IS GLUTEN REALLY THE PROBLEM?

HISTORY

Before Gluten-free became the widespread trend that it is rapidly becoming today I had been gluten-free since college (completely by accident). Before that there was a time when I was growing up that my father used to make bread for us EVERY Sunday. He would throw anything he could find into the bread: bananas, zucchini, walnuts and probably a lot of other things I wouldn't want to know. He would bake at least a couple pans of it because he knew that skinny little Mary would probably down at least a half loaf of it in one sitting because NOTHING beats hot, steamy homemade bread right out of the oven!

I NEVER reacted to my father's bread or gained weight from it. Even some of the commercial breads in the 70's that we ate didn't cause me any problems. My only childhood eating issue was lactose intolerance.

It wasn't until I moved to Chicago that I picked up weight from college eating processed foods that had never been introduced into my diet until then. When I ate bread I felt like I immediately had to take a nap, my hands would swell, rashes would show up on my skin and my stomach would distend. I just attributed it all to stress and college.

Towards the end of college in 1997 I was introduced to the blood type diet by a friend of mine and shed off all of my college weight. The hardest part of the diet was staying away from WHEAT. At that time I did not know anything about gluten. I just knew wheat was against my blood type. I happily substituted my wheat for rice pasta/glass noodles. Rice pasta can actually be pretty versatile!

After college I went to move to Milan, Italy for a couple of years. At first I stayed away from wheat because I was afraid to gain the weight back, but when the seafood pastas came out I had to indulge.......each and every day. Guess what? I didn't gain weight from the pasta. I actually lost more weight. I even ate Mc Donald's over there, which was nothing like the the US version. The beef there was amazing. The food scenario in Italy in the mid nineties was just perplexing to me.

Then I came back to the US to NYC/Chicago in '99 to find myself blimping up again. My hands and stomach were constantly swelling from bread/wheat so I went back on the blood type diet and once again the weight came off.

It was in 2000 I met Casey Kern and she first told me about Celiac disease and gluten intolerance. After doing a lot of reading I figured without taking the $2000 test I must be gluten intolerant and just needed to stay off of wheat the rest of my life. It was very difficult to do back then. Everything from soy sauce and soups had gluten in it, but when I stayed diligent about it I didn't have problems.

DISCOVERY

It wasn't until more recently in wanting to resolve my thyroid/weight issue that I came across some interesting information in my research. Commercial bread has an additive called potassium bromide, which the FDA claims after baking is found in negligible amounts. Potassium Bromide strengthens the bread for commercial use. The substance is banned by the EU and even China and must be labeled in CA, but I understand overall the US is in Bromine overload. You can read more about it in this article. Potassium Bromide also has some of the symptoms that I listed when I eat bread. I bring this to your attention because several people have been coming in with all kinds of skin issues. There is a drastic difference in the numbers of skin issues I see today versus when I got started in skincare almost 10 years ago.

I had heard about Bromine before because of a pizza place below my office that has been trying to educate about Bromine and bleached flour for at least 8 years. I just never paid any mind to it because I was gluten-free.

Apparently Bromine is dangerous to the thyroid because it can bully out the receptor that iodine should be taking because the body acknowledges them to both be similar. Iodine helps to regulate the thyroid and hormones and is key to the immune system.

Today I'm simply here to point out that maybe it's not the gluten in the bread causing the issues and nationwide panic. Perhaps the Potassium Bromate with the GMO grain mixed with many other things is the culprit. Actually at the end of the day processed is really the problem. Our bodies just can't recognize it and doesn't know what to do with it.

There is a fascinating video of the history of our food and industry since the 1950's you can click to HERE. I highly recommend taking the time to watch it as there is a lot of really cool information in it. I don't know anything about the product at the end of the video as I am skeptical of any probiotic that is not coated to get past the stomach acid. You could have a trillion bacteria and not get it into the intestines where they are needed. People think Activia actually does something because of the bacteria, but actually it contains a fiber that causes that movement as discussed in a past Tuesday Tip. The hydrochloric acid our stomachs produce is there to keep bacteria from getting into the body! Anyway watch it and let me know what you think!