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Celiac & Human History Please Read!


Starsea

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Starsea Newbie

Hello to everyone,

This is a very difficult message to post. Even more so due to the fact that it is my very first one here. But I believe that it is very important and that it is

worthy of serious discussion. It is my hope that everyone will read it very carefully, in its entirety, and really think about it. And I am hoping for thoughtful

and very carefully considered responses, because this is something that may not only affect all of us with celiac disease, but potentially all humans on the

planet, period.

First, a bit of personal info: I am a 43 year old male and I just found out, about a month and a half ago, that I have celiac disease. I had to find it out on my

own. Up to that point, I had been living with something that defied explanation. On November 2, 1992, I went to the local hospital's emergency room with

severe back pain. I had no idea at that point that it was severe gas. I had never had gas before to such an extent. I was not even aware that gas could cause

such extreme pain. In the course of the next two weeks, my weight dropped from 195 to 148. I had diarrhea, constipation, eye pain, tooth and gum pain,

reduced body temperature, extreme weakness, etc. I was an absolute wreck. I was checked for everything from cancer to AIDS and all tests came back

negative. The most that any doctor could suggest was irritable bowel syndrome, lactose intolerance, or a combination thereof. I went through all kinds of

experiments with my diet. I went to a gastroenterologist. He stuck to the IBS diagnosis. Celiac disease was never mentioned to me by anyone. I struggled

extremely hard for year after year just to keep my weight hovering around 160 or so, and to keep the worst of the symptoms at a minimum. The strangest

thing was that nothing was ever consistent. I could eat the same thing 2 days in a row and have entirely different reactions. I did find out, on my own

(because in spite of the severity of my symptoms, none of the ridiculous doctors thought that IBS was a serious problem...to the extent that I could not even

convince the gastroenterologist that I had a big problem absorbing any fat from the food I ate) that my fluid consumption (especially plain water) was too

low, as was my daily dietary fiber intake. And my fat consumption was too high. But correcting all of that only achieved a kind of 'uneasy truce' with my

digestion. The floodgates of information finally opened up about six weeks ago. I had for years been concerned with consuming enough dietary fiber each

day. Well, I started eating honey wheat bagels. And then I started to notice that I had to eat more and more. I could eat a dozen of the things a day and still

be hungry. With all of the protein that each one was supposed to have, something was radically wrong. And my weight was dropping again. The uneasy

truce was over and done. My weight slipped away to 138. For someone who is 6'2" that is starting to get into the category of emaciated, rather than just thin.

I read the ingredients on the bagel package. High-gluten wheat flour. What the heck was gluten? So then I did some research....

Okay....so I immediately cut out all wheat, rye, barley and associated products out of my diet. As well as oats, because I read too much back and forth

argument about that and whether it was safe or not. But the information said that corn and rice were gluten-free and safe. So, I am cruising along seeming to

feel significantly better and still enjoying my corn tortilla chips, etc. About a week goes by and I happen to pick up the bag from our dog's food and idly sit

and read the label. And find something on there called corn gluten. What the hell? So, I go to an ordinary dictionary to check it out, all the while thinking that

the pet food manufacturer must have added gluten to the corn from some other source. Nope. Corn gluten is in the dictionary! Corn is just as bad as wheat

for celiac sufferers, because it DOES contain gluten! I decided to research all grains in detail. Because I noticed problems from eating rice, too.

This is what my research suggests: All human beings might be better off to stay entirely away from ALL plants in the family of GRASSES. That includes

corn, rice, buckwheat, and even sugar cane!! Consider this: What if, when you eliminate some of the grasses from your diet but not all, it throws you into the

'silent' form of the disease, where you don't notice symptoms? What if this entire problem is not even limited to gluten itself but is some fundamental

element shared by all of the grasses that science has not discovered yet, but which causes an inherent allergic reaction in the human body? Here is a fact: As

of right now, 70% of all of the food crops raised in the entire world are grasses. Animals that are used for food by humans also consume grasses....

