Food lifestyles

[Rosemary]

Celiac disease has been around for a long time, but I think that diagnosis is easier now than it was 50 years ago. And increased awareness along with the ease of the blood test probably make physicians more likely to order the test for patients with ongoing digestive issues. Food allergies have been increasing sharply over the past couple of decades, and the cause of this is only speculated, not known. I think there is also more awareness about food quality and the diet/health connection, that results in people avoiding foods that are everyday fare for some (I, for instance, would rather go hungry for a few hours than eat fast food).

My aunt was allergic to wheat, but I don't remember her avoiding it. Likely that she thought it too difficult in her wheat-centered family (immigrants from northern Europe). It contributed to her asthma and respiratory ailments - which ultimately caused her to die suddenly at the age of 39.

[Miss Cellane]

I've read that wheat has changed significantly in the last 60-70 years, as it was bred for certain characteristics. Faster than the human digestive tract could alter to keep up with the changes. That's a current theory on why gluten intolerance and wheat allergies are becoming more and more common.

Because if you look back through history, a large portion of the human race has survived on bread for ages. So it's odd that suddenly, bread is the enemy. But it makes sense if the genetic content of the wheat has changed so that some people can't digest it well.

As for food in general, I think it's the pervasiveness of food additives. High fructose corn syrup is "natural" in that it is derived from corn. But it doesn't exist, by itself, in nature. And I suspect there are other additives that are similar, but we just don't hear about them much.

Consider the artificial sweetener. Some people love them. Other people can't eat them at all because their digestive tracts go haywire when they do--no matter now "natural" the artificial sweetener is. Others think they taste bitter.

Add in that our ideas of nutrition have changed. My grandmother would let her kids eat dessert, even if they hadn't finished their dinner, because Grandma would have made the pudding or cookies or ice cream, and she felt that the eggs and milk in the pudding were healthy and it was worth letting her kids eat it. The sugar wasn't even on her radar. Now, we are faced with a constantly changing list of foods that are healthy and foods that aren't.

And then there are those who are looking for the Magic Bullet--an eating plan that will allow them to live forever, or at least longer than anyone else they know. People will try some odd things in an attempt to be healthier.

All of which means that the dinners my mother prepared, with the best nutritional info she had, would not pass muster today. Pot roast with gravy, mashed potatoes with milk, butter and an egg, vegetables with butter and salt, salad with bottled dressing and bread and butter, and homemade brownies for dessert. Whole milk for the kids and black coffee for the adults.

[miradoblackwarrior]

Hi, all--
There's a book out there called "Wheat Belly" which addresses all of the above. Back in the 70's, the genetic makeup of wheat was tinkered with, producing a "wheat" that was easy to grow and store, but reacted to the body in such a way that people got fatter and fatter, resulting in diabetes, heart disease, etc. I'm still reading it, and, I gotta tell you, I gave up wheat (or, should I say, I'm trying to give it up). I wasn't looking to lose weight or anything, at least at the time, but I am growing more and more wary of the food that we put into our mouths.

This book opened my eyes, and I suggest it for your reading lists. I feel better, and I think I am losing weight. I certainly feel less bulky, and I'm a big girl!

Susan

[ApatheticNoMore]

Wheat has been bred to have more gluten, but really if you're celiac, truly ancient wheat like eikhorn, emmer, and spelt would have too much gluten! (any is too much for celiacs). I often try to avoid wheat and suceed for periods of time, I don't think it has any impact whatsoever on my weight, but maybe on joint soreness (then again eating some wheat doesn't cause this, but if I'm eating it days in a row then yea ...). I've never been tested for celiac, maybe should be someday if it's just a blood test, but I'm not sure how I'd find a doctor that would be willing to do the test, maybe a naturopath.

[Gingerella72]

All of which means that the dinners my mother prepared, with the best nutritional info she had, would not pass muster today. Pot roast with gravy, mashed potatoes with milk, butter and an egg, vegetables with butter and salt, salad with bottled dressing and bread and butter, and homemade brownies for dessert. Whole milk for the kids and black coffee for the adults.

