Dear Princess Know It All,

Every where I turn people are talking about giving up gluten and wheat, what is the deal…What is it and is it bad for all of us or just some and who are those some?

Signed
Gluten Confused……

Dear Gluten Confused,

This is what I’ve come to understand and experience regarding gluten: first of all gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. The purpose of gluten is to help make bread elastic and the gases that are released during the fermentation of the dough make it that it can rise before it’s baked, the gluten also helps the bread keep it’s shape.

Folks with Celiacs disease have an autoimmune response to gluten – NOT an ALLERGY, this means that their immune systems freak out when the gluten protein hits the blood, the body sees this gluten as an enemy and attacks!  One theory and one that I tend to believe wholeheartedly is that we are loaded with gluten, our original or “Ancestral Diets” did not contain tons of gluten, wheat was not the main grain let alone the one thing we ate every day.  Our current society is inundated with wheat/gluten, if you read your labels just like you did with the sugar challenge that I wrote about, you would see just how much wheat/gluten is entering our bodies on a daily basis.

If you suffer from any type of intestinal, autoimmune, inflammatory illnesses (by the way asthma and arthritis are inflammatory). I would say step away from the wheat/gluten.  Give your joints and organs a break, wheat is a tough grain for anyone to digest, let alone folks in poor health.

If you are healthy and raising healthy kids, be MINDFUL of how much wheat/gluten you are stuffing yourself and them with, example: cereals, cookies, crackers, bread (sandwiches), pasta’s etc.  I believe that the basis of most digestive disorders is wheat, sugar and dairy overload.
ALL of our bodies are on unnatural food overdose.

Wheat/Gluten is NOT BAD, it just happens to be in almost every processed can, box and frozen bagged food, read your label and pay attention to just what you are putting in your body.  A cut-back is a good thing for all of us!

The one thought I want to leave you all with is this: These are only 3 grains that we can’t eat ALL the time. Instead of seeing what we can’t have look at all that we can: WILD RICE, MILLET, CORN, BUCKEWHEAT, AMARANTH, QUINOA, TEFF, OATS, SOYBEANS AND SUNFLOWER SEEDS.  What this says to me, is that our world can get BIGGER if we expand and seize the opportunities to try something new!

Do yourself and your family a favor and make BROWN RICE pasta or try QUINOA!

Sincerely,
Princess Know It All