Further, consider what human history has been like in the past and what it is like now. Wars, conflict, destructive behavior, selfishness. A vast range of

mental problems of varying degrees. Celiac is linked to 256 or more different side effects and associated afflictions. Including diabetes. Blood sugar levels

affect mood....

Food manufacturers are making grass-based foods ever more attractive to the taste buds all the time. Food and flavors are as addictive these days as any

drugs that you can name. More so, I believe.

So, let's see....grass-based foods that are extremely enticing are flooding the market more and more. And at the same time, the world's population is

becoming more moody and mean-spirited, as evidenced in everything from terrorism to road rage to impatience at the checkout counter to get that food.

That leaves the question: Did we, as human beings, take a wrong turn a long time ago by starting to consume grass-based foods? Is that what has been the

underlying and elusive explanation all down through history as to why humans have acted the way they have and why there have been and continue to be

accelerating problems? If it is, what will it lead to for us as a species if we don't stop?

I hope that everyone who reads this will think long and hard about it and not just dismiss it as alarmist thinking.

I don't believe that it is an outlandish theory that an inherent human allergy to the grasses might just be the silent culprit at work behind the scenes in human

history that has and is still causing a vast amount of misery.

Starsea

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WheatChef Apprentice

I think you may have gone slightly overboard on demonizing grasses. First off, corn gluten is not gluten. It's a form of corn starch that has gluten like qualities of texture and use and that is the only reason why it's called gluten. It has absolutely nothing to do with real (wheat) gluten.

Additionally there's no major conspiracy thing going on with animals that eat grass. Grasses are found all over the earth and so it should be somewhat obvious that there are at least a few species that actually are meant to consume it. This is when you need to not confuse grains with all grasses. When you take these livestock and take away their natural grass diet and give them a grain based diet then you end up having a major effect on the overall molecular composition of the flesh of the animal. This change ends up getting passed down to those that consume it as well.

Side note, I went through the whole "admitted to the emergency room for what turned out to be gas" thing back in my early adolescence. Kinda embarrassing huh? I totally thought my stomach had ruptured. Would have saved me a whole bunch of pain if they had figured out what my problem was back then.

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rdunbar Explorer

I think you are on the right track.

I've been shifting my attitude about our relationship with wheat and corn which are basically modified grasses

it's a the glass is half full thing.

We aren't sensitive to it. Others are immune to it. There's nothing wrong with me because I react to it. It's garbage and is not really food

if we were meant to eat grasses wouldn't we have a digestive system similar to a buffalo or a cow??

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Starsea Newbie

Since I started researching this, I have read in a number of books that say grains on the same branch of the family tree as wheat---the monocots---should be

avoided and that ones on other branches, such as buckwheat---the dicots---are safe. Well, corn and rice ARE monocots, so that statement would make them

unsafe.

Personally, I have had trouble with spinach and rhubarb, which are dicots. And I just got done with an experiment here where I baked a cake made from

buckwheat flour, sugar, baking soda, water and nothing else. And now I am not feeling too well.

My own experience with corn and rice is this: Since I took them out of my diet and have been off of them for a while, I can eat fat in amounts as never

before. It doesn't all absorb yet, but at least I do not experience constipation at all any more. I have conducted experiments such as eating a whole jar of

Smart Balance peanut butter in a day or so and an entire pound of cheese in less than 24 hours. And had no problems. That is completely unheard of for me.

If I had consumed anything approaching those amounts of fat in such a short time, even many years before 1992, I would have been constipated to an

extreme degree.

As I look back on my life, I see the severe cystic acne that I had in my teens, other skin problems, excess hair growth, being hungry all the time no matter

how much I ate, mood swings for no apparent reason, attention deficit disorder. All kinds of problems. I also see the diabetes that runs in my family and

which basically took my Dad from me in 2004 at age 85. In the last few years of his life, half of the time the diabetes made him see eveyone as an enemy

and made him say that he wanted me dead. The other half of the time he was 100% normal in every way. Something that contributed to that was that the

drug companies did not leave well enough alone when it came to insulin. They stopped making it from beef and pork and went with humulin, which is made

from a modified version of ecoli bacteria. In my Dad's case, the diabetes was much more difficult to manage with the humulin and he had a lot more

problems with it.

