Post Cards from the Edge

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I caught the last half of that movie, "Post Cards from the Edge" the other night. If you haven't seen it, it was written by Princess Leia, er, I mean Carrie Fisher. She tells the sad tale of her and her mother's addiction to drugs, alcohol and craziness. You probably have heard of her mother -- Debbie Reynolds?

A line in the movie made me shiver. Debbie Reynolds (played by Shirley McClaine) is in the hospital after she pulled a Tiger Woods and rammed her expensive car into a tree. Carrie Fisher (played by Meryl Streep) is getting her mom gussied up in the hospital since the press is lurking outside. Debbie Reynolds starts penciling in her eyebrows . . . she has no eyebrows!!

She said they never grew back after the Studio shaved them for a film. NO EYEBROWS! Even though they were shaved, they should have grown back in a healthy person. Hers did not. This shouts "THYROID PROBLEM."

I know this as I have lost the outer edges of my eyebrows. They will never grow back. It didn't have to happen but I lost 10 years of health and my life wasting my time (and my eyebrows) going to doctors who flat out refused to believe that I had a thyroid issue. I did, and my eyebrows tell the tale. I know now that my gluten intolerance was the starting point of my failing thyroid gland.

I often think about other famous people who make or made headlines. I especially think about Texan Anna Nicole Smith. Wish I could see a photo of her with no make up on. I am certain she would have no eyebrows . . .

When you see or hear about people doing crazy things with their lives, like drinking themselves nearly to death, take a moment and question if a gluten problem plays a role. I think many folks try to make themselves physically feel better by drinking, smoking or gorging on carbs. It doesn't give them a free pass to be stupid and drive drunk, etc, but it could help explain why so many people reach for the bottle, when they should instead be putting down that piece of bread.

Autism and the Gluten Connection

We don't have children, and that was a conscious decision Jeff and I made together. If I did have a child and he/she had Autism, I know I would be beside myself with worry for that child twenty-four seven.

There is -- sadly -- a decent chance that our child could have/would have suffered from Austism. Autism, like Celiac's Disease, is on the rise. Autism Spectrum Disorder affects 1 in 150 children today with a new diagnosis being made every 20 minutes. Read this blog, get up and make yourself some hot tea, let your dogs outside, check in on Facebook and 20 minutes have gone by before you know it. And in that time, another child will receive the diagnosis of Austism.

Celiac's Disease is increasing as well. And how. A study from the Mayo Clinic (and several other partners) concluded that young people today are more than 4 times more likely to have Celiac's Disease than were young people in the 1950's.

What else is on the rise for unlucky kids today? Fatness. Super fatness, actually. Obesity rates for all of us, but particularly for children, are increasing by the moment.

Yet scientists still scratch their collective brain and say they can't say for sure tell us why any of the above is happening. I will give them a hint:

OUR FOOD IS UNHEALTHY

Do we really need years and years of study to figure this one out?

We can feed more people cheaper on the front end of food production now more than ever. Only problem is, on the back end, more and more of us are suffering from debilitating immune disorders.

I feel for parents with children who have Austism, Celiac's or who are obese. I feel worse for the children themselves. I wish I could scoop them all up and feed them whole foods with no gluten, dairy, corn or any of the other top food allergens.

I wish some parents would stop waiting for "a miracle cure" and act now for the health of their children. I wish restaurants would wake up and realize that there are millions of us with immune problems and special diets with cash on hand to eat out. We would flock to your restaurants if you made us safe food.

I wish most of all that the medical establishment would WAKE UP and look at food as a primary starting point of so very many autoimmune diseases.

I guess today is a day of wishful thinking.

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10 Things I Like About Being Gluten, Dairy and Corn-free

1. Give me a minute, I am sure I will be able to think of something.

2. You can't eat mindlessly anymore.

3. I am eating healthier than I ever have in my entire life.

4. Most things with gluten in them are just empty calories with no real nutrition.

5. Okay, there are only five things.

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Ten Things I Hate about Being Gluten, Dairy and Corn-free

1. It is hard to find safe food, fast (you can forget about drive thru's!)

2. I love the smell and taste of fresh bread. Sometimes I think a loaf of Italian bread might be worth the long-term bad health it will bring me. (it isn't)

3. People feel sorry for me, including myself.

4. You can't eat mindlessly anymore.

5. Restaurants are no longer fun but are in fact fairly dangerous to my health.

6. What is left to eat????

7. People tend to think "a little" won't hurt me. (it will)

8. I look normal on the inside but have an abnormal and non-fun reaction to wheat, dairy and corn on the inside.

9. I love baked desserts!

10. I miss yogurt. And cheese.

Here's What We Eat

Every day someone I know tells me they could never go without bread.

Or cheese.

Or corn.

You could, I always tell them, if you knew that it was slowly killing you. And it is slowly killing about 144 million of us.

I also get asked a lot: what the hell is there left to eat when you eliminate gluten, dairy and corn?

I thought I'd share a typical day of food we eat at our house. We do venture out to restaurants now and again but feel safest about the food we prepare at home. I am not going to include recipes since there are countless blogs, websites and gluten and dairy-free cookbooks to find great recipes in. If you see something you like, I am happy to send you a recipe.

