What's up with people eating Gluten Free ?

I am really glad that the gluten-free craze has become such a fad. My son was diagnosed as Celiac 6 years ago, it is so much easier to find readily available gluten-free items as well as the stores are making store-brands of pasta, etc which also makes them more affordable. Companies follow the dollars and there aren't enough Celiacs to drive innovation and improvement, but all the trendy gluten-free eaters have really helped push companies into making tasty gluten free items. Restaurants too, even though most, if just following the trend, have no idea about cross contaminiation. That is sad because they are making lots of Celiacs sick through the cross contamination.

Gluten, unless you have a health problem pertaining to them, are not harmful.

That people are feeling better when not eating gluten may have more to do with the other ingredients of the products they are avoiding. I used to have a wheat allergy, so avoiding gluten would have alleviated the symptoms. The gluten themselves, however, were not the problem.

Eating whole grain products with minimal additives and processing will make many people feel better as well. I personally feel much better eating high fiber whole grain than when I eat over processed white bread with a bunch of added sugar. (corn syrup does not have to be an ingredient of bread).

In the end it is non of my business what you eat. Do what makes you feel good.

Bread/wheat/gluten is for puppets and slaves.

Intelligent free people understand that our white reptilian Babylonian Illuminati light bearing satanist overlords' use it to further manipulate and control Jah's people.

I and eye, Jaah rasta far eye.

I have Celiacs and was told to stay away from gluten years ago. Whatever man, you can't tell me what to do. I eat what I want. I'm not going to be scared by a slice of bread. :laugh:

I wonder if the doctor will have the last laugh when you get into serious trouble! Being stubborn is one thing, but this is far beyond stubbornness.

I have had celiac for years already, without knowing it. I don't even want to tell you the health troubles I am in now! But believe me, it aint pretty! But just go ahead and ignore your health, sooner or later it will catch up on you!

You may be right. I guess time will tell. I don't know if there are varying degrees of the disease and I have a light case, or if I've built up a tolerance over time, or if it's just secretly doing damage and I'll regret it later - it just doesn't seem to affect me overly much. A few small annoyances here and there, but nothing that makes me take pause and nothing that's made it worth fussing over.

I have Celiacs and was told to stay away from gluten years ago. Whatever man, you can't tell me what to do. I eat what I want. I'm not going to be scared by a slice of bread. :laugh:

I wonder if the doctor will have the last laugh when you get into serious trouble! Being stubborn is one thing, but this is far beyond stubbornness.

I have had celiac for years already, without knowing it. I don't even want to tell you the health troubles I am in now! But believe me, it aint pretty! But just go ahead and ignore your health, sooner or later it will catch up on you!

You may be right. I guess time will tell. I don't know if there are varying degrees of the disease and I have a light case, or if I've built up a tolerance over time, or if it's just secretly doing damage and I'll regret it later - it just doesn't seem to affect me overly much. A few small annoyances here and there, but nothing that makes me take pause and nothing that's made it worth fussing over.

As far as I know there is no such thing as mild celiac, either you got it or you don't. Like a doctor said it so nicely: You are not a bit pregnant either! Maybe you don't have many complaints yet, but that can come! I didn't had so much issues either with your age, but suddenly one complaint after another came in a very short period of time, like fibromyalgia, eczema, hives, allergies to do I know what, infertile, menorrhagia, had anemia a few times, signs of hypothyroidism, liver values elevated, chronic low-leveled inflammation in the blood tests for 6 years already, chronic sinusitis, etc etc... Now I got doctors all over me, feeling ill, exhausted and in pain every single day. I have been hospitalized last month, have seen a gynecologist last week, have to see a gastric specialist soon. Your gastric tract is where it all begins, when that doesn't function properly many other functions wont. I wish I knew what was going on at your age, for sure I would have ditch the gluten right away!

I am roughly 90% gluten free by choice. I'm not one of those people who will try to convert you or expound on why scientifically gluten free is the way to go. I can only say that I started cutting out gluten and refined sugar and many processed foods at the same time a few months ago, and I feel I have reaped a lot of benefits. Without even trying to control my portions, I lost 8 pounds. I have now lost nearly 20. I no longer suffer from chronic cystic acne. I no longer have highs and lows that cause me to overeat. I can control my portions now. I find that eating bread and pasta causes me to feel hungry again a short while after eating even though I ate plenty of calories. My stomach is the flattest it's ever been in my life, and I'm not even the thinnest I've been in the past 5 years. I have more energy and clarity of mind. No more "brain fog". While a lot of things have changed in the past few months for me that may also be helping this along, I am not nearly as depressed as I was before I started changing my diet.

All of those things may be related to cutting back gluten, or may not really be at all. However I am much happier for doing so and will continue.

You may be right. I guess time will tell. I don't know if there are varying degrees of the disease and I have a light case, or if I've built up a tolerance over time, or if it's just secretly doing damage and I'll regret it later - it just doesn't seem to affect me overly much. A few small annoyances here and there, but nothing that makes me take pause and nothing that's made it worth fussing over.