But I guess there is more money to be made with the humulin. That is another very big problem with society today. The obsession with money and the lack

of caring for people.

In any case, personally, I am going to avoid all grass-related food items and see if I am better for it. I was, until the buckwheat test. So, I am going to kick

that and the rest of it out of my diet too.

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Takala Enthusiast

Agriculture turned humans from hunter gatherer nomads into farmers who could have villages and cities and settled civilizations.

You are making the mistake of thinking that just because some people cannot eat a certain food, then maybe all people would be better off eating the same way. I see this a lot with vegetarians and vegans who are convinced that the entire world would be better off if everybody ate the same way they did- these are people whose metabolisms can handle a lot of carbohydrates.

Most celiacs and gluten intolerant people, when they stop eating gluten, discover that they still cannot tolerate large amounts of replacement grain carbohydrates.

Over time, with healing, they may be able to handle more carbohydrates than going to a totally grain free diet, and finding out which ones they can digest, as everyone is different. As you have discovered, you can now eat fat. You may regain your ability to handle the oxalates in spinach and rhubarb.

The "wrong turn" in food history, would have been made with 2 things. First, breeding wheat to be very high gluten content to make bread more breadlike, which occurred when we started turning the American midwest into a giant breadbasket. Secondly, that WRETCHED FDA "food pyramid" eating guidelines that the government came out with, to convince people to eat a high carbohydrate, low fat, low meat diet, which was a stunning, abysmal failure. Vegetarianism with a lot of bread and cereal became quite the fad and was supposed to cure all health problems, and instead, a lot more people got really fat.

The dog food labels tend to currently emphasize gluten labeling because of the huge Pet Food Recall a few years ago because an importer, ChemNutra in Las Vegas, NV, was importing deliberately contaminated, cheap wheat gluten from China and then selling it to most major pet food manufacturers. (you can search for this story on google, they eventually went to trial, where the court documents reveal that this was a deliberate act from the company's email records and not an accident. They were coding the imported gluten to fool the inspectors at the FDA into thinking it was human quality) The Chinese sellers were putting a coal manufacturing byproduct into it, melamine, which is like a form of plastic. When heated and combined with another type of acid found in pet foods, the result is lethal to cats because it forms crystals in their kidneys. It's also not very good for dogs. Or human babies. The mistake was not found out until pets started getting sick by the hundreds. One of the manufacturers tested the food, didn't know what the exact problem was but could tell what batches had the suspected gluten that had the problem, and tipped off the scummy importer, who then literally ran back to China as fast as he could and tipped them off that the FDA was about to start looking. Meanwhile the scummy distributors RECYCLED all this tainted gluten back into the pet and animal food food chain, trying to dump it.

The Chinese were selling this "gluten" as a very high protein gluten, and when you put melamine into wheat gluten, the test for protein is screwed up to show what looks like a higher protein content. In the international marketplace, the Chinese sell a great deal of raw manufacturing products, and they use the word "gluten" to mean any sort of grain protein.

And this is one of the reasons we are having trouble verifying that medications and cosmetics are truly gluten free, because they may contain ingredients such as "starches" which are not verified as to being from a specific grain. Drug manufacturers need to be made to disclose common allergens on their labels.

The pet blogging community really had to keep after the FDA to go after and track down all this contaminated pet food and get it out of the system. Since then, many pet foods still will say "no gluten" but because the pet food labeling rules are not as strict as human ones, the manufacturers frequently are implying that the food has no gluten in it, when it does. They are allowed to do this because they are using the word gluten to mean only wheat gluten protein. Internationally, as an ingredient, it means grain protein. Medically, for us, it means the gluten protein in the triticum family of wheat, rye, spelt, and barley which provokes the auto immune reaction.

