AliB
Well-Known Member
This week I have done a bit of an experiment.
Hub and I are both gluten intolerant. I dumped it when my digestion collapsed, and found that the raging diarrhoea and awful stomach pain went away. My restless legs and burning feet also went too. No more IBS or RLS.
Over the past three years I have done loads of research and investigation as to why. Why do so many people now have problems with gluten? In fact, one thing I learned very quickly through Celiac forums is that many who go gluten free do not recover - or only partially recover, so the problem isn't just gluten. They dump the gluten, then they get problems with corn, so they dump that, then they get problems with soy so they dump that - and so on.
What I have finally learned is the fact that we have so many problems with these foods - the wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, soy, etc., because they are not prepared properly before consumption.
All seeds - grains, seeds, beans, pulses, nuts etc., contain - to a greater or lesser degree, nutrient blockers or 'anti-nutrients' (phytates, oxalates and salicylates) that prevent the seeds from premature germination. Germination will only take place when they come in contact with water for an extended amount of time. That triggers the enzymes (phytase, etc.) that break down the nutrient-blockers and allow germination.
Unfortunately, when we ingest the un-neutralised blockers, they prevent us from not only absorbing the nutrition in the grain, but anything else we eat with them. So all grains and seeds need to go through some kind of soaking process before consumption - for 12 to 24 hours depending on the seed and how much blockers it contains. The soaking not only triggers the enzymes, but it also triggers a nutrient 'explosion' to feed the (now growing) seed. That would make the grain or seed far more nutritious for us too. We are told that grains supply this or that vitamin - maybe they do - but we can't get at them!
Our ancestors knew this. Perhaps they didn't know why, but they knew that preparing their food this way made it more nutritious and safe for them to eat. It wasn't just ancient people that did this - in parts of the World where the Western diet still hasn't penetrated, they still prepare their grains in the traditional ways that have been passed down to them through the centuries.
In the interest of speed and profit, and 'modern progress' we have lost this wisdom that has been learned through trial and test over thousands of years. They learned the hard way, through trial and error - we are just doing the 'error' bit!
In traditional bread-making, the baker would start the bread in the afternoon or early evening, leave it to prove overnight and finish baking it in the early morning - well over the 6 hours needed for the chemical and enzymatic interactions to take place between the flour, yeast and water, that would completely convert the gluten into a substance the body can use. Most commercially-made bread is produced following the 'Chorleywood' process that can put the flour in one end and bread out the other within 45 minutes. Speed and profit over health. Even home-made bread doesn't escape - modern breadmakers churn out a loaf within two hours.
It seems that it is the incompletely - or totally unconverted in many cases, gluten that is the real culprit. It's not the gluten - or us - it's what it hasn't gone through - that is the problem.
Now, my husband - if he gets glutened, turns into 'Attila the Hun' for the best part of a week. He becomes bedridden, in pain, deeply depressed, has severe brain-fog and gets very angry and frustrated. You can almost see the black cloud hanging over his head! (He was like that for years until we discovered the gluten connection!)
I read, on a webpage about long-fermented sourdough bread I just happened to chance upon, that the recipe author had found that people who prepare the bread properly - in the time-honoured way, didn't have any problems with it, so on Monday I started making some sourdough bread. Hub has now eaten this bread every day for the last three days - without so much as a twitch. He is his usual (gluten-free) cheerful self sitting watching the Tennis semi-final without so much as a 'gluten murmur'.
I also had a taste of the bread, and I didn't react either. No IBS, no RLS. Amazing.
Now then, it occurred to me, that if it takes a minimum of 6 hours to make the complete conversion, and a decent amount of soaking to break down the phytates, because the Western diet is so, so loaded with unprepared grains and seeds, it really is little wonder that things like gluten intolerance and Coeliac Disease are rapidly increasing. Soy apparently contains one of the highest levels of phytates of all the seeds and that is another thing that is put into virtually everything in some form or another - even in baby formula, which is worrying.
As Diabesity (diabetes and obesity) is also on the rapid increase could it be at least in part because, although we are extremely overfed, we are also becoming rapidly undernourished (and many people inherit a low level of nutrition from their under-nourished parents to start with).
I have felt this to be an issue for a long time, but the revelation that the grain-based stuff is actually depleting us of nutrition rather than giving it to us, has really made me feel this to be an even greater problem than most people realise.
