Why Go Gluten Free
Gluten has been a big target for the dietary and wellness media for a few years, but who actually is at risk and should be avoiding products containing gluten? Should everyone? There are two main groups that are negatively affected by gluten: those with Celiac Disease and those with Non-Celiac gluten sensitivity.
Celiac Disease
Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder and the most severe form of gluten intolerance, affecting approximately 1% of the population. As an autoimmune disorder, the body attacks itself, specifically ingested gluten, which damages the lining of the gut, causing nutrient deficiencies, anemia, and severe digestive issues.
Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity
Those who face issues of gluten sensitivity but do not test positive for Celiac disease are a part of a group known as non-Celiac gluten sensitivity. Research is limited in the number of individuals affected, but estimates consider up to 13% of the population could fall within this group. Symptoms of non-Celiac gluten sensitivity include diarrhea, stomach pain, tiredness, bloating, and depression. Non-Celiac gluten sensitivity is not yet fully explored, but it is hypothesized that some individuals who fall into this category may suffer gluten sensitivity symptoms due to other causes and/or conditions.
Identify The Foods That Will Love You Back
Sometimes, when were told that we cant have something, we focus on it . The best way to break that focus is to identify everything that you CAN have. Go ahead, start making a list. Nothing is too specific. When Im in a rut, Ill write down my favorite herbs and spices, vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, convenience foods even marshmallows!
How To Shop For Gluten
Shopping for gluten-free and dairy-free foods may not be as difficult as you think. Not only are many of the foundational foods we eat gluten-free and dairy-free, but products market to other groups, such as vegans, also guarantee the absence of milk-based ingredients! Further, shopping gluten and dairy free fits well within the recommendations for many other proposed healthy eating habits, such as shopping the perimeter of the store or buying more whole foods with fewer ingredients. So grab your pen and paper or pull up the notes on your phone, and let’s get started!
Raw and Unprocessed
First, try to buy raw and unprocessed foods to cook from scratch yourself. By doing this, you can control and eliminate a lot of the unnecessary additives in your food and become more aware of the ingredients you ingest. Raw and unprocessed foods often have fewer ingredients in them as opposed to their cooked and processed counterparts. The culmination of a diet based on processed foods, each with many of their own additives, not only contribute to you ingesting foods that are not necessary to your diet or health but also open more opportunities to expose yourself to gluten or dairy-contaminated foods.
Naturally Gluten-Free
Foundational Foods
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Theres Something About Dairy
People opt for a dairy-free diet for an array of different reasons, but for an increasing number of people, theyre searching for relief from digestive issues, bloating, skin problems, and respiratory conditions that come hand in hand with eating dairy products.
A dairy-free diet includes foods that are free of milk and milk products. Whether you choose to simply reduce or completely eliminate these products from your diet your digestive system will thank you.
Less bloating bloating due to dairy is a common complaint, and is usually a digestive issue. This can be because of inadequate protein digestion, an inability to break down sugar and carbohydrates, and imbalances in gut bacteria. All of these factors can be due to dairy sensitivity!
Improved digestion sticking to a dairy-free diet guarantees that you avoid classic dairy symptoms including cramps, stomach pain, bloating, gas, diarrhea, and nausea.
On top of this, giving dairy the flick, means clearer skin, better respiratory health, and can also help to alleviate stress.
Cutting dairy out of your diet, however, can result in low potassium levels, magnesium deficiency and calcium deficiency. Luckily there are amazing dairy alternatives on the market that can help you get the nutrients you need, and keep your gut in check. Think goats milk, coconut milk, and almond milk to help you get your non-dairy, dairy fix.
The Doctors Kitchen and our doctors service all Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, and Toowoomba areas.
What Is A Gluten
Pictured Recipe: Charred Vegetable & Bean Tostadas with Lime Crema
Surprisingly, it’s similar to a traditionally healthy dietfew fancy foods required. Fill up your plate with naturally wholesome gluten-free foods, such as vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, seeds, fish and lean meat, says Begun. “This is what dietitians recommend makes up the majority of your diet whether you’re gluten-free or not,” she says.