I have seen dozens of brands of pet food deliberately mislabeled with the "contains no gluten" when it does. I have spent a great deal of time studying labels trying to decipher what is really in pet foods, because in addition to my wanting to avoid it, I have 2 dogs who are allergic to it, and at least one horse who has been diagnosed by a vet with the same problem. You may wonder why it matters- I have barn cats that drink out of the horse's water buckets and I don't want them cross contaminating him. The dogs do this also, so it was easier to feed non gluten food to all of them.

I suspect that there are various environmental forces at play that are triggering all these allergies and auto immune reactions. Both the dogs are adopted, one was an older adult whom I guessed that I could figure out why his skin was so itchy, and thanks to the vet we figured it out quickly by putting him on the old standby rice and chicken and cottage cheese diet (I know to read the cottage cheese labels carefully) and the other dog is probably either half border collie or Irish setter, because of how he acts- he gets seriously OCD on any wheat products.

I was feeding this one brand of dog food that was gluten free, and they changed the ingredients without making an obvious label change, front of the bag was still prominently labeled "gluten free" but it had oatmeal, oatmeal that must have been very cross contaminated, and we accidentally fed part of the bag's contents and ended up with some miserable dogs. I think it got me too.

I have spoken to several pet food manufacturer's reps and many of them sort of just don't "get" it that putting BARLEY into pet food now violates the "gluten free" label and that allergies and auto immune reactions are not quite the same but the need to avoid the gluten ingredient is.

The dogs are currently on this special brand of dog food for sensitive dogs for that is potato and fish based for 2 of them and lamb and rice based for the other 2, and so far, so good. Almost all the other brands I checked were not really gluten free AND soy free, and I won't feed soy to a dog because that can make them itch, also.

Referring to your statement, "corn is just as bad as wheat" is a bunch of bunk. Corn may or may not make a person feel bad. Corn is an ancient New World grain that was, and still is, a very important food and the basis of civilization here. There is this myth that corn is bad in dog food, but most dogs do fine on corn as long as they are not eating dog food with wheat and soy added to it. Wheat also is bad for horses, as they have trouble digesting it, yet I see more and more grain by- products with wheat added to horse feeds and supplements.

As to human history, we have succeeding in making a world where more people are born and survive to adulthood, thanks to modern things like handwashing, germ theory, refrigeration, clean water, plumbing, and refrigeration and the use of fossil fuels, but with the population surge, we have a lagging form of society structure whereby we know what to do with all the people so they can live in a safe, peaceful, and happy world.

Right now we are in a huge transition period, the last time this happened, we ended up with a horrible world war where governments thought it was better to kill off millions of people than to figure out how to co exist. Before that, we ended up with another world war and a flu pandemic at the same time which killed millions.

We can't support many more people on this planet, yet we have various business leaders insisting that they can't survive without "growth" meaning just more people, and increased use of non existent, finite resources that are running out. Well, just like any other species, if the population spikes past the point of sustainability, it will crash, badly, all on its own. Instead we could be trying to focus on sustainable living and smarter living, including how to create spaces that don't lead to bad human behaviors.

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DonaldandAlanda Evans Apprentice

Buckwheat isn't a grain at all. I believe it's an herb

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Northern Celiac Newbie

Starsea, It looks like you've been through the same meatgrinder as I did. Except I stand 6'5" and my weight dropped from 190 to below 130(I was too scared to get on the scale)I changed family doctors because the one I was seeing didn't care if I lived or died. I have been officially a Celiac for 1 year now. I tried what everyone talked about for a gluten-free diet based on the Canada food guide. For me the north american diet didn't work. It wasn't until I eliminated corn and a few other things I started to feel better.

I guess the secret to my recovery has been that I discovered the Mediterranean diet almost by accident.I started eating mediterranean style last fall and started to feel better. My GI diagnosed me almost right away with Celiac(april 2009) to the point where even before my biopsy she said to start eating gluten-free right away. Best of luck to you

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Jestgar Rising Star

Buckwheat isn't a grain at all. I believe it's an herb

It's at least a Open Original Shared Link

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knittingmonkey Newbie

Open Original Shared Link

This was interesting reading for me on that subject.

