten:

"Celiac disease is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with absorption of nutrients from food. People who have celiac disease cannot tolerate a protein called gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley. Gluten is found mainly in foods but may also be found in products we use every day, such as stamp and envelope adhesive, medicines, and vitamins."

I came to the idea through intuition & trial & error. Until I started doing some research, though, I kept succumbing to peer pressure & social situations to continue to eat wheat. I had some vague idea that it was connected to my Acne and maybe to burning intestinal gas. I had a weekend with lots of bread in which I had a huge concentrated flaring of symptoms, and I decided it was time to do some heavier research.

The thing that really convinced me was doing a strict - I mean EXTREMELY strict - gluten avoidance. When you research the topic enough, you realize just how many places gluten hides. Wheat flour is used in ground spices to keep them from clumping, for example. Processed/prepared foods are totally out. I'd already gone by the Weston A. Price Foundation eating principles (www.westonaprice.org) and was making a lot of my own food at home, so this transition wasn't too hard for me. Once I did the extremely strict gluten avoidance, I realized how much better I feel. It's not as though I ate a lot of wheat before - just occasionally - but complete avoidance, or as close as I could get, made a big difference.

Later, I had a blood test for celiac disease that came up negative, but that's not the only way to detect celiac disease. Not everyone has the same reactions, or to the same degree. At first, I thought "I could never have celiac...I'm not underweight or obviously malnourished." I did suspect I was taking in all of this nutrition and not getting enough of it, though. There are immediate reactions & things that show up days later, too.

Some people advocate going on "complete Elimination Diets ," then add things back in, but that wasn't necessary for me, and in discussing things with my doctor, I concluded that would probably cloud the picture. If I could get rid of some of my problems by eliminating wheat, I would want to know that it was wheat. Plus, you never know how much of a food or substance it will take to trigger the old symptoms again once it's completely eliminated.

I'm not sure what might have caused gluten to be a problem for me. It could be "genetic," it could be related to vitamin B12 deficiency (there is something, I think it's called "gluten sensitive enteropathy," from lack of B12), could be a lot of things. It sure exacerbated my fatigue problems, though. I guess I was getting into that "chronic fatigue" territory or something.

I've discovered, though, that you can make some good pancakes without any wheat, with whole grains, and they have lots more flavor than wheat pancakes ever did.


http://www.suegregg.com/recipes/breakfasts/blenderbatterwaffles/blenderbatter...


I modify hers, but I do the overnight soaking in raw cow milk (haven't had buttermilk on hand, and if you buy it from the store, it's usually lowfat with those nasty solids anyway). The blender method is so convenient. My olive oil is too strong tasting for the batter, so I use butter or ghee in the batter. I like using gluten-free oats (Bob's Red Mill makes some) and buckwheat (comes from a dried fruit; misleading name, not gluten-containing or closely related to wheat). I think someone else said - oats may get contaminated by wheat. Somitimes wheat flour is used in the factory (sprinkled on conveyor belts? I don't know).

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