Not everyone who has it has discomfort. My friend's husband got diagnosed when his blood tests came back showing low iron and that was one of the things they checked him for. He had no other symptoms.

I suspect I have it because of a rash on my chest that sounds exactly like a rash that is directly connected to celiac and when I don't eat gluten for a while, I notice I have a lot more energy in general and few things I didn't even know were wrong suddenly clear up. There is a world of difference in how I feel overall and I didn't even know I didn't feel well to begin with.

I haven't received an official diagnosis, though, so who knows?

The problem is that even if you have no obvious physical symptoms, you're still slowly killing yourself. You might want to look up the consequences of a celiac eating gluten. I have a friend who nearly died from it.

I've been told by professionals that if you go gluten free without medically needing to, it can be bad for your health.

Eh, false. Going gluten-free without a medical reason is not bad for your health. It becomes bad for your health if and only if the person isn't eating a well-balanced diet which would lead to them not getting all essential nutrients and vitamins/minerals.

You may be right. I guess time will tell. I don't know if there are varying degrees of the disease and I have a light case, or if I've built up a tolerance over time, or if it's just secretly doing damage and I'll regret it later - it just doesn't seem to affect me overly much. A few small annoyances here and there, but nothing that makes me take pause and nothing that's made it worth fussing over.

Not everyone who has it has discomfort. My friend's husband got diagnosed when his blood tests came back showing low iron and that was one of the things they checked him for. He had no other symptoms.

I suspect I have it because of a rash on my chest that sounds exactly like a rash that is directly connected to celiac and when I don't eat gluten for a while, I notice I have a lot more energy in general and few things I didn't even know were wrong suddenly clear up. There is a world of difference in how I feel overall and I didn't even know I didn't feel well to begin with.

I haven't received an official diagnosis, though, so who knows?

The problem is that even if you have no obvious physical symptoms, you're still slowly killing yourself. You might want to look up the consequences of a celiac eating gluten. I have a friend who nearly died from it.

Well, what I don't know can't kill me, right? Wait...

You may be right. I guess time will tell. I don't know if there are varying degrees of the disease and I have a light case, or if I've built up a tolerance over time, or if it's just secretly doing damage and I'll regret it later - it just doesn't seem to affect me overly much. A few small annoyances here and there, but nothing that makes me take pause and nothing that's made it worth fussing over.

Not everyone who has it has discomfort. My friend's husband got diagnosed when his blood tests came back showing low iron and that was one of the things they checked him for. He had no other symptoms.

I suspect I have it because of a rash on my chest that sounds exactly like a rash that is directly connected to celiac and when I don't eat gluten for a while, I notice I have a lot more energy in general and few things I didn't even know were wrong suddenly clear up. There is a world of difference in how I feel overall and I didn't even know I didn't feel well to begin with.

I haven't received an official diagnosis, though, so who knows?

The problem is that even if you have no obvious physical symptoms, you're still slowly killing yourself. You might want to look up the consequences of a celiac eating gluten. I have a friend who nearly died from it.

Well, what I don't know can't kill me, right? Wait...

Great attitude to have!

I've been told by professionals that if you go gluten free without medically needing to, it can be bad for your health.

Professional what? :huh:

You know... MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS......

A lot of people go GF because they think they can lose weight. A lot of GF products are actually similar or even higher in calories so of course, this doesn't work.

I'm not celiac but I still choose to eat GF because I feel better when I avoid gluten. The longer I go with no gluten in my diet, the worse the gastrointestinal distress when I eat it. My husband used to think I was just doing this for a fad diet too, but quickly changed his mind the few times I tested the theory and could clear the whole house with my....uh...gaseous aroma (sorry if TMI).

If you've ever read Wheat Belly, you could understand why people might drink the GF kool-aid and forego gluten forever - while the author does have some good points, he's a little extreme in his views. Wheat Belly is a very popular book and I suspect most GF fad-dieters got their information from there.

oh man. Wheat Belly. One of my long time good friends read that and she's been so much harder to be around since then!! haha Although the funny (to me) part is half the time when she's telling me about how we're all killing ourselves with wheat and gluten she's eating something with gluten in it.

I was dealing with some pretty intense abdominal pain for a couple of years, and my doctors couldn't figure out why. When I reluctantly and skeptically traded wheat products for corn and rice, I dropped 10 pounds of water in a week! Seriously, I couldn't stop peeing. I think it was the inflammation calming down, because the pain also went away. I had to trade in a swimsuit that I bought only the week before for a smaller size.

I tested negative for celiac disease. However, every time I add normal bread products back into my diet, I get abdominal pain that keeps me up at night and I gain several pounds within days. When I stop eating wheat, the pain goes away and my weight drops again. I have tested this several times over the last two years, and the results are consistent.

Is it gluten sensitivity? I have no idea. It could be some other molecule in wheat bread/pasta/cereal. It could be just a highly unlikely coincidence. It could be that the food fairy is messing with me.

Until I know for sure, I'm grateful for gluten free.