Corn Is Evil

Image by . SantiMB . via Flickr

We stopped trying to eat gluten in our house 10 months ago. We made many mistakes since the gluten-loving food industry sneaks gluten into products you would never expect to find gluten in, such as soy sauce. Just last night I ate a delicious gluten-free meal at P.F. Chang's and they brought me out some gluten-free soy sauce and it tasted so much better than the "normal" gluten-rich soy sauce. Why oh why would someone even think to add gluten to soy sauce?
After I started gaining a small measure of my energy back sans gluten, my husband and I decided to remove all caseins (the protein source in dairy) from our diets. I have learned the hard way that if you have an issue with gluten, you are very likely to have an issue with caseins as well. We did. Good-bye dairy.

We both slowly started feeling healthier than we had in years but still we both felt bloaty and still tired, especially in the afternoons. I happened to gain a significant and life-changing chunk of wisdom from an Austin pharmacist whom I called when I became concerned that my adrenal medicine might have dairy in it.

The pharmacist listened to my concerns and then asked me about corn. Was I still eating corn, he asked? I wasn't just eating corn, I was shoving in it as fast as I got my hands on it since it was serving as the one source I used to replace bread. I was eating corn tortillas like they were going out of production the very next minute.

The kindly pharmacist told me that corn is mostly genetically modified these days and most people have trouble digesting it. He recommended that I stop ingesting corn immediately. We did, and that meant another clearing out of the pantry. My God, what doesn't have corn starch in it????

We removed all the corn and corn-like products from our house and from our menus.

And then something miraculous started happening. It happened to my husband first. He was downright jolly in the afternoons, when we would normally be sagging and tired. He was singing and dancing in the kitchen and he started going on long walks again with our dogs. I noticed his increase in energy and I was very happy for him, but I wasn't there yet.

Weeks went by before I sat up one day and realized that I am never tired in the afternoons anymore. I even started singing and dancing and while fun, I am tone deaf so my apologies to anyone who has to listen to me sing. Next thing I knew, I was working out with a DVD I months ago with a trainer deemed "the toughest trainer in America." I haven't had the physical strength to work out for a decade.

Your energy level fades away slowly and you don't really notice it leaving, especially if you do what I did, and that is to prop yourself up with caffeine and sugar in the afternoons. Just as my energy level sagged over the past 10 years, it is now slowly creeping back in. I would do anything to feel vibrantly healthy again and to reclaim my long ago status as that of an athlete. Adding corn to the "will never eat again" column was easy.

Good-bye corn. I do not even miss you.

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