Month: January 2013

We are in the 50% of celiacs who do not tolerate corn. No, not even organic, GMO-free corn. It is apparently a protein in corn that causes the intolerance. That said, my son loves mexican food. We have been eating out at mexican restaurants since he was three weeks old. But we pack our own lentil chips and we get something without tortillas because while the corn tortillas are indeed gluten free and vegan they are not corn-free and therefore they are not OK. But my son really wanted tacos or burritos. Sometimes we get them with lettuce leaves but he wants the bread. But we didn’t really have a lot of choices. And then we found something great. Food for Life now has a brown rice tortilla. In addition to being gluten dairy and corn free they are also soy free, potato free kosher and pareve. They are not stretchy wheat tortillas but the consistency is not too far off that of a corn tortilla and for someone like me who hasn’t had a burrito in years they are a welcome addition to the repertoire. I am hopeful that they will catch on. Food 4 Life sells products at most major grocery stores but is best known for their Ezekiel Bread. If your store does not have these you can ask the manager to order them for you....

Although I don’t normally follow celebrity gossip I did end up following a link today to learn that Ashton Kutcher has ended up in the hospital after attempting to live on an all fruit diet (yes all fruit, no nuts, no pulses, no veggies) and damaging his pancreas. I had a friend in college who attempted to live exclusively on grilled cheese sandwiches with a similar result. I don’t think he will ever live it down. When he was released from the hospital he was subjected to the same sort of ribbing I wanted to give Mr. Kutcher. “What were you thinking? You are not a koala. You cannot live on one type of food!” And as soon as I had that thought a memory flashed in my mind. When we were diagnosed I remember telling people that we had been lucky to learn that our health problems could be cured quite simply by avoiding only three foods. We just needed to not eat gluten, dairy or corn. Which always led to the same response which was… “Wow, so no cheese, no milk, no wheat and no corn…wow, you can hardly eat anything, I mean, what CAN you eat?” I don’t know why I didn’t expect that response, but I didn’t. Once I got over my shock I would explain that aside from wheatgrass the entire produce section was...

OK, now I want a reverse osmosis water filter. Preferably yesterday. There have been rumors for years that fluoride causes neurological delays and decreased IQ in children. Rumors, however are not facts, and I wanted to see the research. Preferably in the form of a meta-analysis (although those can be flawed too) with some statistical validity. Like maybe a meta analysis, from Harvard and China Medical University and someplace fancy in Europe. That would be good. Well look what we have here… http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3491930/ Yes, Harvard, China Medical University, and the University of Southern Denmark worked together to do a meta analysis of other studies and found that…putting neurotoxins in water damages the brains of children. I know, shocking. The amazing thing is that we have ignored how toxic this stuff is and somehow decided we should raise our own taxes in order to make everyone eat it on purpose. All chemicals with industrial uses have to have what they call a material safety data sheet (MSDS) so that people who work with them on a regular basis know how to handle them. Here is the one for fluoride. Note the giant DANGER and may be fatal if swallowed. Note that it is toxic to aquatic life. Oh, and note the dosages. http://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/21230.htm Here is the MSDS for DDT. DDT is a pesticide. It was produced strictly to kill animals....

People often ask me if I think everyone needs to give up gluten. I usually tell them that the science on gluten in people without intolerances is inconclusive. There are studies that indicate that gluten is not good for anyone. There are other studies that show that unless you are sensitive to it, a little bit (whole wheat bread is less nutritious than boiled white potatoes) is fine. The same cannot be said about dairy. Aside from nursing children (so age three and younger) no one should consume dairy. Ever. The science is conclusive. T. Colin Campbell was a researcher in the 1970s trying to figure out why the children in the Phillipines who had access to both milk and aflatoxin contaminated peanuts (aflatoxin is a potent carcinogen that it is used to induce tumors in lab animals) died of liver cancer while their peers who ate the peanuts but did not have milk lived. He came across an Indian medical journal that said that when rats were fed aflatoxin and dairy protein 100% died of cancer. If the rats only ate the carcinogen 100% lived. Now very few things kill everyone. Sure, if you eat arsenic, then that will kill you, but there are plenty of people like my friend’s late father who live on bacon, scotch and cigars without it killing them. So as a scientist when...