And if you love your grains, you can still eat them. “So many people think that gluten-free means no grains at all, but there are so many great gluten-free options out there,” says Begun. Rice, millet, quinoa and buckwheat are just a few examples. Today, you can easily find gluten-free pasta made from corn, quinoa or beans.
Be sure to check out The Ultimate Gluten-Free Foods List for more specifics.
If you eat this way, you likely won’t have to worry about nutritional deficiencies, says Begun. “The exception is if you suffer from celiac disease, since your body does not absorb all of the nutrients from food,” she says. Commonly, newly diagnosed celiac sufferers are deficient in fiber, iron, calcium, vitamin D and even protein, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation. In that case Begun recommends speaking with a registered dietitian, who may recommend supplements or other necessary dietary changes.
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How Do I Eliminate Gluten And Dairy From My Diet
The first step to eliminating gluten and dairy is to educate yourself on their effects and where theyre most commonly found. Once youre aware of where gluten and dairy may be hiding in food, you can make more informed choices at the store and at the restaurant.
Stick to a whole foods diet naturally free of dairy and gluten. Dairy is naturally a gluten-free food. If you choose to purchase processed foods, be very mindful of ingredient labels and contamination warnings. Often, even if a product is gluten or dairy free, it may have been processed on the same equipment as gluten or dairy containing products. Get my clean eating food list.
When eating out at restaurants, inform your waiter that you cannot consume dairy or gluten. Restaurants may cook certain foods in butter, or prepare foods on a surface covered in flour or even put flour into foods such as omelets, to make them more presentable. You cannot always trust seemingly gluten or dairy-free dishes so make sure to ask. To avoid contamination, communicate with your server and impress the importance of your restriction upon them. Remain firmyou can even ask them their specific processes for avoiding contamination. Many restaurants will even have gluten-free and dairy-free options!
Make sure you know your alternatives for gluten and dairy. Its relatively easy now to find conforming recipes and substitutes for gluten and dairy. Here are some common swaps to get you started:
Why The Concept Of A Cheat Day Doesn’t Exist For Me
In case it wasn’t made clear yet, I love desserts. Most restaurants and cafes, even if they have a gluten-free dessert, have so much dairy as part of the ingredients that I can’t eat it. The doctor had warned me that that even one instance of cheating on my diet would take my progress back by three months, so I don’t have the liberty of a cheat day. But fact is, going off gluten and dairy has actually made me healthier without even trying. The batter coating on most fried food is off limits to me, which is obviously great for my health. I did lose a bit of weight initially, because I was suddenly restricting myself from foods that I usually ate, but once I figured out the alternatives, I came back to my normal weight.
I don’t feel too bad about not having gluten or dairy in my life anymore. I may feel crappy for a few minutes when I see someone devouring a delicious dessert, but otherwise I’m doing just finebetter, in fact.
As told to Anjan Sachar
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Reasons To Give Up Gluten + Dairy
A gorgeous soul asked how this program of gluten free, dairy free, nutritious whole foods could help heal so many things.
Heres some really interesting articles about what this kind of diet can do:
The point is that people with gluten sensitivities may experience symptoms that are easily passed off as normal aging or worse, a psychological condition. They may experience fatigue, IBS, chronic depression, ADD, ADHD, learning disabilities, anxiety, aches and pains, weight fluxuation/gain, bloating, constipation or diarrhea.
Did you know that more and more research is showing how gluten can cause excess weight, anxiety, stomach cramps and autoimmune diseases? Did you know that up to 85% of women with fertility issues are ALLERGIC to GLUTEN and that eating gluten free is the #1 thing to do to become more fertile?
Gluten can even cause you to become sick + overweight because it damages the lining of the stomach + allows poo to enter your bloodstream. I firmly believe our bodies are NOT built to cope with gluten its a relatively new dietary inclusion thats over processed, over chemicalised and has no nutritional value.
Dairy is acidic and extremely mucoid forming it can plug up your intestines, and is one of the leading causes of IBS even if youre not lactose intolerant! It can even increase the risk of cancer!
Why Go Dairy Free For Better Health
Dairy is, I guess, something that goes way back, you know our parents and their parents had cows and they would milk the cow and drink the milk .
These days, our meat milk is so modified, changed and heavily processed its not real milk anymore.
