Many of you now are hearing products out there in our stores that say "Gluten Free".
What is Gluten?
I hear this question on a daily basis, which is why I have created a special blog to inform those of you who are either diagnosed Celiac or whom have heard cutting the gluten from the diet can help many health concerns. For many others, perhaps you have a family member who cannot eat gluten, and you want to simply understand what to do next. Please remember I am not a Certified Doctor, this is all knowledge I have learned from my own research on my path.
Celiac: close to 3.3 million people in North America have celiac disease. For many others, they don't realize they even have it. Some have symptoms but deal with the pain, like I did for most of my life. Sometimes, doctors haven't thought of the diagnosis and treat it as IBS (irritable bowl syndrome). If Celiac goes untreated, the body is at risk for cancers in the future and/or damage to other organs. Eating Gluten may lead to damage of the small intestine resulting in the inability to absorb nutients from your food into the body. Many symptoms include low energy or fatigue, abdominal cramping, or diarrhea. There are several factors that are present to develop the disease.
Genes
Immune system dysfunction: when you digest certain grain protein such as gluten, your immune system behaves in an abnormal fashion, ex: creating antibodies against your own tissues. Celiac is known as an autoimmune disease whereby your body attacks itself.
Eating Gluten (even applying products on the skin topically can harm you) Gluten includes Rye, Barley, Wheat, and many Oats (unless the oats are gluten free). When ingested trigger an immune response.
Increased gluten uptake by the small intestine
Damaged small intestine
The way to treat the disease is to eat a Gluten Free Diet. Not only do the antibodies diminish, the inflammation subsides, and health is restored. Environmental factors, timing of gluten exposure in infancy, more gluten in diets, excess hygiene (sterile environments), infections, stomach surgery, and stress may also be contributors why gluten triggers celiac disease.
What is Gluten?
Gluten is a protein. It is a general name for storage proteins found in grains which are available to provide nutrients for their future growth in the field.
Avoid grains of Barley, Rye, Oats, and Wheat if you have celiac disease. You will want to avoid Breads and Baked goods, Cereals, Pastas, Prepared Meats (deli meat, hambugers, hot dogs), Prepeared Soups (usually have Wheat flour added for thickness), Salad Dressings, Snack Foods, and Chocolate Bars, Beer and many Spirits including Vodka (unless any of these items say in bold lettering "GLUTEN FREE"). The grains you will want to avoid are Bulgur, Couscous, Durum, Einkorn, Emmer, Farina, Farro, Kamut, Semolina, Spelt, and Triticale.
Food you may eat: Cheese, Eggs, Fish, Fruits, Legumes, Milk, Nuts, Seeds, Unprocessed Meats, Vegetables, Wine and some spirits (vodka has to be potato derived), and Yogurt. The grains you MAY have are Amaranth, Arrowroot, Buckwheat, Corn, Flax, Indian Ricegrass, Legume Flours (bean, garbonzo, pea, and lentil), Mesquite Flour, Millet, Nut Flours (almond, pecan, and Hazelnut), Quinoa, Potato Flour and Potato startch, Rice bran and Rice Flour, Sorghum, Soybean, Sweet Potato Flour, Tapioca, and Teff.
My Story:
There are many indications you may have a intolerance to gluten. In my case, I had stomach bloating and severe abdominal cramping attacks. The cramping would come in spasms anywhere from 30-min to an hour in length. I was always afraid to go out to eat, in fear of the cramping, not to mention going on dates!
I remember always having the pain, but I just dealt with it and accepted that that was how my body was. As I got older, about the age of 18, I experienced my first BIG attack at a girlfriend's house in San Diego. I was kneeled over the toilet in a spasm, so bad that I thought I was having a baby! I was rushed to the ER, but as we approached the Hospital it went away. A few short months after that episode, it happened again but this time at my mother's house and she didn't know what to do. She put me in a hot bath with the lights off. This time I knew I needed answers. I went to the doctor and had many tests. The results came back that I had gallstones (working in a Holistic Clinic now, I didn't know I could detox them naturally), and I was advised to have surgery immediately. I did as I was told because the doctor "knew better". The surgery was awful, the healing was painful and a few days later I had an attack! Why on earth did I have my organ removed if I was still going to have this pain? I asked the same question. Their response was that it was a "phantom pain", which is just another way of saying "I have no idea". I was angry, I was frustrated, and I was in pain.
During the down time, I started reading a small book called "Heal with Colors". It was a different approach to healing. The approach was based in Chinese Medicine and Meditation. My interest was sparked. But first let me tell you first how things came to a head.
About 2 weeks later, I sat in my room in a dark place I had reached where I cried all day and night every day. My mother was worried for me. I didn't know why I was crying! I felt sad all the time, I felt angry and had many episodes of rage. I was clinically depressed. My mother took me in to get evaluated from my General Practitioner and he put me on some Anti-Depressants. Did you know that for about 2 years I thought I needed them to get by? I had no emotion, I was not happy, I was not sad, I felt nothing. But at least I stopped the crying and the outbursts. It was a dark time in my life and I drank alot. I have to say it wasn't the proudest moments of my life.
It wasn't until I enrolled in Esthetician school for skin care, that my interest in my health took shape. My teacher introduced me to a little clinic called Health Dynamics where I started going weekly. It was an appraoch to health that I had never heard of before. Chiropractic? Acupuncture? Nutrition? Applied Kinisiology? I had no idea what any of those things were. I attended a workshop and was given a complementary analysis of my health. I stuck with it because I needed answers. The doctor helped trace some allergies I had to foods, one of them being Gluten, and I sarted getting help for my emotions. I found out that the Gallbladder Meridian was realted to anger, fear and Depression.Within a few months I had completely removed Gluten from my diet and I weaned myself off of the antidepressants! I felt like a new person, however I knew the path was just starting, but I was dedicated.
Everyone's symptoms are very different, everyone's path is at many different stages and ages of their life. However, the one thing that remains the same is that knowledge is power. The more you self educate, the better off you are. We are in a era where the information is there, we no longer have to look for people to pass down knowledge. We can turn on our laptops and seek the information ourselves. I strongly advise to not turn to media as a source for knowledge, every other commercial is a drug ad and we live in a society where we take a pill for every ill. Disease is a state of non-ease, and man has made the names for these di-eases. By better understanding how our bodies work and how they are interconnected, nutritionally, emotionally, structurally, and bio-chemically we can help heal our very own body.
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Love and Light!
Emma