Here is what we ate just yesterday:

Breakfast
Omelet with fresh green peppers and onions, hot sauce and bacon

Snack
apple
sweet potato chips

Lunch
Gluten free crackers and peanut butter (lot's of peanut butter!)
mini organges

Snack
pecans

Dinner
Gluten and dairy-free fried Cod
Mixed green salad with strawberries, sunflower seeds, tomatoes + gluten free dressing

After Dinner Snack
Giant Marshmallows (sometimes I put them on gluten free graham crackers)

Not a difficult day of eating at all. In fact the fried cod was better than any I had ever had.

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I have not tested myself for Celiac's Disease and here's why

I have not taken any of the numerous blood tests that one can take to see if I actually have Celiac's Disease. I could have Celiac's, though I suspect I am one of the 144 million Americans who have a gluten sensitivity.

Here is the rationale behind my decision not to test.

It was my caring Ear Nose Throat (ENT) doc who suggested to me last April that I quit gluten. She knew that I was hypothyroid and that I was still suffering from fatigue and other thyroid issues. She herself stopped eating gluten and felt better than she had in years. She recommended that I read "Gluten-Free Girl," and I ordered that book the day I got home from my appointment. Then I ordered 10 more books to get up to speed on gluten and all of its evils.

One thing my ENT told me is that she wasn't getting herself tested for Celiac's because she did not have faith in the reliability of any of the current tests available. She stopped eating gluten and slowly regained her own health. I did the same.

In the Celiac community, a lot of folks consider a small intestine biopsy to be the "gold standard" test. Yet even that test can leave you wondering if you have Celiac's or not. A normal biopsy does not necessarily exclude Celiac's Disease for life.

You can see if you have genetic markers for Celiac's but many feel there are too many false positives and false negatives. You can also have "Latent Celiac's Disease" where you have a negative test that turns positive several months or years later.

So why test at all???

To me, the proof is in the gluten-free pudding (which also has no dairy, of course!). I stopped eating gluten and then dairy (and as of today no more corn) and I felt better. Day by day, I am getting stronger and wiser.

If you do stop all gluten, then you can't later take the tests.

I do have some exciting news on the testing issue. I learned just this morning from a highly reliable pharmacist that a company called Nature Source is unveiling 6 new highly sensitive tests for gluten sensitivity in June. I will wait for those and take them, even though I have quit gluten.

It is a personal decision to test or not to test. Some people want to get a definitive answer. I don't think there really is a "for sure" answer, other than that age-old answer of listening to your body. If you feel better without gluten, avoid it like the plague. Same with dairy. Same with genetically modified corn. . . .

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What Is Left to Eat?????

It is beyond difficult to know what to cook for dinner -- or really any meal -- if you know that diary and gluten are poisonous to your system.

When you first figure out you can't have gluten, it is shocking, and then depressing. In that order. Then as you get a handle on the gluten issues, you learn that 80% of people who have a problem with gluten also have a problem with the proteins in dairy called caseins. So cheese, butter, yogurt, even many chips are out as they sneak in diary products.

So what's left to eat?

At first you feel you will have to subsist on eggs (if you aren't also allergic to them!), nuts, fruits and veggies and meat. And not much else.

But if you start to look closely at the grocery store, you will be pleased to find there are actually gluten and dairy-free baking goods in most stores. Some of them don't even suck. A few even taste better than the gluten stuff.

What you probably will soon realize is that the main problem with going gluten and dairy-free is that you have to seriously think before you eat ANYTHING. You may do what we did and stop eating out for months as you get used to your new reality. You might also start gaining weight as you feel sorry for yourself and load up on the good-bad stuff you can still eat, like corn chips.

You also see early on that there are no more fast foods in your diet, say other than a piece of fruit. But to have the fresh fruit, you need to go to the store a lot more often than when you relied on processed foods that lived for months or even years in your pantry.

But you will venture out again, wiser and healthier.

What is the alternative, after all?

Breaking News: New Study Points to Gluten and Dairy as Causes of Autism

I just caught this information on the evening news. I will research and post what I learn.

If you have a child who is autistic -- or know someone who does -- please STOP feeding them gluten and dairy products.

You have nothing to lose and possibly everything to gain.

More to come . . . . now back to my dinner prep. Gluten free stuffed baked sweet potatoes and fresh peas! I am boiling eggs as a back up in case I ruin the potatoes.

I can't really cook!!

PS: I believe I have found a link to the study referenced in the evening news tonight.

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I Got Glutined

I don't know how it happened but I clearly have gotten some of the nasty stuff in my system.

It is a bit disheartening to have gotten thru all the holidays and not have ingested any gluten . . . only to have had some somewhere in the past day or so.

That's the hardest part of having a gluten sensitivity: not trusting the food you eat and always, always having to be a food detective.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what it may have been. I now suspect it could have been the bar-b-cue sauce I had with a restaurant meal yesterday. I now feel stupid for consuming it . . .

It was my fist gluten poisoning of 2010 and I hope it is the last for months and months to come.

Great article on-line article about gluten

My brother sent me this outstanding article on gluten and its devastating affect on so many of us.

Please take a minute or three to read this important article. It is written by an M.D. That way those of you who may be doubting what a lay person such as myself is saying about gluten . . . well, you can hear it straight from the horse's mouth (so to speak).

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