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WheatChef Apprentice

Once again, I think you're going a bit broad on assigning blame into the plant kingdom. Onions garlic and other lilies have severe health benefits for humans and guess what? They're monocots.

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Patricia27 Newbie

Very interesting! I happen to agree with A LOT of what you say!

Both of my babies had to be on milk-free & corn-free diets! That lasted for a few years & then they seemed to be okay. Well, I have been gluten-free for a month now & after I had gluten-free/SF chips last night, I still didn't feel 100%. I think I am going to cut out the corn, which I have heard a lot of negative info on lately any way.

Hey, if it makes me feel that much better, I will do without :)

I don't care, at this point, if I can only have a few things to eat on a daily basis. Since I have rid my diet of produts that contain gluten or soy, I feel SO MUCH better :D

Try it & see how the new "diet" goes... I am going to do the same :) Thanks :)

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linuxprincess Rookie

Here's the thing with corn and rice gluten: They do not contain gliadin like wheat, rye, and barley.

I really appreciate your effort and thought into this, but I feel it might be a bit misdirected. Many people who have problems with one food (like gluten) are more prone to having issues with other foods (like corn or soy). If you do not have access to a good doctor who has experience dealing with Celiac patients, try an elimination diet for a while to see how your body will react to various foods.

Thousands of us have argued with doctors of all kinds (specialists or not) about the symptoms and issues we have regardless of a gluten free diet. The only help I got from my doctor and allergist was a steroid cream and "yup, you've got Celiac's". So I had to find out that milk (casein) and salt are horrible for me personally.

When I tell people I avoid salt they often tell me I will die without it b/c my brain needs it. Doctors advise against this, even. However, my health is great, I'm not malnourished and I feel amazing now.

My rambling point is that there will always be someone out there telling you that you are wrong for eating a certain way. If you are healthy avoiding X, Y, and Z, then keep avoiding them no matter what your uncle, doctor, or spouse says.

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mushroom Proficient

Here's the thing with corn and rice gluten: They do not contain gliadin like wheat, rye, and barley.

I really appreciate your effort and thought into this, but I feel it might be a bit misdirected. Many people who have problems with one food (like gluten) are more prone to having issues with other foods (like corn or soy). If you do not have access to a good doctor who has experience dealing with Celiac patients, try an elimination diet for a while to see how your body will react to various foods.

Thousands of us have argued with doctors of all kinds (specialists or not) about the symptoms and issues we have regardless of a gluten free diet. The only help I got from my doctor and allergist was a steroid cream and "yup, you've got Celiac's". So I had to find out that milk (casein) and salt are horrible for me personally.

When I tell people I avoid salt they often tell me I will die without it b/c my brain needs it. Doctors advise against this, even. However, my health is great, I'm not malnourished and I feel amazing now.

My rambling point is that there will always be someone out there telling you that you are wrong for eating a certain way. If you are healthy avoiding X, Y, and Z, then keep avoiding them no matter what your uncle, doctor, or spouse says.

You will probably get enough natural sodium from your foods anyway. Most of the extra salt we use is just for taste, not for necessity.

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  • 2 months later...
cap6 Enthusiast

Takala ~ your posting was a few months ago and am hoping that you will see this. (I'm sort of new here & not sure how this all works!) I saw your reference to gluten-free dog food and am wondering what brand you use. I have 5 dogs and want to switch them all over more for my sake than theirs really. We travel a lot in a fifth wheel, all of us together which makes doggie dinner time a little tough. I visualize doggie gluten dust floating through the air in our small space! Any advice for a good gluten-free dog food?

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rdunbar Explorer

In the rare places in the world where people still eat the same diet that they have for literally thousands of years, like hunter-gatherers in borneo, they have no chronic diseases like cancer, heart disease, or depression. these only emerged once someone managed to convince everyone that grains are food,

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