When I was a child back in the 1970s a typical lunch consisted of baloney and mayo on squishy white bread, a bag of corn chips or cheese puffs and a dessert preferably from the now bankrupt Hostess company. If you did not buy chocolate milk at school, then perhaps your mother would pack some fruity punch of the variety that included no fruit or fruit by products whatsoever. My parents were chemists. They insisted that I take a “weird” lunch made of natural three ingredient peanut butter on whole wheat bread, a piece of fruit, orange juice or milk to drink and a donut for dessert. When I protested that I was the weirdo who ate this strange lunch every day the response was always the same. “Trust me, someday you will thank me for this.” And of course they were right. Although I am sure that there were some health benefits that came out of my real food lunch, an even bigger benefit was the fact that I learned at an early age that it is more important to stand up for your own health than to fit in. I could wear what the other kids wore (within reason) and see the same movies and play the same games. But when it came to food the law was laid down. Eating badly was not an acceptable trade-off....

There is a video floating around Facebook of a woman who is 70 and looks about 40 and appears to also have tons of energy. Her husband never ate the same way and has aged in a more typical fashion. He says its odd when they go out because people think she is his daughter when the truth is that she is only four years younger than he is. She is not paleo but rather a raw vegan who does not eat grain either. Look, the paleo argument on its face makes a lot of logical sense. We did not evolve to eat cool ranch corn chips, barbecue sauce, or creme filled chocolate snack cakes. Feed that stuff to primates in the zoo and they don’t do well. Our ancestors ate some combination of wild game, fruit, vegetables, nuts, beans and seeds. They did not consume dairy past the age of five and without modern agriculture they ate very few grains. I am not saying that my ancestors never got lucky with a slingshot. I just have a pretty good idea that with a slingshot, some pointy sticks, and their uncorrected vision, it probably didn’t happen on a daily or even weekly basis. Also prior to the Iron Age, I am not sure how happy I would be trying to cut up a bison using only sharpened rocks. I...

An informal poll of my friends with celiac disease yields the following answer to the question “what appliance is going to make your life better?”. That appliance is not a bread maker, it is a chest freezer. Yes you can make your own loaves of bread, but honestly its a pain. It goes stale fast. The slices are goofy and it solves only one problem. You see, people without food issues can simply order takeout chinese or pizza when they have to work late. I cannot. I have to make my dinner virtually every single night or else I need to go out to one of the few restaurants that genuinely cater to me and eat there. I have been sick from cross contamination more times than I care to recall eating something that was supposed to be gluten free. Thanks but no thanks. Eventually I need to go somewhere and while working from home may be an option, working while trapped in a bathroom generally is not. Which is where the chest freezer comes in. Gluten and dairy free frozen pizza exists. There are gluten and dairy free frozen entrees. There is always making and freezing your own meatballs in sauce, or chili, or beef stew, or lamb stew or pesto, and then microwaving them and serving them with pasta. When you have a chest freezer you have...

OK so after hearing the warnings from the gluten-free beaver (see yesterday’s post), I wondered some more about the impact of gluten on people who, unlike me, do not have a serious gluten related medical condition. There are a fair number of celiacs who think that no one should ever eat gluten…ever. They believe that we are all to some extent sensitive to gluten and that its a problem even for those of us who do not have celiac disease or autism or even non-celiac gluten sensitivity. I never used to believe this. I just figured that there are people for whom nuts are good food and people who will die if they eat nuts. I always thought gluten was the same. Some people can eat it and others like me, can be killed as a result of eating it. However, it appears that perhaps the other celiacs are correct and no one should ever eat gluten…ever. This is a link to a Spanish study. The problem with this study was that they studied a whopping three non-celiacs and found that 100% of them had an immune response to gluten. Choose poorly with my Facebook friends and you would think that everyone was born in May. Three people is an interesting start, but not a study. Still, the mechanism is explained here so I thought I would include it....

OK, this is crude humor and definitely a TV-14 sketch, but for anyone here who does not have celiac disease, a wheat allergy, or any other medical reason to avoid wheat, there is this “wheatbelly” concept that indicates that gluten may be addictive and make you want more and more and perhaps no one should eat gluten because the proteins that make up “gluten”, especially gliadin, are addictive. The science on this topic is not exactly overwhelming. The best proof of the addictive properties of bread that I can think of is the fact that if you take my relatives out to dinner you will see three people eating four baskets of bread even though grilled grouper is on its way. I am glad that gluten-free is finally enough in the public consciousness that the Colbert Report thinks it is worth making fun of. Although my inability to eat bread is not a joke, I am OK with anything that brings attention to this problem. So without further ado, here is the link to the sketch....