Why wheat free?

Many people are gluten intolerant because gluten is hard to digest and they've grown up eating lots of it so that they've been progressively more affected by it as time passes. It's also thought that coeliac disease is often undiagnosed and possibly more common than we used to think. It's quite a big subject, there are lots of opinions about modern wheat being much more indigestible than old wheat crops eg spelt; about cooking unsprouted or unsoaked grains too quickly ie that soaked/sprouted sourdough breads are much better tolerated. Phytic acid in wheat also binds with certain minerals, inhibiting absorption. There's a body of opinion that all grains may be harmful, or that some people or ethnic groups are more suited to grain digestion than others because of such things as enzyme production, size of pancreas. I don't know what's true or not, too many competing theories, so I just go on what seems to work for me. I stopped because I knew that wheat was making me feel bloated and tired and now I avoid all gluten grains (wheat, rye, oats, barley)unless there's absolutely no choice, in which case I reckon that a small amount is better than starving (as far as I know I'm not coeliac). I'd never heard about it's being implicated in high cholesterol, only that oats can supposedly lower it. Judith xx

i am still at a loss as to how you get enough fiber in a day without wheat! maybe this is a stupid question but i just dont know how to get enough without it.....if i dont get atleast 30g a day I have problems. I know beans give you fiber and some vegetables do but thats not enough and i dont like beans enough to eat them everyday. What else has fiber? Sorry for my ignorance but i grew up on mcdonalds!! everyone around me eats crap!
:) Amanda

Excluding only wheat shouldn't be a problem as oats, rye and brown rice have plenty of fibre. Quinoa is also rich in fibre. Other fibrous foods: fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. I add hemp seeds to my morning yogourt, I know lots of women who eat linseeds, v good for bowels but I don't seem to tolerate them. There are fibre supplements (also that I don't seem to tolerate) such as psyllium husks and FOS (fructo-oligosaccharides). If you eat plenty of whole grains, other than wheat, plus fruit, veg and seeds and the amount of beans that you find ok, plus drink plenty of water, you should be fine. For many people wheat can be constipating because it irritates the bowel. It might be a good idea to only gradually phase out the wheat while you get used to other whole grains because a sudden change in diet can also cause a few hiccups in bowel action. Hope that helps. Judith

i gotta be super quick but...
i've been gluten free for about 10 years now. other than not being able to eat bran cereal, i never think of being gluten free as affecting my fibre. I do eat oats (many gluten free people can tolerate oats, as it is a shorter gluten chain...).
so, if i'm eating well, an average eating day fibrewise might be:

breakfast: oatmeal with fruit (ie berries, pear) & ground nuts & yogurt--10grams
morning snack--chopped veg ie celery, carrots, peppers, cucumber--5g
lunch--brown rice and beans / lentils, or a lentil soup, or quinoa and veg, so around 10g
afternoon snack--pack of oat cakes and an apple 10g total
extra snack at some point in teh day--nuts or muffin--3g
dinner-- vegetable curry w/ chickpeas or veg and rice 10g, or fish and veg or soup of some sort 5g,

and if i'm not eating great, i add in hydrated prunes / flax seeds

so, on average, i get at least 40g of fibre a day, often more if i'm eating well, less if i eat badly...but even then, at least 30g a day

hope that helps!
kiki

question about flaxseed oil...i was at the grocery store yesterday and picked some up out of curiosity. I get it home and i try to take a tablespoon of it and i can barely get it down....does anyone have any suggestion on what i can do? I might try capsules in the future but id like to get done with this bottle first. I tried mixing it with water and that seemed pointless since it separted and floated to the top...i read to do that somewhere.
Any suggestions?? its seriously disgusting
thanks
~Amanda

first, i think you get used to these things. i take chinese herbs sometimes--week 1 i want to be sick, week 4 i just down them.
but, to help...mix with yogurt, smoothie, into oatmeal--all those can help.
capsules are generally less potent and cost more, so if you want to take something you are better off with the true oil if you can do it.

good luck!

I don't take the oil any more, and when I did I got used to it quite quickly. But I know what you mean, I tend to gag on these things, so I used to down it quickly in one then pop something nice in my mouth immediately afterwards eg a strawberry. Judith

Do you know about making a roux sauce? Any oil can be cooked with a starch until the starch molecules burst and absorb the oil. Then you add a liquid, usually stock or milk to make a thickened sauce to whatever consistency you want. You could use the same principle with oatmeal or rice meal, or polenta or any flour to make whatever you want.

