Gluten sensitivity is another demon in what seems an endless march of demons entering our lives each day that we eat farther from the Garden of Traditional Foods. Although many of us have become gluten sensitive, that is not the whole story.
Gluten is formed from a combination of naturally occurring proteins in wheat and other grains. In baking, it gives the grain structure. If you can’t digest gluten, chances are good that you are generally not digesting many proteins well. And chances are excellent that your digestive system is not healthy enough to properly digest most protein-rich food. Look into the cause behind gluten sensitivity: years of eating adulterated, refined, processed, bleached grain and flour stripped of most nutritive value.
Meanwhile, gluten is one of the best elements of grain—it’s a healthful protein. And, nutritionally, protein is where the money is. All the pioneers of nutrition warned that the destruction of the staff of life would lead to diseases of malnutrition. During the multi-pronged-attack that grains are put through during commercial processing, the components that exist together in a specific balance are removed, and the gluten alone remains with the starch (carbohydrate). But it remains in an unnatural, concentrated amount and state. When you grow up eating this unnatural, imbalance of gluten protein for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in your sandwiches, cereals, noodles, bread, pasta, chips, and so on, you overdose on an otherwise perfectly natural protein.
Look at it another way: The human body is 65 percent water, but you can drown in water. So, is the water the problem? Gluten is not the root problem. Consuming adulterated foods is the root problem. And the result is the wholesale destruction of the modern Western digestive system. Our immune systems react to the undigested gluten proteins that overwhelm the GI tract and get into the bloodstream, causing an immune reaction to form anti-gluten protein antibodies. Too technical? Try this: If you never eat another mouthful of gluten ever again, you will still have a broken digestive track that needs to be fixed. Sure, you can stop eating every food that you are sensitive or allergic to, but that will not stop your digestive system from being sick. Your food allergy list will simply continue to expand.
Fortunately, there are real answers. Find a health practitioner who is trained in Standard Process nutrition. Read great material like Gut and Psychology Syndrome and this gem by Dr. Royal Lee. Traditional foods, rich in lactic acid and nutrition, feed the gut and keep the demons away.
Stephanie Selene Anderson is Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Selene River Press.
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