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Old November 19th, 2008, 05:20 AM posted to alt.support.diet
Del Cecchi`
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Posts: 3
Default Questions for a naturopath

Doug Freyburger wrote:
" wrote:

Del, you may be right. If you have a few minutes, it would be
appreciated if you could read this and let me know what you think.

http://www.treelight.com/health/nutrition/Wheat.html



I'm specifically wheat intolerant rather than generally gluten
intolerant so I'll comment. First, if you suspect then stop
eating the stuff for two weeks and see if you feel better. Then
resume eating the stuff and see if you feel worse. It's not
obvious but it's a lot easier to tell getting worse than getting
better.

Being specifically wheat intolerant I don't need to avoid barley
(I like a beer or a shot most weeks) or rye (wheat free rye
bread is carried by some stores) or oats (I don't know why
the article does not list oats). But I do need to avoid wheat
varieties with fancy names that the article does not list as
wheat - triticale, spelt, kamut. I occasionally have pasta
from quinoa and various other non-what grains but it's easy
to just avoid anything that probably has wheat-poison in it.


The symptoms take so long to develop, in fact, that you get
used to them. "That's just the way things are", you think,
or: "That's just what happens when you get older."



Or "It runs in the family. We've always been like that."


But you can become so used to them that they feel "normal".



Exactly my situation before I went wheat free for two weeks.
Then boom a bunch of symptoms went away and my formal
normal is now my new misable. The change is amazing. When
I first added wheat back in the form of a floury gravy and boom
the symptoms came back in the long list, I wrote that nasty crap
off as poison and good riddence.


The largest amounts of glutens are found in wheat, rye, and
barley--a closely related trio of grains



The next in line for gluten content is oats. No idea why they
don't list it.


Then there are the "in between" grains: couscoous, amaranth,
quinoa, semolina, spelt, kamut, teff and triticale. Those grains
don't contain gluten per se, but research has shown they have
very similar effects. So until the research or personal testing
says otherwise, they're on the suspect list.



Couscoous is wheat chopped into coarse bits not fine flour
so I have no idea why they call it not wheat. Semolina is wheat
that is ground rather than chopped, but it's coarse ground so I
have no idea why it's not listed as wheat either. Triticale is one
of the standard breeds of wheat (as is the Star Trek quadro
triticale) so this is like says Macintosh isn't apple. Spelt and
kaumt are ancient stock of wheat that's seen less selective
breeding than modern wheat so I get that it the issue is amount
of gluten not presence of it they won't be as big a problem.


The only grains or flour from which gluten proteins are
completely absent are rice, corn, potato, buckwheat, and
coconut flour, as well as arrowroot, millet, and tapioca. Those
are the only realistic grains for anyone who is gluten sensitive.



Note that rice, corn and millet are grains. Millet is mostly used
as cattle feed but I've found millet bread in some health foods
stores. Potato, arrowroot and tapioca are roots and tubers not
grains. Buckwheat is neither a deer nor a grain the same way
pineapple is niether a connifer tree nor a red fruit. Buckwheat
looks like grain when it's seeds but not that much in the field.
Coconut flour? Really? Somebody send recipes!


Over time, a food-elimination diet will identify the culprits who
have been causing you trouble. (A trained nutritionist can guide
you through the process.)



If you read Doctor Atkins New Diet Revolution for what it actually
says to do rather than just glancing at it for target carb counts,
his plan includes a food elimination diet. It's the OWL sequence
and the carb ladder list.


Remember, gluten is addictive. So for a couple of weeks it will
feel like you're giving up the whole world. You may wonder,
"What on earth will I eat?"



Consider the reactions so many have against Atkins and think
about what that says about gluten addiction. Those who bash
Atkins are often showing symptoms of addiction without knowing
it. It helps me feel sympathy for folks I'd otherwise consider
hateful bashers.


But in a matter of weeks, the addiction will be gone. You'll be
less hungry, and you won't go hungry. You especially won't
be having those hunger attacks that make you feel like you're
starving.



This is the most amazing thing in the world - It becomes easy to
stay on. One bite of addictive poison and you're starting from
scratch again, though. It's unstable.


After a while, as Dr. Rick Peterson says, "It's just the way I
eat". It may not seem possible now, but you'll look at cookies
and cakes, bagels and donuts, pancakes and muffins, and find
yourself thinking: "Yuch. Who needs it?"



For me it's "Where's the food? Does anyone have food for
humans?" when I see baked goods. It hardly even occurs to me
that others can eat that poison without ill effect and when I look
for ill effects in the folks who do eat them, it's surprising how
often I see some of those ill effects.


Conditionally Avoid - Oats



Ah. Well past half way down they finally mention it.


But please note that you not have to live without baked
goods entirely. There are plenty of gluten-free breads and
even cookies these days, made from one or more of the
"good grains" listed below:



Thing is, once I figured out that wheat is a personal poison my
attitude changed and I don't miss toxic nasty poisonous
un-food baked goods. If I know for sure they are wheat-free I
may have them as a treat, but I don't miss them if I never have
them.


To determine which foods cause you problems, it's a good
idea to remove every possible suspect from the diet. Get
down to a minimal diet that you know is healthy, and then try
new things every three or four days. Give each one 3 days to
manifest systems before you decide that it is ok, then either
avoid it or add it back to your diet. (This "elimination diet" is
best done under the supervision of qualified nutritionist, so you
find out everything you should avoid.)



So there you have it - That may as well be a quote from the Atkins
plan. I guess the good doctor's ghost is my nutritionist.


As your intestinal wall regrows, foods that gave you problems
before become easily tolerated once again. So every three
months or so, you can re-test the foods that are on the not-OK
list.



That's a lot more aggressive than my experience. After 4 years of
constant and active wheat avoidance I found I could get an
accidental dose in cream-of-whatever-soup with only minimal ill
effects. Now 9 years into avoidance I can have a chicken fried
steak and eggs once per year, chew gum constantly for 4 hours
to help it through my digestion, and only snore badly for 2 nights
afterwards.


Because dairy is the last food that will come back to your diet,
and because healing takes 6 to 12 months, there's no point in
testing dairy products until 6 months after you start the healing
process. You might then test it once a month, until you find that
it no longer gives you problems. At that point, you'll know that
you have fully healed.



Dairy is the one large disagreement between Atkins and other
elinimation systems. Atkins allows it from the gate. It's a
loophole in Atkins.


Atkins isn't an allergy reduction diet as I recall. And gluten is a
protein which I thought atkins allowed.

You really shouldn't paint things as "poison" or "addictive" just
because you personally are sensitive to them. And cous cous is pasta.
Bulgar is chopped up wheat.