Monday, October 13, 2014

What I eat

I am trying to put this up periodically, in large part as a reminder to myself, for when I'm feeling down about my diet, or to remind me how far I've come. Because folks with MCAD so often have very, very limited diets that I am doing REALLY well, and I want to hold on to that for the days when I'm feeling down...like right now when I need to lose a bit of weight and have to diet, ouch.

So, reminder to self!
Two weeks after going gluten free, I was reacting to so much that my diet of 'what I can eat without reacting' dropped down to:
Bison meat, carrots, sweet potatoes, quinoa, avocado, and salt.

Within a few months, I tried and discarded a few more items and was able to add amaranth, too. I don't think it was really any improvement, considering how little I liked the texture of amaranth.

And what I can eat now (without an unpleasant reaction):

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Gluten free is definitely not always gluten free

New study just came out, and it's saying what a lot of celiacs have been saying for years: gluten free products are not always as gluten free as they claim.

In the study, out of 158 products labeled gluten free, 5% of those with the gluten free label with not gluten free. 4% of the products labeled as certified gluten free were not gluten free, and these are the ones that are supposed to certify as having half the allowed gluten contamination as the regular gluten free label.

https://www.glutenfreewatchdog.org/blog/Five-Percent-of-Tested-Foods-Making-Gluten-Free-Claims-are-not-Gluten-Free-Study-Finds/41

Personally, I think this is the canary in the coal mine of contamination.  Gluten currently is one of the only allergens to have actual ppm contamination standards on the books. The other allergens do not.  You would expect that having to meet actual standards would increase compliance, to avoid prosecution if nothing else.

So if gluten free foods are only gluten free about 95% of the time, what's the level of 'free' for other allergens that list themselves as soy free, egg free, and so on?

Obviously, it's something we have to figure out for ourselves. But for those of us with serious allergies, or who have very serious reactions to allergens, I think this may be a factor to consider for our food. Yet another potential reason to start looking at whole foods rather than processed foods when making dietary choices.