I’m glad you’re enjoying the site!

This site is new to me but I love it. Great information on an industry that is so often influenced more by the big corporate food machine than from people that truly care about our health. Look forward to enjoying this blog in the future.

RM’s comment really hit a nerve so I would like to throw in my two cents.

RM I appreciate that you have a right to your own voice, your own thoughts but I think it would benefit you to have more of an open mind. Gluten related conditions have to be taken seriously. Yes people do self-diagnosis themselves as gluten intolerant or sensitive but I truly believe these people are having issues related to their “gas or other minor disturbance” as you put it. It may or may not be gluten related but is real to them. The big question is how can we help these people.

You stated that you worked in the health food industry. This places you in the circle of influence of anyone that has had a conversation with you regarding this. Be empathetic to these people. Your wisdom and compassion may save their life. As I’m sure you know some people can have a sensitivity which can cause some minor to severe symptoms but others it can kill. Some people have Celiac disease which left untreated will result in the inability to absorb nutrients in the intestines. This obviously will lead to death. Remembering that you are now in this persons circle of influence you can educate them on how potentially life threatening this can be and urge them to get more information and to get tested by a health care professional that specializes in Celiac disease. Anybody with Celiac disease needs a complete education on this condition. For these people just a tiny amount of gluten can be devastating. You can let them know how dangerous a self-diagnosis can be. If you come off as critical of their self-diagnosis they may be turned off by you and never get the understanding and help they need. You seriously could save someone life.

Lets play devil’s advocate for a moment. Lets say these people come in and tell you all about their new found self-diagnosed gluten sensitivity and the reality is that they have no such thing. What harm is a GF diet going to do? None. If anything it may help. Some people choose to be GF by choice. Maybe these people don’t have gluten intolerance or sensitivity but know that have issues when they consume gluten. This may be a result of Leaky Gut due to a compromised intestinal wall. The gluten protien is passing through the intestinal wall and the body see this as an invader and wages war. Heal the digestive tract and boom gluten is back on the menu. I’m sure the store you worked at had nourishing foods and probiotics available for recommendation.

You never know who you will cross paths with. Is it the person with Celiac or is it the person that is looking for the new diagnosis de jour or is it someone in between.
Gluten has a far more reaching grasp than most people think. Studies have shown that gluten can play a role in ADD/ADHD, autism, CFS, arthritis, fibromyalgia, IBS, skin disorders and many more conditions.

RM, please move forward with an open mind. You can do so much for these people. You my friend can change the quality of someones life forever. If you haven’t already do some research and the next time a person is waffling about a self-diagnosis you can have a compassionate understanding response that will lead that person the get proper diagnosis from a professional.

Love the blog, Vin. Until the next post. Take care.

I actually had one piece crumble on me, but having eaten gluten free pizza before, I expected this. It certainly held together better that the gluten free pizzas we’ve made at home!

Pizza is addictive!

Cheers,
KristenM
(AKA FoodRenegade)

For the most part, I’ve been able to eliminate my sugar cravings with additional protein intake from high quality meats. I think this is the best approach, but some people do need to take 5-HTP or tryptophan for a while. I’ll be writing about this more next week.

While Uno’s gluten free pizza is 8 slices, it’s very thin, isn’t greasy, and is only the size of the large plate it comes on. As such, it’s less filling than you may think. It’s a bit larger than the typical personal pizza, but is much smaller than a whole pizza that you’d get at a pizzeria. As I mentioned in the article, I’m pretty sure that it’s intended to be a personal pizza.

I certainly won’t delete your comment. I am thankful for all feedback regardless of whether it’s positive or negative.

I do see where you are coming from. Some people do embrace the victim mentality and latch on to a diagnosis to gain attention. HOWEVER, gluten sensitivity and celiac disease are legitimate conditions that affect many people. In fact, quite a few have suffered needlessly for many years and others have died prematurely due to the many diseases that gluten sensitivity can lead to.

