Last week I embarked on a gluten free diet. Why, you may ask? I am a long term sufferer of “Aphthous stomatitis”, that’s the fancy medical term for a canker sore. I get them usually once a month,sometimes multiple at a time. On several occasions, they have been situated in odd and painful places like the back of my throat or on the side of my tongue. These severe sores areextremely painful - bad enough to make me cry when I eat!
I recently did a self-study course on food sensitivities and intolerances (LEAP MRT). I ran symptoms for myself past my LEAP MRT mentor and she suggested that I eliminate gluten. Apparentlygluten sensitivity has been linked to mouth ulcers – other causes include stress, acidic foods and some vitamin deficiencies. When she mentioned this, something clicked - - a few years ago Itried out a plant based (vegan) diet for several months. During that time, I was cooking a lot with an ingredient called ‘Vital Wheat Gluten’ – it’s a white powder that looks like flour but it’spretty much pure gluten. It's a common ingredient in vegetarian cooking, and I had a few favorite recipes that called for copious amounts of this stuff – ½ cup per recipe! There is a tasty blackbean burger that I still cook to this day (well, as of last week) even though I am no longer vegetarian. Looking back on things, my first really bad case of horrific ulcers in the back of mythroat occurred during my ‘vegan phase’. At the time, I thought I had some sort of nutrient deficiency and it was one of the reasons I stopped the diet.
I love to cook and try out new recipes, so this process has been fun for me. I do most of my grocery shopping at Wegmans which has a fabulous gluten free section. I’ve been trying my hand atbaking with different flours – Bob’s Red Mill has a great line of products for this. I can’t say that it’s been cheap – a spent $10 on abag of almond meal flour! I’ve made quite a few other purchases: brown rice flour, arrowroot, gluten-free oatmeal to name a few. For an indulgence, the Wegmans store brand gluten free brownie mixis TO DIE FOR!!!
How am I doing so far: I’ve have one canker sore that just healed up this week – it started prior to my experiment. Also, my skin seems to be clearer and I’m feeling mentally well (less brain fogin general). The jury is still out for me whether or not this is going to be a long term lifestyle change. I truly do believe that 1) what we eat has a major impact on our health and wellness andthat 2) mainstream Western medicine doesn’t really understand or prescribe to this theory. However, when I read articles like this and stare a delicious piece of pizza in the eye, I havedoubts. I’ll provide a progress report next week.