Part 4: Are Your Eating Habits Making You Ill.

A question I am often asked regards to food is:

Q. Why is it when I cut out gluten I feel better but I still have most of my digestive problems?

Answer. Gluten is a form of protein (Not a fat, as some people think) found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt. Proteins are the most difficult foods in the body to digest.  Proteins in other forms are things like dairy, eggs, meat, fish, nuts, cheese. Gluten in particular causes many food intolerance’s because it is so processed and people eat so much of it. Gluten as an integral part of the wheat has a function in the produce e.g baked bread as it acts like a glue which holds all of the produce together and gives your bread that lovely spongy feel and spring like texture. If you are unable to digest it that is also exactly what it does inside your body. It can act like a glue, sticking and swelling to your insides and creating all kinds of gut spasm, cramps, abdominal bloating, irritable bowel type symptoms etc. So as the body cannot handle the food/gluten it actually creates an intolerance to it.  An intolerance is completely different from coeliac disease  (whereby people actually have damaged villi in their small intestine and cannot digest/handle gluten in any form) This must be medically tested to rule it out.

Being unwell from what you eat is your bodies way of communicating with you and telling you to change what you are eating or it is asking you maybe just not to eat as much of it. Again two of the main reasons people experience problems with gluten is because it is harder than other foods to digest as they may be low in digestive enzymes for a number of reasons and also they just may be eating way too much of the same type of food. VARIETY is crucial when it comes to having a healthy digestive system.

Your body literally gets tired from eating the same foods over and over again. To get the full list of healthy eating habits go to www.gertrudelawler.com/healthyyou there are over 30 of them, here you will finds like more recipes etc to help you help yourself and boost your health. Implement these and you ill see a difference in your health.

Lately the trend is lots of people are cutting out gluten on whim, and gorging themselves on gluten free products because they deem them to be healthy. This could not be further from the truth.

Gluten free products such as biscuits, cakes, some of the breads etc are loaded with sugars, sweeteners, additives, processing aids and are in some cases even more processed than the white refined bread to begin with. This is all a marketing ploy so please do not fall for it. The first crucial step is to ensure you are treating your digestive system right and that it is properly functioning and long side that you then look at what you are actually consuming.

Think of  cup, if there is a hole in at the cup it doesn’t matter what you put into the cup, everything will pass through that hole, so seal up the hole and then look at what you put into he cup!

I hope re-iterating this point repeatedly over the past 4 weeks has helped you to pay some close attention to your health by monitoring your digestive habits. Happy eating!