Gluten Freedom

As I mentioned last Monday, I decided to spend a week avoiding gluten so I could get a taste of what those diagnosed with Celiac's disease experience. 

Steering clear of wheat was entirely manageable for me. I am not wedded to traditional breakfast foods, so potato slices with curried tuna salad suited me just fine many mornings. I lunched on Trotter's granola with yogurt or chicken rice salad, and dined on soups and stir-fry. Cheese topped daikon or apple slices rather than crackers, peanut butter was consumed straight from the spoon, and cabbage made crunchy chips for dip. Chocolate safely satisfied my sweet tooth.  

this is the way we slice our daikon, by supertrixiecat.

While I didn't suffer much from lack of bread or cookies, partly because I knew I could have them again soon, I was surprised by smaller challenges.I decided from the start that I would follow the spirit of the gluten-free diet rather than the letter. I would avoid obvious manifestations of the protein and make some exceptions for when I was at work. This freed me to eat granola (oats are often contaminated with gluten), taste soups with roux, or test pasta for doneness. 

But after Wednesday's post, I realized that the spirit of the gluten-free diet is total abstention from gluten. I should choose the gluten-free granola. I should brush the bread crumbs off the cutting board before using it. I should check to make sure I'm using wheat-free tamari before I sprinkle it all over the stir-fry. Then I began to understand the full challenge of being really gluten-free.

This experiment has brought all sorts of questions to my attention. For example, my aunt mentioned that a possible hazard of the gluten-free diet is a decrease one's tolerance to gluten. I've found other reasons to think twice about a gluten-free diet, but they will have to wait for another post.

Glutinous Wordy Wednesday

gluten /’glōōtn/ ►n. a substance present in cereal grains, esp. wheat, that is responsible for the elastic texture of dough [16^th C.: via Fr. from L., lit. ‘glue.’]

More technically, gluten is a protein composed of a prolamin (high in the amino acid proline) and a glutelin. In wheat, these are gliadin and glutenin. In barley, the prolamin is hordein; in rye, secalin.

(a) gluten = (b) elastic glutenin + (c) viscous gliadin.
(From H. Charley and C. Weaver. Foods: A Scientific Approach, 3rd ed., 187. 1998.)

These specific peptides (sequences of amino acids that make up a protein) cause all the trouble for those with Celiac’s disease. According to Krause’s Food and Nutrition Therapy, these peptides resist gastrointestinal enzymes and are not completely digested. Thus they are free to set off an autoimmune inflammatory response in a susceptible person, leading to all sorts of ‘mals’: malabsortption, malnutrition, malignancy, not to mention villous atrophy.

I suspect a phrase in that last paragraph jumped out at some of you: “not completely digested.” You’ve been vaguely suspicious of gluten for a while now. Does it really skulk around in our GI tract, dodging digestion?

Apparently, yes. According to the UCSD Wm. K. Warren Medical Research Center for Celiac Disease, “Gluten is resistant to proteolytic [protein-cutting] digestion… This is because there is a relative lack of enzymes with prolyl endopeptidase activity in human small intestine [remember how gluten’s proline-rich?].” In fact, scientists are investigating bacterial endopeptidases that destroy the triggering amino acid sequence in gliadin with hopes of developing an oral supplement, similar to lactase pills.

Does this mean you should extirpate gluten from your diet? I wouldn't say so. However, I have no great love for grains. Whole has a nutrient edge over refined, of course, but a baked potato trumps even brown rice, spaghetti squash beats whole wheat spaghetti, and so on. In caloric terms, a PB&J will have more calories than my childhood favorite, peanut butter on a spoon, even if you dot it with raisins.


Bottom line: Eat more vegetables, substituting them for grains when probable.

Definition from The Oxford College Dictionary, 2nd ed., 2007.

Gluten Free for a Week

I met a nutrition and dietetics student a while ago who inspired me to try an experiment.

In order to gain perspective on those who follow a raw diet, she went raw for a month (January, specifically). This idea percolated in my mind for a few weeks, and after a particularly sandwich-heavy period, I decided  to take a stab at going gluten-free, a transition that a co-worker, a first-cousin-once-removed-in-law, and many, many others have made. I think it will be a valuable experience should I ever counsel patients with Celiac disease.

So beginning today, I will avoid all manifestations of wheat, barley, rye. My hypothesis, given my trial run of the past couple days, is that I will eat more vegetables, especially potatoes and sweet potatoes.

Tune in next Monday for full results.