Healthy Eating: What You Need To Know About A Gluten Free Diet

 

A gluten free diet is a very healthy choice for individuals dealing with celiac disease. Celiac disease reduces the ability to digest gluten, therefore, cutting the gluten from your diet is very important in easing the symptoms. A lot of the problem that overweight people have is the kind of food they consume. Foods containing gluten are almost always a part of those foods.

 

The Purpose of a Gluten Free Diet

The purpose of a gluten free diet is to treat the symptoms of celiac disease. In a person that has celiac disease, gluten will cause inflammation in the small intestine. A gluten free diet is used to prevent said inflammation. There are also people who may show symptoms of celiac disease, who do not really have the disease at all. A gluten free diet will also help those people prevent the symptoms of non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

 

Exercising

To get the most out of a gluten free diet, or any diet for that matter, one must exercise regularly. One benefit of a gluten free diet is that it helps the body’s metabolism speed up. Proper digestion allows the body’s metabolism to perform the way it is meant to, because when food goes through digestion, it is converted into energy. When a person is suffering from celiac, or non-celiac gluten sensitivity, they are unable to digest gluten, and it also slows their metabolism drastically. A higher metabolism results in more calories burned.

 

Weight Loss

Eating a gluten free diet has more than one reward, as it can play a vital roll in weight loss. Many people think it is hard to find gluten free foods, but there are many of them. Several gluten free foods are organic. Organic foods are naturally, and usually locally, grown. While organic foods are not always gluten free, there are many gluten free foods that are organic. Eating gluten free organic foods are the easiest way to avoid other harmful things, like preservatives and other chemicals. One must stay focused on consuming gluten free organic foods to have the best chance at a great health. Some gluten free foods can actually make you gain weight, due to the chemicals used to preserve the product, so staying focused on organic foods is the healthier choice.

 

Risks

When on a gluten free diet, one must pay very close attention to the way their body is responding. Some people who go on a gluten free diet suffer from iron deficiency. Some people may also suffer from a deficiency in calcium, fiber, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, and/or folate. It is recommended that a person suffering from one, or any, of these deficiencies take multivitamins daily, to give the body the proper nutrients.

 

Eliminating, or even reducing, the gluten in your diet will lead to a much healthier life. When dealing with celiac disease, there is no other option, not eliminating gluten completely can lead to serious complications. People not dealing with the symptoms of celiac can also benefit greatly from eating healthier, by cutting down on gluten consumption and eating more organic foods.

 

Informational credit to myorganicfoods.net.

Categories: gluten-free diet, Healthy Eating, Weight Loss

Is a Gluten-Free Diet Just a Fad or a Healthy Way to Live?

Whether you’ve seen the word pop up in bestselling diet books, on menus and bakery signs, or supermarket aisles, you’ve heard about gluten. After a while, you start wondering if your wellness would be better off without gluten, or if the protein is impeding your weight loss results, but is there any point going for a full-blown, gluten-free diet?

There was a time, ending just a few years ago, when you only ate gluten-free foods if your wellbeing was affected by celiac disease. Now, everyone seems to be avoiding gluten – just because they think it’s healthier. According to Dr. Alessio Fasano, a researcher and director of the Centre for Celiac Research at Massachusetts General Hospital for Children in Boston, your body doesn’t have the enzymes to break gluten down, which means you cannot totally digest it.

In fact, Dr. William Davis, author of the book Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight and Find Your Path Back to Health, thinks everyone would be better off not eating wheat, as whole grains are different than they were 50 years ago; they’re now toxic to the human body. Davis argues that celiacs are the ‘canary in the coal mine.’ Although Davis’ book offers none of his own research, it does contain sections of other studies and anecdotal case studies of 2,000 of his patients who told him their health problems improved or disappeared after they stopped eating foods with wheat in them.

Davis notes, ‘Wheat Belly represents the distilled experience and lessons I’ve learned over these last several years, lessons learned by accident in my quest to help solve the dilemma of heart disease. And, by the way, I hardly ever see any heart attacks anymore.’ Since the publication of his book, and follow-up The Wheat Belly Cookbook, about 25% cent of the American population has cut back or cut out their wheat consumption, believing it’s a healthier way to eat.

However, Fasano warns that a gluten-free diet can actually be worse for your wellbeing, as there is often a high content of sugar and fat in gluten-free foods, in order to make them taste better. The diet is also really difficult to stick with, because you have to be vigilant about reading every label on every food product you put in your mouth, and gluten-free food also costs two to three times more than regular food. So, unless you have celiac disease or a gluten sensitivity, maybe you’re better off just sticking with wheat.

Categories: gluten sensitivity, gluten-free diet, weight