I know this title may ruffle some feathers but I have to be honest, this ‘trend’ of going gluten free does my head in.

So you may or may not know gluten is the protein found in some grains such as wheat, barley, rye and some oats. It can be a little tough to digest and if you have poor gut health, which most of the population do due changes in our lifestyles then some challenges happen in the body.

Imagine your gut is like a house. If all the windows and doors of the house are closed, food stays where it should and the body breaks the food down. The quality of breaking the food down is a whole other topic for another day!

The challenges I see are the ‘windows and doors of the house’ or the gut lining has become pourus due to lifestyle factors such as high carbohydrate diets, exposure to toxins, medications, antibiotics, lack of probiotic foods and gut nourishing foods etc

Proteins such as casein in dairy and gluten in wheat leak through the gut lining or out of the open windows and doors of the house.

So food, that was meant to be in the gut is now in the blood. A few things happen, a couple you might be familiar with are, your body recognises these foreign particles and creates an inflammatory response. You may notice this as your intolerance to these foods. But along with that, these particles have an opiate like structure and can cross the blood brain barrier so you now have these particles acting like opiates in the brain, enter behaviour and mood disorders – and addiction particularly to these foods.

So my beef with going gluten free is that all you are doing is removing the gluten protein so you reduce your symptoms.

But it has not addressed the cause which is poor gut health and holes in the lining leaking particles that are supposed to be staying in the gut.

On top of that, clever food and marketing companies knew this was going to be a trend probably before you had even heard of gluten free and they have cleverly marketed ‘Gluten Free’ products.

I want you to consider for a moment what these ‘Gluten Free’ products are made of. Starch. What does starch do in the gut? It feeds the pathogenic bacteria, so a larger imbalance of bad bugs in the gut, increased toxicity, damaging the gut further.

So what should you do?

1. Yes remove the foods that are leaking through the gut lining and causing you problems
2. Slowly remove the lifestyle factors that have caused the damage to your gut in the first place. Things like household toxins, antibiotics, medications, starch foods.
3. Introduce foods that nourish the gut. Probiotic foods like sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha. Chose vegetables as your source of carbs instead of grains that irritate the gut. Drink bone broth daily to heal and sooth the gut lining.

I’d love to hear your gluten free experience, share below how this info will impact you moving forward.

If you are ready to take your health to the next level, check out our Free 7 day challenge. We not only discuss nutrition that supports gut health, we dive into hormone balance and how it impacts your weight, your energy and how you feel in your body!