I grind 1 tbsp flax seed fresh, most mornings, with a mortar and pestle until most of the whole seeds are mashed up a bit. I either sprinkle it on cooked porridge, or mix it in muesli, or even mix it with butter and spread on my toast. It is quite pleasant tasting.

I also have an old friend (like 92yo) who swears by cod liver oil to help his arthritis. He gets that down by mixing it with milk. Maybe you could do the same with flax oil?

Cheers

Louise

chasing it with something afterwards seems to help...i even poured in on to a granola bar i had and it tasted great like that...just that feeling of oil in your mouth alone feels like you are drinking grease haha

I'm not wheat free, but I eat very little wheat as I find it makes me sluggish and cranky.
I get lots of fiber though, and honestly, never counted on wheat for much of my fiber anyway. I eat lots of vegetables and fruits (I'm on a peach/pear kick right now) and we have beans or lentils at least 3 times/week for dinner. I also eat the leftovers for lunch.
in addition, I eat plenty of oats, as well as nuts and seeds.
I never bother to count up how much fiber I'm getting because I (luckily) don't have trouble with constipation.

oh, which one? i'm always searching for new cookbooks....

Also, do you know Dr. Mercola? he's a natural doctor with a very thorough website & email newsletter. He put up thing this week on lowering cholesterol naturally. haven't looked at it so no idea what's in it--but might be useful. just be aware he also sells a lot of products, so whilst the information is great, it can feel like a bit of a sales site at times as well (but i just ignore that bit). google him and you get the site.

Flaxseed oil is hidden well in smoothies if you're having trouble getting it down. On toast, instead of butter. You can mix it with vinegar on a salad. In soups. I don't mind the taste, yet straight from the spoon is strong. Dreamer8

Amanda you can use up your oil by mixing it with your favorite juice. When it's finished try Organic Sprouted Ground Flax By NutraSprout. It's very finely ground, you can mix in orange juice or cereals. I really like it.

I have cystolele, uterocele, and rectocele POP, no '"repair" surgery though I had two laparoscopies for infertility/endometriosis in my 30s/hysteroscopy for uterine fibroid removal. I use a ring-style pessary for support now.

I'd been going wheat-less gradually over the past 3-4 years, but only became completely wheat-free/gluten-free for just less than one year ago. I used to be an avid wheat eater - baking a lot, making homemade pasta, etc. I loved high carbohydrate grain foods very much, but started gaining weight after I turned 30 years of age. I gained even more weight when I began using a bread machine, though I never was more than moderately overweight (but after being chronically underweight until age 30, it felt like a lot of excess weight).

Initially I reduced my overall wheat consumption 5 years ago when I began restricting carbohydrates to lose weight (which worked quite well - I lost about 20 pounds in 5 months and maintain 22 BMI easily without hunger or chronic exercise). Later I also found out I was hyperglycemic, so the carb restriction also had the benefit of normalizing my blood glucose levels, which is much better for my long-term health and well-being. But I inadvertently increased my exposure to gluten when I used low carb baked foods like LC pita breads, soy protein bars, etc. which have added wheat gluten and soy flour; I think those ingredients increased hypothyroid symptoms and TSH test results. So I dropped all manufactured LC food products altogether (as well as adopted a more "real food" naturally LC approach to my diet, with less emphasis on industrial agricultural foods and more emphasis on natural fats, high quality protein from naturally raised animal foods, and local seasonal veggies).

By the way, when I began treatment for the hypothyroidism 3+ years ago at age 44, a nagging unexplained chronic nighttime and sometimes daytime violent coughing problem just disappeared, which was probably a significant factor in my development of POP. The only time the coughing fits come back is when I need a seasonal (fall) dose adjustment (increase) of my thyroid hormone (reduced in late spring). Basically, the hypothyroidism was causing apnea (involuntary closure of the airway), which provoked the violent coughing fits, especially at night. For years both my doctor and I thought they were caused by allergies/post nasal drip and it interfered with sleep terribly. I tried a number of drugs to control the symptoms bit with little relief and I tried to learn to live with it. Also I had violent first trimester coughing fits that were my version of "morning sickness" but it was probably due to being hypothyroid (but undiagnosed yet) while I was pregnant (and also a contributing factor to the difficulty I had conceiving for almost ten years).