Raw cows milk starts out with a yellowish tinge to it and ends up pure white after current processing.
The milk we consume today has been modified and heavily processed to appeal to its customers.
So when the milk is first obtained from the cow it goes through processing before ending up on the supermarket shelf.
Pasteurisation of the Milk
Pasteurisation is the first step of the process.
Pasteurising is heating the milk to high temperatures, which is a heat treatment, a really, really hot heat treatment.
Now in raw milk we find lactase, which is a digestive enzyme naturally occurring in milk, that helps us to digest milk.
We as humans dont have that natural ability. to digest milk and so we rely on the naturally occuring enzymes in milk to help our body to digest it.
The problem with pasteurisation is that when they heat the milk to those high temperatures, those lovely, helpful digestive enzymes that help us to digest dairy milk are destroyed.
When we lose these enzymes, we then have issues with digesting the milk, and our body tells us in so many different ways.
Homogenisation of the Milk
Once they pasteurise the milk, they go through another process called homogenisation and homogenisation breaks down the fatty chain acids.
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The Reason That This Anti
In order to help COMBAT that chronic inflammation, we need to first make some MAJOR lifestyle changes . Oops, Im failing at that.
We also need to MAXIMIZE certain nutrients in our diet, such as omega 3 rich foods , anti-oxidants, minerals, Vitamin D, probiotics, water, and so on and so on. Temporarily removing a dairy, and maybe even certain types of grains can help absorb your body absorb more nutrients and therefore reduce stress on the body. Does that make sense?
I know, youre probably now wondering but why a dairy-free Anti-inflammatory meal plan? Doesnt cultured dairy do wonder for the gut? YES, it SURE does! Grass-fed dairy thats rich in probiotics, like kefir, and yogurt, and even REAL butter, can be healthy and nourishing. Plus they are SOOOO tasty!
But heres the thing, if you are under that chronic inflammation and stress, then you might also be experiencing digest issues and food intolerances. Any food can be inflammatory if your body comes to see it as an invader under chronic inflammation. Which may include dairy, casein, and lactose included! Hopefully, its a temporary intolerance, but you never know. Which is why I suggest trying out a low FODMAP meal plan first.
No no, dont be worried, we can get this all worked out. Yes, we are going nourish the body and reduce stress.
Test, rest, reset! YES!!
Recap On The Top 5 Tips On How To Go Gluten And Dairy Free For Better Health
So just to recap on those five tips:
Number one: is to understand why you are going gluten and dairy free in the first place, which will really support all the other aspects as you start to really make all those changes in your life.
Number two: is understand the impacts that gluten and dairy have on the body. Understand what it is that these two foods are doing to your body and really understand that process.
Number three: is start to look at alternatives. Start looking for different types of recipes and researching. Gaining your own knowledge is part of the process as well.
Number four: is start making those small changes like I spoke about and work through what youre going to tackle first and how youre going to work through that process.
Number five: is support your body naturally wherever possible. If you have discomfort, use something that is going to support rather than harm your body or put extra unnecessary load on your body at any given time. I personally love my natural mumma toolkit.
Hopefully you have enjoyed what Ive shared on going gluten and dairy free. I do however have more tips Id love to share with you and you can grab my complete checklist below:
I know that your body will thank you from going gluten and dairy free.
If you would like to hear me talk about the top 5 tips for going gluten and dairy free you can watch my video below:
Going gluten and dairy free is not a simple task, especially if habitual patterns need to change.
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Plan Your Menus For Easy And Consistent Meals
Many beginners experience meltdowns and feel that they dont have much to work with or eat because of excluding dairy and gluten ingredients. So, become a menu planner and plan out what meals you will be making and enjoying throughout the week. Having a weekly plan will save you from a lot of trouble and possible tears if you plan to go this road unprepared.
Hidden Gluten In Foods
One downfall of having such an intolerance is that it becomes difficult to find hidden gluten in foods that have been pre-made or processed such as soya sauce, baking powder, beer, brown rice syrup, cereal, coffee , some dairy products, for example, modified starch in yoghurts, cottage cheese, chocolate, and even meat flavourings may contain wheat. Learning to look for these hidden gluten products will be imperative to making sure the body stays as healthy as possible.
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