Gluten Intolerance

[Guest guest]

>>>I no longer react badly to wheat, but I don't eat

it very often. I am wondering if perhaps I should

still avoid it. Is it likely it's bad for me, even if I'm

currently asymptomatic?<<<

I went off dairy and wheat for a while (years ago) and found when I started

eating them again I didn't have any problems for quite a while, but they

eventually returned. I think it's a build up. While you're off them, the gut

heals and it takes a while before there is enough damage again to cause

symptoms. I'm now off wheat again and feeling pretty good. I can also handle

more dairy while I'm not having wheat/gluten. I would say it's best for you to

continue to avoid/minimise the wheat.

Cheers,

Tas'.

[Guest guest]

> I no longer react badly to wheat, but I don't eat

> it very often. I am wondering if perhaps I should

> still avoid it. Is it likely it's bad for me, even if I'm

> currently asymptomatic?

>

> Aven

That's a Heidi - excuse me, I mean Miss Glutenator - question if I

ever heard one.

Dawn

P.S. I too feel great without wheat. Try some non-gluten grains and

see how you feel.

[Guest guest]

>I no longer react badly to wheat, but I don't eat

>it very often. I am wondering if perhaps I should

>still avoid it. Is it likely it's bad for me, even if I'm

>currently asymptomatic?

>

>Aven

There are a lot of people arguing over that very question!

A lot of depends on *why* you don't digest wheat. The gluten

in wheat isn't very digestible, and it interferes with the villi,

for most humans. For those folk, eating it once in awhile,

properly prepared, really isn't an issue. If they eat a lot

of it, they might get indigestion or malnourishment though.

For the folk whose immune systems react to wheat (who

are IgA gluten intolerant) eating wheat pretty much wrecks

havoc with the immune system. Eating wheat once a week

has been shown to be enough to cause damage and keep

damage from healing, and only a tiny quantity is needed

to cause that damage. But the person eating the wheat is

unlikely to know that they even are reacting to it, until

the digestive system gets severely compromised.

Now, if the immune system gets compromised, you are

at higher risk for stuff like cancer, thyroid disease, liver

disease, so it's an important question. Gluten intolerant

people who eat gluten have *twice* the death rate

of the general populace, per year, and are more prone

to some 196 nasty diseases (that they know of).

But there is no way that I know of, short of getting good

tests, to know which camp you are in. And the testing

is in it's infancy, it's pretty unreliable. And the testing

usually comes out negative if you rarely eat wheat

anyway, even if you are IgA intolerant.

From listening on the gluten intolerance lists, it seems

that many people go into " remission " after being GF

for some time, and seem to be " cured " , even if they

are absolutely IgA intolerant. In Italy they did biopsies

on these " cured " folks though, and found

intestinal damage to one degree or another. It seems to

take a lot of years for the damage to build up to the

degree that the person feels sick. So the consensus is

that if a person is intolerant, it's best not to tempt fate.

OTOH, some intolerant folks get deathly ill from any

speck of wheat, so they are never tempted to eat

it anyway. I happen to be in that camp!

I expect in some number of years this whole thing will

be resolved ... in the meantime, you can read about

the issues and choose for yourself. The book Dangerous

Grains lays it out pretty well!

In our family (obviously, from my posts) we just use different

grains, which has become easy enough for us. I did

test postive on an IgA test, so I KNOW I don't want to

eat wheat, but we aren't missing out on anything

we would want to eat anyway.

So I'd have to ask ... what is your reason for wanting

to eat gluten grains? The only thing I've found hard to

replace is beer, and I'm working on that ...

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

>

> So I'd have to ask ... what is your reason for wanting

> to eat gluten grains? The only thing I've found hard to

> replace is beer, and I'm working on that ... >

>

> Heidi Jean

Thanks for that wonderfully detailed reply! I think I'd

feel safer giving up the glutens altogether. The only

real problem is bread. I haven't gotten into making

it myself, and the only really good bread I've found

is a sourdough spelt. I could avoid eating it myself, but

I like having something to spread things on, and

my daughter likes a sandwich or toast sometimes.

Although I have no reason to think she's GI except

that I've heard it runs in families. It might be wiser

to just keep her off them.

If I could get myself to make sourdough bread, do

non-gluten flours work?

Aven

[Guest guest]

At 09:53 PM 10/3/04 -0000, you wrote:

>If I could get myself to make sourdough bread, do

>non-gluten flours work?

>

>Aven

Ooh ooh ooh!!! *jumps up and down waving her Official Heidi-Recipe

Reposter Badge, trying really hard not to look like Horshack, but probably

at least SOUNDING like Horshack anyway*

(for the record, I added a couple of whipped egg whites the first time I

made it and it was quite nummy and lighter than a " standard " sourdough

would be - i.e. not dense as a rock)

From Heidi Glutenator and Cookbook Author Extraordinaire, 9/4/04:

>Here is what I did:

>

>2 cups sorghum

>2 cups kefir

>

>Mix. Let stand a day. By the end of 24 hours, it was smooth and sour.

>

>In a bowl, mix:

>1/2 cup tapioca flour

>1/2 cup potato flour

>1 tsp salt

>2 tsp xanthan gum

>

>Add that, plus

>1 egg

>1/3 cup oil

>

>to the batter. It is a fairly thin batter, like toothpaste.

