Let them eat cake! (gluten-free, of course)

More and more people are cutting the wheat bread and substituting with gluten-free options.  Last year, a USA Today article cited that 15 – 25% of the population are in favor of gluten-free foods but only about 1% of the population has overt celiac disease, so why the trend towards these wheat-less products?

Because we feel better!

You don’t have to have celiac disease in order to have a sensitivity to wheat.  Celiac is an autoimmune response to wheat that tears apart the gut lining (called villous atrophy) whereas gluten intolerance means that it just irritates your gut and casues digestive trouble.  Subtle intolerances can cause abdominal pain, bloating, fatigue, itchy skin, joint pain, constipation, diarrhea, and other minor symptoms.

The most common food intolerances include dairy, wheat, soy, corn, nightshade vegetables, sulfites, and nitrites.  Noticing how you feel after eating these foods, both shortly after and up to three days, can give you hints to whether or not you have an intolerance.

I have an intolerance, what do I do?

If giving up your favorite snack for the rest of your life is daunting, then do this instead: limit your intake to once a week or less.  The real danger of eating intolerances more frequently is the constant irritation of your gut lining.  Inflammation is a precursor to many chronic diseases, including cancer, so limiting exposure to irritants is one key to lifelong health.

Why are we increasingly sensitive to foods?

My opinion? GM food and our toxic world.

Until the last 30 years, small farmers fed America.  Now, we have large-scale farming operations that predominantly raise one crop: wheat, maize (or corn), conoloa, soy, or cotton.  These crops are produced with GM seeds that are herbicide-resistant and produced by the herbicide producer!  Is our health the main concern of the chemical company and large-scale farms?  Probably not!

In addition, we know that small genetic variations in our own body can deactivate important enzymes and even lead to death.  What happens when we mess with the genetics in our food chain?  It doesn’t take countless clinical trials to answer this question.

The solution

What we have to do is pay attention to signs from our body and eat local to support sustainable agriculture.  We have less genetic variation in our food than any other time in history.  It’s time to change!

Good resources for further reading:

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver
• In Defense of Food and other books by Michael Pollan

Ancient Wisdom and the Winter

So after a long hiatus from blogging, here’s my belated winter post:

While there isn’t much to punctuate the time when we are blanketed in darkness and cold besides fleece and down, ancient cultures used this as a time of deep introspection and healing.  In Chinese medicine, the season of Winter is associated with the Kidney organ, where all of our primordial wisdom and physical energy reserves are located.  A respite from normal toil was expected during this time, and people would gather with their elders, catching up on embroidery and other household chores.

Just as Nature as turs life above ground to something desolate and seemingly hostile, the potential for the future is righteously seeded underneath just waiting for the few degrees of warmth to start a solid ascension from it’s fertile cradle. Taking time for yourself during this season is essential to collect energy reserves to last you all year.  It is during the Winter when we catch up on sleep, nurture our bodies with hearty stews, and keep ourselves active with a more gentle regime than usual.

Here are some examples of ways to keep healthy and sane in these last winter weeks:

1. Eat a variety of seaweeds and dark foods – they are symbolic Kidney foods!

2. Grass-fed, free range meats – eat small portions daily as they are warming.  Add ginger to your stews to enhance this effect, especially if you are someone who runs on the cold side.

3. Take time to meditate or take a walk every day (well bundled, of course).

4. Get good sleep.  In natural medicine, we are taught that each hour you go to bed before midnight counts for two, compared to the less nourishing post-witching hour sleep.   Try to get to bed by 10pm nightly, at the latest.

5. Most importantly, Laugh!!

Be Well and enjoy our gradual warming to the Spring season!

A Balanced Diet aka The Anti-Inflammation Diet

We have so many wars going on in this world that I thought to change the name of the diet to something more positive. Instead of being against inflammation, why don’t we just focus on balance. Besides being this buzz word in the new agey health community, it’s actually an ancient concept that constitutes the base of Chinese philosophy and medicine. Also, we don’t really want to eliminate all inflammation in the body; our immune system needs inflammation!

Being somewhat clumsy at times, I am no stranger to the process of inflammation in my body, which can be roughly translated as,”OMG, we’re down!! WE’RE BLEEDING! Let’s fix this NOW!!” The whole chemical message and inflammatory response starts at this point, and inflammation is used as a tool to heal the area, recruiting immune cells and promoting circulation. The same advantage can been seen when we mount a fever when we get an illness, or use a therapy to heal ligaments and tendons called prolotherapy.

When we have a body in balance, it knows when to produce inflammation and when to turn it off. Problems with chronic inflammation may occur when there is a heavy metal burden in the body, when we are eating foods we are sensitive to, or when anything is exogenously introduced in the body that doesn’t agree with us. There are other reasons for chronic inflammation, but I will focus on how we heal from potentially disagreeable foodstuffs we may unwittingly be eating.

There are a number of common food allergens in most of the foods we eat on a daily basis. We all know what an allergic reaction looks like: someone makes the international sign for choking and blows up like a balloon before being shipped to the nearest ER. What distinguishes an allergen from something we are intolerant of is simply the degree of reactivity. The delayed hypersensitivity reaction may produce a markedly less severe reaction, like gas, bloating, eczema, anxiety, acne, etc. While blood tests for food sensitivities are not 100% reliable, you can use an elimination diet to determine what your body does not agree with and just decrease or avoid the food.

A great resource that explains the diet can be found here. They do a wonderful job of putting the diet into a tiered system, depending on how many potential dietary allergens you wish to remove at once: http://www.womentowomen.com/detoxification/detoxdiet.aspx

These women also have links to many other well-written and informative articles.

The most important thing to remember when embarking on a new diet is to listen to your body. During the first few days of a new diet, there may be “cleansing” reactions, such as loose stools or headaches. Don’t fret. These should subside and increased mental focus and energy should be present by the end of the first week. Congratulations if you’ve decided to take this big step!!