From the Back of the Book...................

If you haven’t heard the bad news about gluten – it’s only a matter of time. What you don’t know about this protein found in wheat, barley, rye oats and spelt may be hurting you.

A growing body of research now shows that most Americans are genetically predisposed to develop an autoimmune reaction when they eat gluten. Furthermore, many of these people have no obvious symptoms, or any number of non-specific symptoms. Yet their chances of developing colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, lymphoma, arthritis, Crohn’s disease, diabetes, thyroid disease, lupus, Sjogren’s, neurological disorders, and other serious diseases, increase significantly with each passing year that they continue to be exposed to gluten.

Gluten may be the reason some people actually report feeling better on low carb diets – even though these diets are dangerously unhealthy.

One of the main organs affected by gluten is the brain. Many doctors are reporting improvement in patients with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, autism, ADD and even depression when they go 100% gluten (and dairy) free. Improvement may be apparent after a week, but it can take several months to a year.

Get off Gluten! Open this book and learn how.

JoAnn Farb is a microbiologist,
educator, author and mother.

Why GF Alone Isn't Enough

By now, you probably realize that being diagnosed with Celiac Disease or gluten sensitivity, means that you are at increased risk for a variety of other diseases. You probably also know that by strictly adhering to a gluten-free diet, you can somewhat mitigate this additional disease risk. But what if by simply eliminating a few more foods, you could significantly reduce your risk of many types of cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and a variety of autoimmune diseases? What if this new way of eating had a side effect of also reducing your risk of cardiovascular disease? (which is what 50% of Americans die from -- and it's not always a sudden death -- sometimes it is preceded by years of suffering and gradually increasing disability.) What if the new diet also gave you more energy and made it easier to maintain a healthy weight? What if it also reduced your carbon footprint? (In fact just eliminating a few more problematic foods will reduce your contribution to greenhouse gasses more then trading in an SUV for hybrid, AND also requires drastically less water for production.)

While there are many different studies about nutrition that seem to contradict each other, there is one study that stands out head and shoulder's above the rest. It is the longest, largest, most comprehensive study ever, looking at diet and lifestyle factors and linking them with diseases. It is called the Cornell-Oxford-Beijing-CHINA STUDY. The primary author of this study, is professor T Colin Campbell, and he has written a superb book, about his work that also provides a fascinating glimpse into the politics of food and nutrition policy. If you really want a good framework for understanding nutrition, and for protecting your own health, then you must read his book, The China Study. The bottom line from Campbell's work: There is one food that study after study shows increases the risk of many types of cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, and kidney disease, and that one food is Animal Protein -- in all of it's many forms. Milk protein, fish protein, beef protein, egg protein, chicken protein. In terms of how these can turn on cancer, increase inflammation, stress the kidneys, and cause our bodies to lose calcium, all animal protein is problematic.

The good news however is that you can learn to live without meat and dairy and eggs just as easily as you can learn to live without gluten, and my book, Get Off Gluten, will show you how.

Keep in mind that studies have shown that it is just as challenging to make major dietary changes as it is to make minor ones -- so you might as well make one huge diet overhaul right up front. Eliminate all the health-destroying foods at once, take a few weeks to learn the new ways of preparing food, and after you surmount the learning curve it really does get easy. Best of all, you will get dramatically more benefits than if you only do the minimum, and eliminate gluten.

Why Get Off Gluten?

Long before our family went gluten free, we knew our youngest had some sort of GI issues. Looking back, I now think she probably was reacting to gluten (initially via my diet and her nursing) from the day she was born. Of course with exclusive breast feeding and lots of holding/comforting her obvious discomfort was kept to a minimum and her frequent crying could be managed. (Boy how I wish I knew then about gluten and how I could have simply avoided it myself to keep her from getting it.) By the time she was verbal, she was reporting tummy aches many times each week -- but they were never severe enough to slow her down, and our family doctor kept assuring me that tummy aches are very common in little ones and usually related to how they are handling emotional issues.

It wasn't until they got much worse (when she was about 8) that I started to seriously doubt my doctor's reassurances. By then I thought I might be noticing a correlation between bread-eating and her pain. What threw me off the track however, was the fact, that even when we completely avoided wheat, she still had them, but they usually weren't as bad.

I was completely clueless about gluten, and had no idea that she was also still being exposed to gluten when I made things with rye, barley, or oats. Failing to see clear improvement from a wheat-free diet, we went back and forth on letting her have it. I remember my mother's reaction too when I told her my daughter might have a problem with wheat. She said something about hoping it wasn't Celiac Disease, and although I didn't really know what that was, the way my mother said it made me feel like it must be a diagnosis like leprosy, so I made a mental note that whatever it was, that would not be what we were dealing with.

Then a friend tried to explain to me about gluten and what it was and what all it might be in, I clearly remember telling her, "Oh forget that -- we are NOT going there!" I was absolutely certain at that time that by force of will (keeping our heads in the sand) we could avoid exposing ourselves to something as disruptive as eliminating gluten from our daughter's diet.

Of course you can guess the rest of this story, eventually we had to come to terms with reality, and now that we have, it's really not hard at all -- especially since after becoming more educated on this topic, our whole family went gluten-free, and with our kitchen being entirely GF, food prep is as simple as it ever was.

So what was it that persuaded us all to go gluten free? Upon doing more research, we learned for example that most people carry the gene that allows them, (for reasons not well understood at the present time) to become gluten sensitive as a result of environmental triggers (also not well understood -- but viruses, pregnancy, stress are some of the suspected triggers). We also learned that once one's body starts having an immunological reaction to gluten, it appears to be for life -- if and when they are exposed to gluten. (And trust me I looked long and hard in the medical journals trying to find some research that suggested otherwise -- that perhaps given time it would go away, or with certain nutrients, homeopathy acupuncture or treatment, but never was able to find this!)

Then I discovered even more damning things about gluten. Like the fact that as long as the immune system is reacting to gluten (and this may be happening in many people without them even having any obvious symptoms) they are at increased risk for all sorts of cancers, and autoimmune diseases, even the development of allergies later in life.

Most recently there has been a flurry of reports linking gluten consumption with a variety of mental/emotional difficulties and illnesses. Autism, ADD, Depression, Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder -- many people with these are reporting a lessening of symptoms when they get off gluten. (And some doctors are concurring with this too.)

I thought that I had no symptoms of gluten intolerance. I initially went gluten-free mainly to support my daughter and to model for her that going GF was not that hard. I had been GF for over a year, when I stumbled upon some study that said that people who went GF showed improvement in psychological well being a year later when pre and post tested.

I remember thinking at that time, "Where was my benefit?!" I was not feeling any improvement in my well being. But then I stopped and reflected. During this same period, we had moved homes twice, went through the sickness, loss and grieving of two members of our extended family, had another family crisis, and our daughter was attacked by a dog. Given that I have struggled with mild depression many times in my life, the fact that I made it through this period without feeling "the cloud" hanging over my head, and actually functioning quite well, I realized THAT was my benefit.

Not too long ago I decided to test all this, I wondered if now, after being GF for close to two years, what would happen if I ate some gluten. Would I notice anything obvious? While I was out-of-town at a fun event I ate a sandwich on whole wheat bread, that contained one of those gluten-based faux meats. About one hour later, this profound cloud descended upon me. I suddenly felt like I was extremely sleep deprived, and my thinking wasn't as clear. It lasted for about 24 hours before it gradually lifted.