Gluten-Free Intolerance

bfa1509

This is not a thread about my tolerance to people who ask for gluten-free option just because it's 'in' rather than having an intolerance to gluten (the answer is zero in case you are wondering)

I got a christmas hamper from work. I opened it up and looked at all the pastries and cakes and sweets inside. Almost everthing was 'Gluten-free!' 'VEGAN'. I thought I picked up my coeliac colleague's hamper by mistake. But no, everyone got the same. I have been trying some of the stuff and although it doesn't taste terrible, I've been getting stomach pains afterwards (and it's not from eating too much, thx).

So my question is can you be Gluten-free intolerant?

(If yes, then the world will be a very inhospitable place for me in future, the way things are going)

Dizzyblonde

Mod note:I've moved this into the Nutrition & Diet forum, I'm sure someone in here will know

coffee_cake

some people react badly to xantham gum, which is used as a binder in gluten free products (since gf pastry falls apart). it could well be that.
check the ingredients and see if it's in the stuff you reacted to. then try something without it if you can

bfa1509

Dizzyblonde wrote: »

Mod note:I've moved this into the Nutrition & Diet forum, I'm sure someone in here will know

I feel as though you have thrown the pigeon amongst the cats

bluewolf wrote: »

some people react badly to xantham gum, which is used as a binder in gluten free products (since gf pastry falls apart). it could well be that.
check the ingredients and see if it's in the stuff you reacted to. then try something without it if you can

Interesting. Some of them do have xantham gum in the ingredients. The mince pies do, and they are pastry-like.

I feel like humanity needs to do a nutritional reset and go back to basic foods again. All these x's and z's in the ingredient lists can't be very good for us.

grogi

It's because people want to keep eating the same products, even on vegan-gluten-free-petrol-free diet.

I don't have anything against being vegan - but why they keep trying to mimic meat? All this vegan-burgers crap. If you want vegan - it good vegan dishes, not awful almost-like-with-meat. Same goes to gluten - if one can't have gluten, simply avoid eating pastry.

RacoonQueen

grogi wrote: »

Same goes to gluten - if one can't have gluten, simply avoid eating pastry.

Unless it's cake. Cake can be delicious gluten free without adding shi*eloads of sugar in.
Vegan cake just isn't worth the effort. Animal fat = taste.

officerjerk1

Just a side-note on Gluten-Intolerance (in Ireland and UK). It is possible you are not gluten intolerant, but actually intolerant to bad gluten. It’s a lovely little country we live in but the standard sliced-pan bread we find on the shelves of our shops is shocking. Most of the stuff, if not all, is quite bad for you if eaten every day. Even the wholemeal. It’s not risen naturally (allowing the wheat to be mechanically broken down in the process) and is mostly CBT bread (Chorleywood Bread Process). This type of bread was developed by the English in the 70s to make their sub-standard local wheat useable, rather than having to import better flour, as they had done in the past. Enzymes and many other chemicals are introduced into the bread-making process to allow self-rising in the oven, and quicker production times overall, and longer shelf-life. Most of the 'wheat-intolerant' people I know will have visited continental Europe and they all report no ill-feeling from eating their bread. And the doctors still deal out this 'wheat-intolerant' diagnosis. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it’s just that it’s not understood properly. You are what you eat. Go bake a bread yourself naturally or buy artisan breadand eat that every day for a while and see if that helps before believing the pill-pushers. Same goes for all those 'French' brands like Cuisine de France. And all those cheap frozen pizza-bases. And the in-store baked bread in Lidl / Aldi, it’s the same story. That stuff is even more crazy in my opinion, sometimes over a year old, frozen, and 'baked' in store and labelled as fresh. That's not fresh bread. Man has eaten gluteny bread for centuries with no problems. Why are breads and wheat-based products suddenly causing the symptoms we see today. Look no further than CBT. Stop eating this crap. And please stop selling it to us. Its hard to resist that lovely fluffy white sliced pan.

seamus

"Bad gluten" sounds like more fad nonsense tbh. Gluten is a set of proteins, which have defined chemical compositions. There's no "good" and "bad" versions of the same protein.

Evidence has been growing for years that gluten sensitivity isn't remotely as common as it appears to be, and that most people are mis-self-diagnosing.

Instead it appears that diets high in specific kinds of carbs have a tendency to cause bloating and bowel irritation, and reducing consumption of these can ease off the symptoms. And breads just so happen to be high in these specific kinds of carbs.

Eating a gluten-free or low-gluten diet has the unintended consequence of reducing your intake of these carbs and helping you feel better. In short it means that any bread is fine on the table, you just have to regulate your intake if bloating is an issue for you.

jim salter

officerjerk1 wrote: »