>Spread into loaf pan, let rise. Then bake at 350 for

>an hour or so.

>

>It came out very sour and yummy, tho it didn't rise

>as much as some breads (I might not have waited

>long enough though, it was late). It tasted a little

>like pumpernickle ... with a little added honey or

>sugar and a darker flour (like buckwheat) it would

>BE pumpernickle, I think! If one were to whip up

>some eggwhites til thick and fold them into the

>batter, it would be a lighter bread, I think.

>

>Heidi Jean

MFJ

Everything connects. The Universe is not THAT chaotic. Beauty can

still be found in the most amazing places.

[Guest guest]

At 06:04 PM 10/3/04 -0400, you wrote:

>(for the record, I added a couple of whipped egg whites the first time I

>made it and it was quite nummy and lighter than a " standard " sourdough

>would be - i.e. not dense as a rock)

Ooops, forgot the other note. It was definitely sour - more an up-front

type of sour than a " I've fermented this for the past sixteen years slow

sour " . (Did that make any sense? It's the only way I can think of to

describe it.) Also, it didn't rise THAT much in the pan (I think I

waited about three hours then said " Screw it, I'm tired, at least it'll be

a good experiment " and popped it in the oven). It poofed up quite a bit

more the first few minutes in the oven. So be aware of that, at least,

if you're paranoid like me, and want to know every teensy little detail

beforehand.

MFJ

Everything connects. The Universe is not THAT chaotic. Beauty can

still be found in the most amazing places.

[Guest guest]

>If I could get myself to make sourdough bread, do

>non-gluten flours work?

>

>Aven

I haven't played as much with sourdough, but I'm having

excellent results with regular bread. Today we had

cinnamon bread and cinnamon muffins ... light and

chewy and really addicting (and yeah, I'll post the

recipe if it freezes ok). My sourdough bread I did post,

(thanks, Official Reposter!), and the recipes are getting

better and hopefully easier. The barriers are cultural,

not technological: most of the world has never HAD

wheat much.

Anyway, the short answer is: yeah, you can have

bread and still avoid gluten just fine. What is now

happening in our family is funny though ... we never

ate bread much at all before, but since I've been *making*

it, suddenly the family has become more and more

into bread and sandwiches.

For me, my sudden addiction has been white biscotti type

bread, rubbed with fresh garlic cloves and drizzled with

olive oil, or with lox or canned anchovies. I make the bread

in advance and freeze it, then folks just toast it as needed.

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

Thanks, MFJ

I don't know when I'll get inspired to make bread,

but I will save this recipe.

Aven

> Ooh ooh ooh!!! *jumps up and down waving her Official Heidi-Recipe

> Reposter Badge, trying really hard not to look like Horshack, but probably

> at least SOUNDING like Horshack anyway*

>

[Guest guest]

At 01:46 PM 10/7/04 -0000, you wrote:

>

>

>Thanks, MFJ

>I don't know when I'll get inspired to make bread,

>but I will save this recipe.

>Aven

Well, as far as the " white bread " goes, you gotta love a bread that takes

less than 90 minutes from deciding you want some to scarfing it down.

MFJ

Everything connects. The Universe is not THAT chaotic. Beauty can

still be found in the most amazing places.

[Guest guest]

http://www.elliotthealthcare.com/gluten_intolerance.htm

[Guest guest]

:

>I've searched the archives, feeling sure that Heidi MUST have put something in

there on this subject. Unfortunately, except for discovering that there's a

list devoted to it, there's nothing else :-(

???? That seems incredibly odd. There's probably more than there is for the

Warrior diet! Did you try Onibasu?

>Could anyone point me in the direct of good stuff on Gluten Intolerance? I

have a friend who's niece suffers from severe depression. Thaks to this list,

I sent her some of your ideas and it sounds as if Gluten Intol. is it.

>

The book Dangerous Grains is the most accurate and thorough. The website

www.celiac.com has a lot. Or google on " depression gluten " . You'll find more on

" celiac " , which is like the end game for gluten intolerance (by the time you get

celiac you have major major gut damage). Celiac has been studied for 25 years

and there's lots of good research, but only recently did they figure out that

gluten intolerance causes celiac .. both are IgA allergies.

One confusion is that a lot of when some people talk about " gluten intolerance "

they are talking about IgG allergies. IgG allergies CAN be cured, so people talk

about how to " cure " gluten intolerance and prevent it from happening etc, which

is confusing. The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that IgA allergies don't

" cure " , they are very much genetically based, not environmentally based. So the

research on " celiac " tends to be more accurate in terms of symptoms and

treatments, because they only use the term " celiac " for IgA allergies.

Heidi Jean

[Guest guest]

Heidi wrote:

???? That seems incredibly odd. There's probably more than there is for the

Warrior diet! Did you try Onibasu?

Sorry, I should have said that I searched the FILES, thinking that you might

have put something in there. My goodness if I searched Onibasu I'd have a TON

of messages on the subject. Thanks very much for the info on " Dangerous

Grains " and celiac.com which I've passed along to my friend :-)

and the K9's