Gluten Free Goodness

It’s weight stigma awareness week, and I’m choosing not to get onto my soapbox. I’ve just got a few brief questions for you.

• Do you think you’re better than someone who weighs more than you?
• Would you be a worthier or more awesome human being if you weighed less?
• Would you love yourself more if you lost weight? If so, why?

Do you tolerate racism? Sexism? Homophobia?

(I am assuming your response is “Heck no!”)

Then why is fat bashing okay, or even being cruel to yourself because of your size? How you view yourself matters. If you have children, they’re absorbing it–they’re little sponges. How you treat yourself ripples out, and it takes tremendous courage to love yourself no matter what.

You’re beautiful. I promise. Just as you are. Nothing can change that.

In a word, no.

First, for starters, I’m a tree hugging, sauerkraut-making Berkeley grad who has admired Louise Hay’s work for a long time, so I was tremendously disappointed to see her share a post on Facebook called “Can Sourdough Change a Gluten-Free Diet?” from Louise’s Heal the World FB page that went out to hundreds of thousands of people.

So … let’s get started, shall we?

• Fermented foods are great for you! No arguments here.
• Gluten sensitivity IS a spectrum. There are people who don’t seem bothered by small amounts of gluten, and there are definitely folks who are sensitive to the tiniest bit. Our testing and understanding of gluten is still quite limited.
• Fermenting DOES seem to reduce the amount of gluten in wheat.
• Implying that even people with “severe gluten issues” and mentioning it being okay for some with Celiac is grossly and totally irresponsible and makes me want to scream. Okay, I confess, I screamed a little.

There are small studies with specially fermented sourdough where there was a pretty mixed response. This study fed people with Celiac disease regular bread with gluten (!), bread with partially hydrolyzed (in normal English, partially broken down) gluten molecules, or totally hydrolyzed gluten (8ppm gluten, which is very low and normally considered gluten-free) and followed them for 2 months. The people fed the regular gluten had damage. Um, no shocker here. The people with partially hydrolyzed gluten had some signs of damage and had symptoms. The 5 people with completely hydrolyzed gluten for 2 months didn’t have visible problems or a change in antibody levels.

Again. 5 people. 2 months. Using special strains of starter lactobacilli (good bacteria) and proteases (protease=enzyme that breaks down proteins) and testing the bread for gluten levels (there are issues with that, too, but that’s another story entirely) We don’t know what the results/damage/symptoms would look like in 6 months, a year, 5 years…remember, Celiac is a lifelong diet.

I also found one small study showing that some people with Celiac are safe eating specially made fermented breads made with wheat that have been tested below 20ppm gluten. The study followed 8 children (one dropped out, so 7 finished the study) for 2 months.

Again. 7 children. Only a 2 month trial. Special bread with complete hydrolysis of gluten and testing to confirm the level of gluten. This isn’t the same as MYO sourdough at home.

So what does it mean for you, oh bread lover?

It’s POSSIBLE that special strains of sourdough can be used to make gluten-free bread, even from wheat. Granted, this has only been tried with a handful of people over 2 month periods of time. However, this isn’t the sourdough you pick up at Whole Foods. The whole process was using a fermented starter and enzymes that were selected specifically for their ability to degrade gluten. As one of the studies show, the breads that had incompletely hydrolyzed gluten DID lead to intestinal damage. So this isn’t safe to play with on your own starter and expect the same results.

I get really fired about this like this because it matters. Inevitably, someone will read the article and eat sourdough bread, believing it’s okay. Our health matters; the health of our families and children matter. Please … you, your children and your loved ones matter more than having a piece of sourdough made from wheat.

So my 2 cents—if/when we figure out which strains are needed, make them commercially available and we can test the final products for gluten to double check and do research to see how people do LONG TERM, I promise I’ll post about it. Then, sure, enjoy your sourdough.

Until then, have gluten-free sourdough. There are quite a few 100% gluten-free sourdough recipes online, like this one from Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free.

PS: There was a small study showing that fermented GLUTEN-FREE sourdough breads (rice, corn, amaranth) were helpful for people with Celiac in their healing. So if you like sourdough, bon appetit!

PPS–thanks to the delicious Ms. Shirley for her comments. It’s wonderful to have like-minded g-free advocates!

PPPS–the bread above isn’t sourdough, but it is gluten-free (for real). No hydrolyzed nuttin’.

Man, I’ve neglected my blog and I didn’t really notice. As I’ve been on FB more (feel free to stop by and say hi!), I didn’t realize I was posting here less. I’m hoping to post more recipes soon, because there are a bunch of fun ones to come!

First, the visitor: Squee Fox’s shed has a new master! Okay, for some of you, groundhogs may be a common sight. But I grew up and have always lived outside of cities. So I was in Laurel to teach and when I was returning client calls there was a chubby, furry dude watching me. I kept trying to snap his pic in between calls, and then he’d duck down. When I asked the students about him, somehow no one had any clue of what I was talking about and I started to think he was a (large, furry) figment of my imagination.

And then I came home, and who was hanging out in the back yard? Yep, another groundhog. This dude is browner, the first dude was greyer, or I’d assume I had a rodent stalker.
He’s cute. So far he hasn’t messed with my garden, and it’s very funny to see him run whenever I walk outside. He’s a wee bit of a girthy dude, but he hauls tush! And our shed must have some sort of furry dude homing signal or something. He’s napping right by the shed door in the sun as I type.

Oh, and the recipes? I updated the index here. There’s a bunch of really wonderful ones, so give it a look over! And no, there are no groundhog recipes. But if he goes after my kale…well, he’s still safe. It’s really funny when I yell at the deer and squirrels. They totally look at me like they don’t even believe that I could *possibly* be talking to them, much less providing any threat. Yeah, I’m scary.

One more thing: I just posted on my main website on Gluten-Free Breakfasts. Hop on over for good ideas!

Huh? Me, on a diet? No, actually, but bear with me a minute and this will make sense. I had a loose cavity, then a root canal, then I managed to liberate the damn temporary filling 3 days later and I’m still drinking smoothies. Smoothies! I hate smoothies. You will notice that there is not a single smoothie recipe in the 5 years I have blogged. This is not accidental.

When I can’t chew, I feel deprived, even when I get to have kale/apple/ginger smoothies. And the very minute I feel deprived, I want to eat. ALL.THE. TIME. And all I want is chocolate and potato chips because I’m deprived. (raise your hand if you completely understand me) So although I’ve been having my chocolate (legal—it melts!), ice cream, and pureeing in meat into my smoothies, and I’ve even been eating soft fish and chicken, and I STILL feel deprived, despite the fact that I’m eating more than I normally do.

That is exactly what people experience on a diet, hopefully minus the many trips to the dentist. And that’s why diets don’t work for long. Deprival will surely lead to overcompensation, and that ain’t pretty.

Stepping off my soapbox now…and please send warm fuzzies to my poor jaw.