Just a side-note on Gluten-Intolerance (in Ireland and UK). It is possible you are not gluten intolerant, but actually intolerant to bad gluten. It’s a lovely little country we live in but the standard sliced-pan bread we find on the shelves of our shops is shocking. Most of the stuff, if not all, is quite bad for you if eaten every day. Even the wholemeal. It’s not risen naturally (allowing the wheat to be mechanically broken down in the process) and is mostly CBT bread (Chorleywood Bread Process). This type of bread was developed by the English in the 70s to make their sub-standard local wheat useable, rather than having to import better flour, as they had done in the past. Enzymes and many other chemicals are introduced into the bread-making process to allow self-rising in the oven, and quicker production times overall, and longer shelf-life. Most of the 'wheat-intolerant' people I know will have visited continental Europe and they all report no ill-feeling from eating their bread. And the doctors still deal out this 'wheat-intolerant' diagnosis. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it’s just that it’s not understood properly. You are what you eat. Go bake a bread yourself naturally or buy artisan breadand eat that every day for a while and see if that helps before believing the pill-pushers. Same goes for all those 'French' brands like Cuisine de France. And all those cheap frozen pizza-bases. And the in-store baked bread in Lidl / Aldi, it’s the same story. That stuff is even more crazy in my opinion, sometimes over a year old, frozen, and 'baked' in store and labelled as fresh. That's not fresh bread. Man has eaten gluteny bread for centuries with no problems. Why are breads and wheat-based products suddenly causing the symptoms we see today. Look no further than CBT. Stop eating this crap. And please stop selling it to us. Its hard to resist that lovely fluffy white sliced pan.

What a total load of crap.

"Bad gluten"? You really have no clue....

officerjerk1

Seamus, thanks for the constructive reply, as I said, its possible, not set in stone, just my 2 cents. Good to get all the opinions on this one. Jim Salter, you got a counter argument to explain the rise in 'Gluten Intolerance' ?

bfa1509

I eat lots of homemade brown bread and sometimes shop bought sliced white bread or rolls and I have no issue at all. But when I eat 'gluten-free' anything I am usually doubled over in pain for a good portion of the day.

I fear that one day the coin will be flipped completely the other way and I will be 'the pain' who has to ask for a non-gluten-free option.

I can just picture the waitresses "sighs"

jim salter

officerjerk1 wrote: »

Seamus, thanks for the constructive reply, as I said, its possible, not set in stone, just my 2 cents. Good to get all the opinions on this one. Jim Salter, you got a counter argument to explain the rise in 'Gluten Intolerance' ?

My 'opinion' is based on experience (actually being a coeliac as well as having extensively studied gastroenterology) there is absolutely no such thing as "bad" gluten in the context of a coeliac. ALL gluten is bad for a coeliac.

Here is a brief history of coeliac:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18431060

The 'rise of gluten intolerance' as you put it is not "new" as you terminology suggests however, the rise of non gluten intolerant people adhering to a gluten free diet is as a result of a number of 'celebrities' adopting a gluten free diet for health benefits (which I have no problem with personally as it has increased the number of foods available and improved the taste/texture of said foods to true coeliacs).

I believe the number of people with true 'Gluten Intolerance' has not spiked abnormally but the number of people adopting a gluten free diet (for whatever reason) has spiked in the last 4-5 years.

coffee_cake

As another coeliac i'm glad of the extra awareness - i never knew what all those random crippling tummy pains were and wouldn't have thought about wheat when doing elimination diet except that a friend had gone through the whole process a year or so before.
And i can only imagine that people being more diagnosed with it is also because people in the past may not have had a clue what was causing their issues either

jim salter

bluewolf wrote: »

As another coeliac i'm glad of the extra awareness - i never knew what all those random crippling tummy pains were and wouldn't have thought about wheat when doing elimination diet except that a friend had gone through the whole process a year or so before.
And i can only imagine that people being more diagnosed with it is also because people in the past may not have had a clue what was causing their issues either

I was diagnosed a number of decades ago so saying that people didn't know what was causing it is not a really strong argument as the test has been around for many, many years. Flip side, if the doctor treating the patient wasn't very knowledgeable it could go undetected. However, the symptoms are very, very clear in most cases.

coffee_cake

jim salter wrote: »

I was diagnosed a number of decades ago so saying that people didn't know what was causing it is not a really strong argument as the test has been around for many, many years. Flip side, if the doctor treating the patient wasn't very knowledgeable it could go undetected. However, the symptoms are very, very clear in most cases.

I was thinking longer than decades! the other poster mentioned centuries

jim salter

bluewolf wrote: »

I was thinking longer than decades! the other poster mentioned centuries

That was me...my previous direct response was localised to Ireland.

jim salter

bfa1509 wrote: »

I eat lots of homemade brown bread and sometimes shop bought sliced white bread or rolls and I have no issue at all. But when I eat 'gluten-free' anything I am usually doubled over in pain for a good portion of the day.

I fear that one day the coin will be flipped completely the other way and I will be 'the pain' who has to ask for a non-gluten-free option.

I can just picture the waitresses "sighs"

I would be very interested how you have come to the conclusion that it was the absence of gluten in the foods you were eating that caused your 'pain', makes no sense - your body was expecting gluten and reacted badly to not having it???

Perhaps it was the inclusion of other ingredients such as xanthan gum or nuts, or egg or dairy which lead to you being 'doubled over in pain for a good portion of the day'

bfa1509

jim salter wrote: »

I would be very interested how you have come to the conclusion that it was the absence of gluten in the foods you were eating that caused your 'pain', makes no sense - your body was expecting gluten and reacted badly to not having it???

Perhaps it was the inclusion of other ingredients such as xanthan gum or nuts, or egg or dairy which lead to you being 'doubled over in pain for a good portion of the day'

Yes, a previous poster mentioned xanthan gum as a possible cause and I remember seeing it on all the products I was having trouble with. So this is probably the culprit.

Understandably, a lot of coeliacs are very happy with the choice and availability that has come with the spike in awareness or 'gluten-free' adoption in the last few years. I just worry about what other synthetic crap they are going to start loading into food.