National Gluten-Free Month I

I knew what gluten-free meant and even the symptoms of celiac disease, but needed a little help to tell you all about the issue that affects thousands of Americans. In honor of National Gluten -Free Month, we'll celebrate by learning a lit about the disease, as well as some scrumptious recipes....tasty whether or not you can eat gluten-based products!

6 Easy Ways to Eat Gluten-Free and Feel Better
by Lisa Truesdale

Got gluten?

You might wish you didn’t.

Gluten is a generic name for the storage protein found in grains; in wheat, for instance, it's called gliadin. Gluten basically binds starches together; it's the stuff that makes dough, well… doughy.

If you regularly feel uncomfortable after a gluten-rich meal (like pasta and bread), gluten could be the culprit. “Uncomfortable” can mean anything from feeling slightly bloated and gassy (mild gluten sensitivity) to much more severe symptoms like excruciating cramps, vomiting, migraines, dizziness, even loss of consciousness — signs that you may have celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that is the most serious form of gluten intolerance.

“Problems with gluten are widely under-diagnosed,” says Mark Hyman, M.D., author of The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First and creator of Gaiam's UltraMind Solution Club. “The most serious gluten-related problem, celiac disease, affects 1 in 100 people or 3 million Americans, most of which are not diagnosed.”

Wheat is not in the gluten-free diet!

“People with gluten sensitivity don’t have the long-term and ongoing damage to the villi of the small intestine that people with celiac disease have; once gluten is removed from the diet, the symptoms go away,” says Melissa McLean Jory, a master nutrition therapist and yoga teacher who writes the blog at www.glutenfreeforgood.com. “But gluten is hard to break down, period, for all of us.”

Although you might not even know it’s making you sick, gluten intolerance is linked to many ailments, including seizures, swelling, intestinal problems, lowered immunity, adrenal exhaustion and thyroid problems. “Other studies have linked eating gluten to everything from depression and anxiety to schizophrenia, autism and even dementia,” notes Dr. Hyman.

Allison Sampish, a kindergarten teacher from Fort Worth, Texas, spent decades not knowing what was causing her painful symptoms. “I remember in middle school I was always not feeling well,” she says. “I had all kinds of tests but they never found much.” Finally, in 2001, her new gastrologist suggested eliminating gluten from her diet for two weeks to see how she felt. She did, and it worked, and she has been happily gluten-free since.

“The diet is a lot easier to follow now than it was at first,” she admits. “Maybe it’s because I have a core group of foods that I eat, or maybe because it’s also getting a lot more common to find gluten-free foods in ‘normal’ grocery stores and restaurants.”

Gluten-Free Banana Bread

This bread was made with quinoa flour and almond meal, you can easily replace the quinoa with for example rice flour.The butter used here can also be replaced with vegetable oil, if you want to make this dairy-free.

Dry ingredients

-1 cup quinoa flour

-1 cup ground almonds

-2 tsp (gluten-free) baking powder

-1 tsp cinnamon

-1 tsp ground cardamom

- a pinch of nutmeg

-1 cup unrefined sugar, or brown sugar, or half a cup of maple syrup

-a pinch of salt

Wet ingredients

-3 eggs

-3 very ripe bananas

-1 tsp vanilla extract

-1/2 cup melted butter, or vegetable oil

Heat an oven to 340F

Grease a bread pan and sprinkle some almond meal on it, or just line it with baking paper, this will make it easier to take the bread out of the pan. Mix the wet ingredients together and mix the dry ingredients together.

Combine these two without over mixing them. Bake for approximately 1 hour or until a toothpick comes out clean. The bread is edible right away, but it will be more firm after cooling.