I’m starting an experiment this week: Trying to go gluten-free. Or at least bread-free. OK, gluten-free. Actually, OK, I’m going to try to minimize my exposure to gluten. (As I wrote this, our neighbors delivered a slice of custard-and-apple pie.)
I’ve suspected I might do better without gluten for a few years now -- ever since I did the food experiment that helped me find my citrus issues. I don't think I'm gluten intolerant, or that I have celiac disease -- as I feel otherwise fine. But during the week where I skipped gluten, I felt amazing. I dropped a lot of foods during that week, of course (so I could slowly add them back the next week) -- dairy, wheat, any white flour, eggs, corn, peanuts, bananas, beef, tomatoes, potatoes, oranges, soy, chocolate, pork, sugar (including all candy), yeasts. (I also avoided alcohol and caffeine, save for a spare glass of red wine or cup of black tea.) But that’s a laundry list of suspected irritants that seems impossible to eliminate completely from my daily intake -- even more so when you consider that many of those things listed are either favorites of mine (chocolate?!) or so integrated into what I currently eat (eggs).
So I’ll start experimenting with gluten.
Why now? I read yet another article this weekend (in The New Yorker) in which an athlete, this time Novak Djokovic, is revealed to be someone who avoids gluten. I don’t know that I buy into the diagnosis method Djokovic’s doctor used -- but the concept of avoiding gluten is still food for fodder, so to speak. And as I’ve been feeling oh-so-tired after my workouts this summer, I’m open to new possibilities at the moment.
So off to the gluten-free (as much as possible) races we go. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
I’ve suspected I might do better without gluten for a few years now -- ever since I did the food experiment that helped me find my citrus issues. I don't think I'm gluten intolerant, or that I have celiac disease -- as I feel otherwise fine. But during the week where I skipped gluten, I felt amazing. I dropped a lot of foods during that week, of course (so I could slowly add them back the next week) -- dairy, wheat, any white flour, eggs, corn, peanuts, bananas, beef, tomatoes, potatoes, oranges, soy, chocolate, pork, sugar (including all candy), yeasts. (I also avoided alcohol and caffeine, save for a spare glass of red wine or cup of black tea.) But that’s a laundry list of suspected irritants that seems impossible to eliminate completely from my daily intake -- even more so when you consider that many of those things listed are either favorites of mine (chocolate?!) or so integrated into what I currently eat (eggs).
So I’ll start experimenting with gluten.
Why now? I read yet another article this weekend (in The New Yorker) in which an athlete, this time Novak Djokovic, is revealed to be someone who avoids gluten. I don’t know that I buy into the diagnosis method Djokovic’s doctor used -- but the concept of avoiding gluten is still food for fodder, so to speak. And as I’ve been feeling oh-so-tired after my workouts this summer, I’m open to new possibilities at the moment.
So off to the gluten-free (as much as possible) races we go. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
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