Here is a question from one of my readers:
Please summarize the benefits of gluten-free for those of us who don?t have celiac disease. ?There is a lot of information swirling about now that the food industry has found a new niche to market. ?While it?s always nice to have more choice & selection, especially for those who already have identified the need, it?s easy to be suspicious of the industry?s motives behind driving a premium-priced product.
Please try & separate the wheat from the chaff for us on this topic!
Great question. Here is the ?low-down? from my perspective.
From a non-celiac perspective, you don?t necessarily need to go? gluten-free? for the sake of gluten, per se. It helps on many levels, but obviously is not mandatory, as it is in celiac disease. As a result,? you can have items that contain gluten, like rye krisps and oatmeal for breakfast, for instance. But you shouldn?t base your diet in these items as the mainstream media suggests in the campaign to eat more ?healthy whole grains? and such because even for an otherwise healthy person wheat is a highly destructive carbohydrate, that we tend to eat way, way to much of, and plays a huge role in making us fat and sick.
Why? Gluten certainly plays a role, which I will discuss in a minute, but so does the fact that products that contain gluten like bread, bagels, toast, and crackers, by and large, are essentially sugar.
The starch that is in wheat is called amylopectin-A, which is highly digestible and shoots your blood sugar up more than table sugar. That?s right: more than table sugar based on the glycemic index.
What is the Glycemic index?**
The Glycemic Index is a numerical Index that ranks carbohydrates based on their rate of glycemic response (i.e. their conversion to glucose within the human body). Glycemic Index uses a scale of 0 to 100, with higher values given to foods that cause the most rapid rise in blood sugar. Pure glucose serves as a reference point, and is given a Glycemic Index (GI) of 100.
Glycemic Index values are determined experimentally by feeding human test subjects a fixed portion of the food (after an overnight fast), and subsequently extracting and measuring samples of their blood at specific intervals of time. The earliest known work on the Glycemic Index was done by Dr. David Jenkins and associates at St. Michael?s Hospital in Toronto, Canada. More recently, an effort to expand the Glycemic Index has been made by Jennie Brand-Miller and her associates at the Human Nutrition Unit of the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia.
So what is the Glycemic Index of Bread and table sugar respectively? Sugar: 68 Bread:70?YIKES!
Now, you know. Bread = sugar. Simple.
But the story doesn?t end here, and gluten does in fact, come back into play?even for a regular person without celiac disease because gluten has a very unique property,? specifically it digests to something called gliadin, which enters your blood stream, crosses your blood-brain barrier and activates appetite.
Gliadin is a? protein which activates receptors that respond to morphine and similar receptors that respond to marijuana (called endocannibanoid receptors) which give you the ?munchies.?? Now, you can see that wheat not only raises your blood sugar aggressively, promoting a strong insulin response, which will eventually make you hungry, wheat also acts on your brain, to trick it to eat more than it needs or should, ie overeat through a central mechanism.
So I should shop in the gluten-free section? Absolutely not. And here is where the trick is that you need to know to be successful in going gluten free in a non-celiac patient: gluten-free is worse on your blood sugar.
Here is the proof. Most gluten-free products use potato starch. What is the Glycemic Index? 85. That?s worse than either sugar or bread! And white rice flour, which is used a lot in wheat free products is close behind at 64.
So what does this mean? What do I do? I know this all sounds confusing, but stick with me. It makes sense, and you will love the result when you have more energy, less migraines (if you suffer from them), less gut disturbances, and you lose weight effortlessly. I have written a post on going gluten-free which details this a bit more, but here is the version in the nutshell:1. Cut out bread and all bread products. Period. It?s the single most effective and important step in the process. Do this and nothing else, and you will see some nice results. It?s also the hardest step, and people hate it initially, but then when they see the results, they love it!
2. Have that extra piece of meat, salad, olives, cheese or a piece of low-impact fruit (for me, it?s apples and almond butter). Don?t stuff yourself, but you don?t have to not feel full or be hungry.
3. Experiment with some gluten free grains (oats, quinoa), but count your carbs! Don?t have 80 carbs worth! Have less, maybe 1/2 cup.
4. Don?t base your diet in grains, but a little rice, potato, quinoa can be nice to have. Remember grains = starch = sugar. You don?t need grains in your diet to be healthy. A lot of vegetarians will cut our wheat, for instance!
5. Potatoes can work too in small amounts, but be careful. You can eat a lot of carbs really quickly with potatoes.
6. Nuts are great snacks. But don?t go nuts on nuts, cheese, and dairy. You can overeat these easily and your body still has to process these calories.
7. Buckwheat, coconut, and almond flours ROCK. Learn to use them. Watch the carb count, though?buckwheat is kinda high, but lots of protein and a low GI?Buckwheat does keep you full.
8. Keep your low carb lifestyle intact (don?t treat yourself with sugar and starches now you are gluten free!)
Those are of course, beginner tips. Every one has to modify according to both their needs and their desires. It?s not medical advice I am giving, and if you have medical issue, it?s important to note that you should see your doctor.
But for many people these tips help, without being too restrictive, giving you some nice options rather than spending a lot of money going directly to the gluten-free products, that are high in carbs.
You can otherwise shop normally, enjoying all the regular food you like to enjoy!
**The Glycemic Index (GI) is controversial, and diets based on GI have been shown not help you lose weight. But here is the trick: use GI as a guideline?a compass, for instance. If you are walking in the woods, and you need to go north, but you run into a deep gorge, don?t just keep walking! You will have to make some adjustments. The fact is, dieting is the same way. You will have to figure out and adjust your own path a little bit, but that doesn?t mean you should go south, if you are headed north. I am a fan of the GI, and I think it serves as? a good guideline for the majority of people.
Source: http://www.midwestprs.com/q-a-gluten-and-other-stuff
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