Back the wheat/grain. When I kept wheat and grains to a minimum in my diet I had fewer problems with bulky, hard-to-pass stools and no problems with bleeding rectal fissures. But when I consumed grains the fissures in particular become chronic, painful, and bothersome. The grain fiber creates very wide, bulky stools that are difficult for me to pass whether they are soft or hard. Nonstarchy vegetable fiber does not seem to create such bulky hard-to-pass stools. Industrial soy (especially the soy protein ingredients in protein bars) also created bulky "rabbit" pellet-like stools that were also hard to pass. I avoid all soy now except for occasional small servings of non-wheat tamari that is traditionally fermented a long time (18 months) and a bit of raw traditionally fermented miso as those fermented products are the safest way to consume soy.

For a variety of reasons last winter I had my grade-school aged son and I tested for gluten sensitivity issues using Enterolab's complete panel of tests and it turns out we are both sensitive to gluten (and soy). It might be a contributing factor in developing hypothyroidism, too. We make IgA antibodies to gluten & soy, as well as anti-tissue transglutaminase IgA (& my son had higher than normal fat malabsorption results). We both have have 2 copies of genes that predispose to gluten sensitivity/intolerance or celiac; I have two genes that predispose to non-celiac gluten sensitivity and my son has one of those same genes and one that predisposes to celiac disease (which didn't surprise me as my husband has a cousin who nearly died as a baby until he was diagnosed as celiac, so we know there is celiac disease in his family). So we all went completely gluten-free, which wasn't especially difficult because we were already nearly wheat and grain-free. We don't use a lot of GF grain products either, though I do bake a bit with coconut flour for special occasions.

None of us had GI issues that one would suspect were connected to gluten, but we all have better GI function without gluten in our diets. I used to carry around a bottle of liquid antacid in college when I practically lived on pasta, pizza, and bread (I always suspected the tomato sauce or red wine, but now I think it was the wheat as sauce or wine without wheat isn't a problem). My husband used to take Alka-Seltzer so often that I bought it at the warehouse club in bulk, I haven't bought any antacids or GI meds since we dropped wheat as a regular item in our meals. Neither of us has gas or indigestion unless we eat grains, especially wheat, if we dine away from home (my husband has a very "musical" night if he eats some bread while dining out). Now that our gluten exposure is rare and far between, our tolerance for it is much lower - we sometimes have stomach pains or indigestion if we have even a relatively small amount of gluten exposure, such as a flour-thickened sauce (but not always) when dining out even though we try to avoid the obvious sources of gluten/soy.

Our son will nearly always break out with canker sores in his mouth in response to wheat (he never used to get canker sores when he regularly ate wheat). His behavior and ability to concentrate on schoolwork is also altered by exposure to wheat (that was my first clue that he might be sensitive to wheat because his behavior was different when I bought bread for him vs when I didn't (we often went weeks without any bread or wheat in the house, as he was the only one eating it).

So I can't find any good reason to consume wheat anymore. There is nothing essential in wheat that we can't find in another food, and it just seems to cause too many potential problems for us. And I'm just contrary enough that the overwhelming prominence of wheat in the dominant culture is relatively easy for me to deflect and resist. I know some people find it very hard to resist the temptation of wheat and it's opioid-like qualities. I just see too many problems wheat causes us and more benefits when we strictly avoid it.

I too have had many issues. I gave up all gluten for about 4 months and accidentally ate a breaded piece of meat at a family party. So, I decided to "see if" it was really wheat that has been bothering me ( I have had horrible pasty/undigested diarrhea/soft like bowel movements for the past year or so). So, I ate whatever wheat/gluten I wanted for about two weeks. First, I got very constipated. But didn't really feel all that bad. I was almost sad, because I always thought it was the wheat. But, now and for the past week or so since I have been off all gluten, have had the pasty/sticky/undigested bms. I also get very very dry hands. And, a strange red bump appears on my belly probably from my whole body just being irritated.

I've just made an appt with an allergist just to see what they can see. I almost feel like I'm sensitive to wheat and "something" else that I can't pinpoint.