Hub and I are both gluten intolerant. I dumped it when my digestion collapsed, and found that the raging diarrhoea and awful stomach pain went away. My restless legs and burning feet also went too. No more IBS or RLS.
Over the past three years I have done loads of research and investigation as to why. Why do so many people now have problems with gluten? In fact, one thing I learned very quickly through Celiac forums is that many who go gluten free do not recover - or only partially recover, so the problem isn't just gluten. They dump the gluten, then they get problems with corn, so they dump that, then they get problems with soy so they dump that - and so on.
What I have finally learned is the fact that we have so many problems with these foods - the wheat, barley, rye, oats, corn, soy, etc., because they are not prepared properly before consumption.
All seeds - grains, seeds, beans, pulses, nuts etc., contain - to a greater or lesser degree, nutrient blockers or 'anti-nutrients' (phytates, oxalates and salicylates) that prevent the seeds from premature germination. Germination will only take place when they come in contact with water for an extended amount of time. That triggers the enzymes (phytase, etc.) that break down the nutrient-blockers and allow germination.
Unfortunately, when we ingest the un-neutralised blockers, they prevent us from not only absorbing the nutrition in the grain, but anything else we eat with them. So all grains and seeds need to go through some kind of soaking process before consumption - for 12 to 24 hours depending on the seed and how much blockers it contains. The soaking not only triggers the enzymes, but it also triggers a nutrient 'explosion' to feed the (now growing) seed. That would make the grain or seed far more nutritious for us too. We are told that grains supply this or that vitamin - maybe they do - but we can't get at them!
Our ancestors knew this. Perhaps they didn't know why, but they knew that preparing their food this way made it more nutritious and safe for them to eat. It wasn't just ancient people that did this - in parts of the World where the Western diet still hasn't penetrated, they still prepare their grains in the traditional ways that have been passed down to them through the centuries.
In the interest of speed and profit, and 'modern progress' we have lost this wisdom that has been learned through trial and test over thousands of years. They learned the hard way, through trial and error - we are just doing the 'error' bit!
In traditional bread-making, the baker would start the bread in the afternoon or early evening, leave it to prove overnight and finish baking it in the early morning - well over the 6 hours needed for the chemical and enzymatic interactions to take place between the flour, yeast and water, that would completely convert the gluten into a substance the body can use. Most commercially-made bread is produced following the 'Chorleywood' process that can put the flour in one end and bread out the other within 45 minutes. Speed and profit over health. Even home-made bread doesn't escape - modern breadmakers churn out a loaf within two hours.
It seems that it is the incompletely - or totally unconverted in many cases, gluten that is the real culprit. It's not the gluten - or us - it's what it hasn't gone through - that is the problem.
Now, my husband - if he gets glutened, turns into 'Attila the Hun' for the best part of a week. He becomes bedridden, in pain, deeply depressed, has severe brain-fog and gets very angry and frustrated. You can almost see the black cloud hanging over his head! (He was like that for years until we discovered the gluten connection!)
I read, on a webpage about long-fermented sourdough bread I just happened to chance upon, that the recipe author had found that people who prepare the bread properly - in the time-honoured way, didn't have any problems with it, so on Monday I started making some sourdough bread. Hub has now eaten this bread every day for the last three days - without so much as a twitch. He is his usual (gluten-free) cheerful self sitting watching the Tennis semi-final without so much as a 'gluten murmur'.
I also had a taste of the bread, and I didn't react either. No IBS, no RLS. Amazing.
Now then, it occurred to me, that if it takes a minimum of 6 hours to make the complete conversion, and a decent amount of soaking to break down the phytates, because the Western diet is so, so loaded with unprepared grains and seeds, it really is little wonder that things like gluten intolerance and Coeliac Disease are rapidly increasing. Soy apparently contains one of the highest levels of phytates of all the seeds and that is another thing that is put into virtually everything in some form or another - even in baby formula, which is worrying.
As Diabesity (diabetes and obesity) is also on the rapid increase could it be at least in part because, although we are extremely overfed, we are also becoming rapidly undernourished (and many people inherit a low level of nutrition from their under-nourished parents to start with).
I have felt this to be an issue for a long time, but the revelation that the grain-based stuff is actually depleting us of nutrition rather than giving it to us, has really made me feel this to be an even greater problem than most people realise.
