To be or not to be - Gluten Free - that is the question

Picture the scene. Breaking into a white, crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside and slathering it with butter and a slab of stinky French cheese.  It’s not just me that’s interested, Max (my furry friend) has his eyes on the prize and he has learned that staring, with those big brown eyes of his, is usually successful around 95% of the time. 

But no!  For me, it’s off the menu (my hubby smirks as wraps his bouche around the morsel – b*****d) and I am trying not to wail and gnash my teeth as I look at my home-made crispy crackers as the alternative.  You see? It’s all about self-experimentation.

You might have seen from my other blogs and LinkedIn posts about my research into my nerve condition and its’ association with stress.  Stress I have learned can result in our bodies not being able to absorb the nutrition from foods that it needs, and the irony is that often when we are stressed, we reach for the comforting foods that have little nutritional value.

With acute (high short-term) stress, the hormone adrenaline curbs the appetite, but during chronic stress (lower level over long duration), elevated levels of cortisol may cause cravings particularly for fats starches and sugars whilst at the same time causing the body to increase the use of and excrete many nutrients. As someone who seemed to suffer some kind of low - level stress for many years, I’ve become more and more interested in nutrition and its’ effect on my body. This has been supported partly through my own medical examinations (French doctors, kinesiologists) but also through reading articles in medical journals or listening to podcasts with people such as Shawn Stephenson (The Model Health Show) or Dr Rangan Chatterjee (Eat Better, Live More).

I might not believe everything I hear or see but I am willing to try things just to see if they make a difference. As with everything though, there is an overwhelming amount of conflicting advice which can make it difficult to know what is right and what is not. I choose now to consider what might be right FOR ME.

One of the things I have tried (and am experimenting with atm) is removing Gluten from my diet and believe me, doing that in France makes me look a complete weirdo as if speaking French with an English accent wasn’t enough! A number of different medical practitioners introduced me to the world of ‘leaky gut syndrome’ (aka intestinal permeability) and inflammatory foods, which kicked this particular experiment off a few years ago and I’ve dabbled with it off and on.

Studies have shown that a protein called Gliadin (mainly present in Gluten but also other foods too) has an unravelling effect on our digestive tract; over time this can create gaps in the cells allowing undigested proteins and particles to escape from the digestive system to the bloodstream causing an inflammatory response. It is not totally clear whether Gluten is the villain it is made out to be, but the amount of gluten containing foods is unbelievable nowadays with this product being found in not only breads, but cakes, biscuits, crisps (and other processed foods) and salad dressings. Even the Gluten Free products are highly processed and certainly have an impact on my digestion, often resulting in cramps and frequent visits to the toilet. Constantly bombarding our systems with these same foods every day can have a negative impact on some people. Humans didn't start storing and eating grains regularly until around 20,000 years ago, and wheat domestication didn't begin in earnest until about 10,000 years ago, and since its introduction we have relatively high rates of coeliac disease which show no signs of abating despite our ability to adapt to a changing environment.

I read an article in a medical journal not so long ago, that considered the effects of gluten on a man suffering a condition the same as one of mine, Benign Fasciculation Syndrome. This is an annoying situation where the muscles twitch sometimes quite violently 24/7 and can affect the ability to relax and sleep. In his case, he already had a slight gluten sensitivity but was not coeliac and had tried intermittently to remove gluten from his diet with limited success. However, once he had eliminated the food for 6 months, his symptoms disappeared.

This surprised me because I had heard about eliminating foods before but only for a period of 3 weeks, note any differences and then re-introduce the food and again notice if it had any effect. Both my sons had previously eliminated dairy products because of the association of acne and eczema with amazing results and in their case the results showed themselves very quickly. But 6 months? I had not considered it was necessary to do it for so long.

So, I thought I’d give it a whirl. In doing so, I’ve had to be creative. It can feel pretty dull without staple foods to rely on, particularly when it comes to lunches and snacks and the lure of French baguettes and a pain au chocolat might find me drooling at the counter and ultimately falling of the wagon. Finding websites such as ‘Feasting at Home’, ‘Cookie and Kate’ have been really useful in building up interesting and flavoursome nutritional foods. My absolute saviour though has been Katy who has a website called the ‘The Gluten Free Alchemist’. Her site is incredible.  She has not only tried and tested (again and again) various recipes to get them just perfect, she also gives sooo much information about the different flours and processes. She experiments with Gluten Free food like I do with my body!  She leaves no stone unturned and I’ve barely scratched the surface with her recipes yet.

Whether Gluten turns out to be my Achilles heel or at least contribute to it or not, I can’t say, but what if it is my Achilles heel and I didn’t bother trying?