You should also consider that grain has only been part of the human diet for about 10,000 years which means that it wasn’t part of our evolution. A little common sense suggests that grain might not be a great dietary choice. As such, anyone who eliminates it from their diet, even if they aren’t sensitive to it, is only looking out for their health. They aren’t harming anyone and should be applauded for their efforts.

If you were to do some reading on celiac disease and gluten sensitivity, you’d realize that western medicine often dismisses and fails to diagnose many cases. On average, most celiacs suffer for more than 10 years before they’re diagnosed, and those are the ones who are fortunate enough to even get a diagnosis. Although you’d like to think that a western medical doctor can and will diagnose food sensitivites, they often don’t. If you’d like to gain a better understanding of the people who you’re criticizing, I suggest you read “Dangerous Grains.”. It’s an excellent book written by western medical doctors and is backed by plenty of research.

Western medicine is largely focused on chasing symptoms and is heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. Most doctors know very little about the healthy lifestyle, including diet, that can prevent many of the conditions that their patients suffer from. They give them drugs to relieve symptoms and do nothing to address the root cause. As with the people who avoid gluten as a precautionary measure, anyone who takes responsibility for their health and makes the effort to educate themselves to make up for this unfortunate shortcoming of western medicine should be applauded as well.

Finally, I am one of the “unverified undiagnosed suppositions” that you speak of. I’ve spent a significant portion of my live living with exhaustion and many other undesirable symptoms. I was eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, and since it seems to make a difference to you, the diagnosis came from an official western medical doctor who specialized in this area. With my own “quackery”, I was able to do far more for my health than any of the doctors I was seeing, and a big part of this was eliminating grains from my diet which none of the doctors even considered.

Ironically, the western medical doctors that you so highly praise would just assume that I resign to a lifetime of being labeled with chronic fatigue syndrome and taking medication like a good patient. And those are just the doctors that don’t dismiss a condition like this as “being in your head.” While I often tell people I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, you will never catch me saying that “I have” chronic fatigue syndrome. I view it as nothing more than a symptom of my prior history of poor health and I have no interest in gaining attention through a victim mentality. I simply want a better life for myself and will do everything I can to make it happen. I think many of the people you’re criticizing are in the same position and I think you should have more consideration for them.

I use the term sufferers lightly because while there are many people who suffer from gluten allergies and sensitivities, I’ve noticed that it’s lately become quite popular for people in health food circles to suddenly claim they’ve discovered a verified wheat sensitivity or allergy and suddenly must cut all wheat out because they had gas or some other minor disturbance one day and there was some wheat in the food they ate. Usually then they claim that they talked to someone (when probed, it’s very rarely a medical doctor, and is quite often some quack who set up shop outside the co-op one day or someone who owns a new age store or something of the sort. ) I bet you’d like to argue that western science is what made this mess, but at the very least I’d like to think a western doctor could diagnose an allergy as our western living has been proven to create a number allergies and they diagnose allergies all the time.

I’d like to say this was a lie or not based in truth but I’ve worked in health food stores and been friends with a number of its clientele for a long time now and most of the stories of people who suffer from wheat problems are those sort of unverified undiagnosed suppositions. I would say about 95% of the stories of people in the last 5 years who have come into one of the stores I’ve worked at and have told me they were looking for gluten-free this or that have told me a story like that.

In the last year and a half, it’s even gotten more so that people are even skipping the quacks and diagnosing themselves because it seems to be so popular.

Now, I’m sure you’re going to delete this comment, but let me just say a bit more. I don’t think that all wheat allergies are a lie, which I’m sure you’d like to accuse me of saying. I don’t think that it’s proper to eat a diet of all refined foods. I don’t even think it’s appopriate to focus on one grain (even whole) over another. I do, however, think it’s a good idea sometimes to show how even the natural sorts can just say “Hey, you made a gluten free pizza. Good show.” and let it be.

P.S. I can’t believe you eat a whole pizza. I’m stuffed after 3 slices.