Why do I eat gluten free? Should you?
Of course it seems super trendy, and I’ll be the first to admit I jumped on that bandwagon a few years ago. It promised less inflammation, probably weight loss (less carbs!), and an overall high vibe wellness-y life! Seemingly so at least. To be clear, when I “went gluten free” back then, it was with little purpose other than testing it out, hoping it would be the golden ticket to perfect health and my perfect body. I never actually was very strict about it. I would pretty much get a packaged product and think, “ooo, it’s gluten free! It must be healthy!” And, if there was something amazing like say, fried pickles or a delectable cookie, I’d eat it, guiltily. Needless to say, I never noticed a difference.
I was feeling pretty lackluster and very low on important vitamin levels for a few months despite eating very cleanly and (what I thought was) super healthy. I finally got a food sensitivity test done when all my other tests came back negative (thankful) for other major issues. To the best of my knowledge, I do not have Celiac Disease or an allergy to wheat or gluten. However, I have a severe sensitivity to gluten, wheat, rye, and soy. This is actually a lesser-known issue they call Non-Celian Gluten Sensitivity. I truly can tell when I’ve been “glutened.” This is a personal choice of mine to stay away from it as much as possible. I am far from perfect and thankfully a little bit here and there or cross-contamination will not cause lasting physical effects that I feel. But I do know, when I knowingly have something with those ingredients in it, I feel tired, sometimes get stomach pains, my throat will hurt, and my eyes feel dry.
It’s really important to keep in mind just how different we all are. This might not do anything for you! Or maybe you have it worse than me and have a true allergy or Celiac’ s and need to avoid it completed.
There might not be any reason to avoid gluten/wheat, and you don’t have to!, but if you do want to give it a try it might help if you have an autoimmune disease to lower inflammation, lift brain fog, and help with digestion issues, among other things. Remember, just because something is gluten free does not mean it’s better! Still focus on whole foods when you can.
Right now I do not worry too much about cross-contamination if I would really like to try something. That might change or it might not. Plus, I will have something like a cupcake from Magnolia Bakery if I’m in NYC. I just will try my best the rest of the day to be completely G-free so I don’t end up feeling totally wiped. Another thing I do is pay close attention to how I feel after eating something new. Sometimes I might eat something with oats (usually have cross-contamination), and will feel some negative effects. If that happens I probably won’t buy that brand/item again.
*Hot tip: This is controversial but I can tell a big difference taking an activated charcoal pill after I’ve been glutened. Just don’t rely on it!
This is just one tiny piece of the puzzle when it comes to health and wellness so take it with a grain of salt. I’ve been testing things out for YEARS and finally feel like I’m more in tune with what makes me feel best.
Something different works for all of us. Wellness is not one size fits all. I don’t eat like this for any other reason other than I feel my best without these ingredients.
Leave a comment and tell me why or why not you eat gluten free! Or if you have any questions, I’d love to see if I can answer them.
~Whitney
I could have ate the entire bowl of them. I’ve roasted tomatoes before but the ratio of EVOO was just perfect. I only used the below recipe for them, not the rest that’s mentioned.
Seriously. Look at them! Perfectly blistered and browned.
I had some smoked salmon so I really wanted to incorporate that as the protein. For a dressing I used this one just with balsamic vinegar instead of red wine, only because that’s what I had in the house. It made a lot so I’ve had extra dressing all week!
Forget what you think about dry, crumbly cornbread. This is not that at all. It’s moist and soft and did not need any topping to be delicious. Ina recommends butter and strawberry jam! She also said you could could toast it but mine fell apart a little. However, warmed up was amazing.
My last little culinary experience involved a greattttt cappuccino and a gluten-free peanut butter chocolate free cake. As much as I love coffee, I’m a little boring sometimes and stick with black. This cappuccino was down right wonderful. The cake was good too, but I totally could have just eaten the peanut butter mousse layer in the middle and I would have been sold! (The capp was much prettier before I took a sip!)
~Whitney Victoria
I’ll be making these all winter long. Or at least as long as I can find great dairy-free, healthy drinks.
