AlwaysLearning

I'd love to know more about how reactive hyperglycemia is related to gluten problems. Mine has actually gotten much worse since going gluten free.

I'm loving all of these posts that are anti-pharma and see right through a smoke screen. I LOVE smart people.

After years of trying to figure out what was wrong with my digestive system, I was actually excited that the solution didn't involve pharmaceuticals. I'm not anti vaccine, but I agree wholeheartedly with the previous comment about not wanting to tinker with my immune system which already has enough issues.

Even before going gluten free, I had found that steaming up some meat and veggies then serving them over rice with some sort of sauce was pretty easy, not all that time consuming, good for leftovers ... and also avoided the problems toxins developing in food due to high-heat cooking.

Ingredients:

• Your choice of meat. My favs include boneless chicken or sausage (and fortunately, my grocery stores carry gluten-free varieties)
• Your choice of vegetables. I normally go with sweet bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms, and black olives but vary them to go with the meat. Include your favorites or experiment with new ones.
• Your choice of rice.

Step one: Put the meat in a pan to brown in either butter or olive oil. Only takes a couple minutes on both sides and does not require high heat. You just want to bring out a little bit of flavor.

Step two: Get your rice started.

Step three: Start cutting up your veggies. I start with those that take the longest to cook.

Step four: Your meat should be done browning as your first vegetable is cut. Add some water to your pot/pan and just keep adding your vegetables as you finish cutting them, keeping a lid on it so that it steams rather than fries. And you don't want too much water, just enough to keep the bottom of the pan wet, adding more if it cooks off. You're not boiling but steaming, so you don't want everything to be covered, rather just 1/4" in the bottom. (Any time there is water in your pan, the temperature won't rise above boiling point so you can avoid those nasty carcinogens that form when foods are fried).

You should be done adding your veggies in the first 10 minutes and have five or ten minutes to kick back while everything finishes cooking, depending on your rice's cooking time. And the meat should cook up pretty quickly because it is being steamed, heat surrounding it on all sides.

Step five: Add or make some sort of sauce.

If I used sweet italian sausage, I'll normally just add some spaghetti sauce and spices to my pot of meat and veggies, warm it up for another two minutes and then serve everything over rice.

If I do chicken, I'll pull all of the meat and veggies out of the pan, add some more butter/oil and water to the remaining liquid (so that I end up with enough sauce to pour over my rice/chicken and veggies) and use a combination of starches and flours (now gluten-free) to make a white, gravy-like sauce. You can add a little at a time until it thickens up but it should only take about five minutes. If you want it to be more like a white sauce and can do dairy, then I'd use butter and cream instead of olive oil and water.

This one will need spices so I normally add plenty of my favorite green spices (dried) such as basil, thyme, tarragon, and sage. I normally smell them as I go, so it varies according to my mood that day. Oh, and you'll probably want to salt it some too. Mushrooms go particularly well with the chicken though it does turn out rather colorless.

Either way, it normally doesn't take more than 20 minutes for the sausage version, 25 for chicken, and is great for feeding multiple people or for leftovers. Plus you get a meal that is very filling and doesn't leave you craving more.

But my favorite part of this is that most of the ingredients don't go bad quickly so it can be done without having been to the grocery store recently. Onions and garlic last for months, black olives come from a can, meat can be frozen, spices are dried, sauces are either from a jar or made from scratch, and even mushrooms can be the dried versions.

There is also plenty of room for variation and experimentation to switch out types of meats or vegetables. It's kind of like a halfway point between a crock pot and a stir-fry meal.

Wow, from the title of the post, I thought I could relate, but after reading your story, I'm just really grateful to have not have had it so bad. It sounds as if you've been to hell and back again.

However I'm sure most can relate to many of the same problems when it comes to the medical industry.

I was going to doctors on a fairly regular basis for twenty years for one problem or another and was told there was nothing wrong with me, was prescribed drugs that didn't have any effect aside from their own negative side effects, or the worst, was told that it was all in my head. That last one is particularly frustrating. And I too had gotten to the point that I had given up on the medical industry as a whole.

My actual diagnoses included colloid nodules in my thyroid though no possible causes were ever discussed. My digestive issues were written off as IBS and I was told that probiotics would make it all disappear. They did not. Many doctors suspected crohn's disease but tests ruled that out. But most of the problems I did have were simply ignored simply because they weren't all that disruptive to life. Really bad ear aches, skin rashes, hives and eczema-like problems, minor neuropathies in hands and feet, vision problems that came and went, menstrual irregularities, really bad joint pain, and more, all pretty much dismissed by doctors.

I'd love to blame doctors entirely, angry at their arrogance and egos, dismissing my pain simply because they didn't know the cause. I can only remember one out of dozens, a rheumatologist, who actually tried to figure out the mystery, but most didn't bother.

But in hindsight, I have to remind myself that diet and nutrition are not part of a standard medical degree. And I had done plenty of research about celiac and gluten when I went in search of possible causes for my digestive issues years ago. But the information available back then was pretty much nonexistent compared to what is available today. And I didn't have anywhere near the horror story related above, most likely because I was only getting lots of gluten in my diet when I ate out.

I don't know if I have celiac disease, some degree of allergy, or an intolerance. And I suspect that in the next few years we're going to see the definitions of all of these change as the medical industry catches up and realizes that a multitude of digestive-system problems are all related to gluten, individuals simply responding in different ways.

I finally figured out that I had a problem with gluten when a knee injury kept me from getting to the grocery store and I suddenly had an influx of gluten into my diet when I started eating out instead of cooking for myself. Suddenly having all sorts of odd symptoms arise simply couldn't be just because I was exercising less. And that little light bulb went on in my head and I started researching gluten again.

Apparently I was instinctively avoiding gluten when I cooked for myself, almost never eating bread or pasta at home. I had even stopped eating my favorite canned soup and boxed side-dish mix because I noticed that they caused problems, both of them heavier on wheat pasta than the others in my cupboards.

In hindsight, test results had been showing indications of malnourishment all along, dangerously low cholesterol levels and slight anemia came and went. My hormone imbalances would vary with each yearly test. Add on the unexplained rashes and hives. Coworkers had noticed that I would start sneezing after eating, but only when I bought my lunch or breakfast which included bread. Weight loss despite increased caloric intake was recurrent. And the colloid nodules I have since learned are pretty standard for gluten problems.

I'm still angry and disappointed by most of the doctors I have ever seen. Fortunately, the nurses who are now available at my local pharmacy seem to know just as much if not more, but without the attitude, and can help out with most of the day-to-day medical needs. I still haven't found new doctors that I trust and don't even know what type would actually be able to help most now that my body is recovering. With an illness that is so recently becoming understood, who could possibly know what to watch out for in the future when it comes to past damage done?

And I still haven't gotten past some of the negative feelings of wondering how much different my life could have been had this problem been discovered sooner. I've learned that family members really don't want to hear about it because then they may have to take into consideration the hereditary factor and change their own eating habits. And my mother seems to be the toughest nut to crack, having been so proud that her children didn't have allergies all of these years, and unable to admit a perceived weakness now. She simply doesn't believe that I have a gluten problem at all.

I suppose you have to have gotten to the point where you feel really awful before you can see living gluten free as a positive thing.

Totally had insomnia when gluten was heavy in my diet. Totally went away right away when going gluten free.