Actually, among "real foodies", what you just described is perfectly healthy (with possibly the exception of the bottled salad dressing). Real food. Not chemical cocktails made in a lab.

[Gingerella72]

There is a blogger, Amber at Go Kaleo, I've started following that is very anti-diet-dogma. She preaches not drinking the diet industry's Kool-Aid and doing your own research to find what works for your unique body, and refusing to feel shame or guilt over it.

One of my favorite of her posts:

"How to tell if your ‘healthy diet’ has crossed the line into disordered thinking:


1. You make fun of, or hang out with people who make fun of, people who make different dietary choices than you do.
2. You use your valuable free time to visit other people’s blogs and argue with them about their dietary choices.
3. You’ve completely eliminated foods from your diet that you enjoy eating, and that you have no intolerance to, because your guru has told you they aren’t ‘optimal’.
4. You experience stress, shame or guilt when you eat (or WANT to eat) something forbidden by your diet.
5. You’ve alienated your real life friends and family by constantly criticizing their dietary choices, and you are ok with that because your ‘real’ family is your group of online friends who share your dietary philosophy.
6. You believe that your diet is the one true ‘optimal’ human diet, and that anyone who makes different dietary choices than you simply hasn’t heard the ‘truth’ yet.
7. You focus on diet to the exclusion of other healthy lifestyle choices like regular exercise, proper sleep, stress management and sunlight, and believe that eating the ‘right’ diet can make up for not practicing those other lifestyle choices.
8. You believe that if you just eat ‘right’ all your health problems will go away, and that if someone is still experiencing health problems on your diet they just aren’t ‘doing it right’.
9. You believe, because you’ve been taught by your guru, that the entire medical establishment is out to get you.
10. When your diet is not producing results you keep on doing it because you’ve convinced yourself that you can’t eat any other way.
Your diet doesn’t have to consume your life, produce stress and shame, and alienate your friends and family. There is another way. Diet is just one aspect of a healthy lifestyle, and if your diet is producing negative emotions in your life, it is not promoting health.

My thoughts about food and nutrition have radically changed in the last couple of years. I used to blindly follow conventional nutrition dogma that low-fat and low-calorie anything was healthy, no matter the source. So I drank skim milk, ate low fat cheese, soy products, margarine, Egg Beaters, felt guilty if I ate over 1800 calories a day, and patted myself on the back for making healthy choices. Then I accidentally stumbled across something that said whole milk is healthier than skim because of what is done to make skim milk, well, skim milk. It turned my whole world upside down because it went against everything that has been programmed into my head for the last 25 years. That led to reading about how soy allergies are on the rise because of the prevalence of soy in everything (including food that soy has no business being in, like chocolate and Coke!) and that, too, blew my mind. I started delving into how insidious our industrial food supply has become and how we, the consumer, has been totally duped into thinking all of this crap is healthy.

And in hindsight, how in the world were we convinced that something like margarine is healthier than butter? Margarine - a highly processed concoction of chemicals that have to be made in a lab, versus butter - a totally natural food that can be made in your own kitchen and that mankind has eaten, without harm, for centuries. Thanks to the oil industry which lobbied the USDA to hawk the nutritional value of their "vegetable" oil (which is just a concoction of soy and cottonseed oil) based on faulty science claiming that saturated fat causes heart disease (it doesn't). They didn't give one snit about the health of the nation - they just wanted to sell more oil. And so it is across the board in all of our industrialized food.

The only dietary dogma I follow now is eating real food as much as possible. I eat butter. I drink whole milk (and would drink raw if I could get it). I eat bacon, and saute vegetables in its drippings. I eat as much organic produce as I'm able to source. I eat whole eggs. I eat bread and other grains (organic when possible). I eat meat, as locally and sustainably sourced as I can get, but if it's not always grass-fed and organic, I don't freak out and skip it. I make as much food from scratch as I can, but don't feel guilty or ashamed if we eat out once in awhile.

If you check out Go Kaleo's blog, be sure to follow her on Facebook too - a lot of very interesting discussions about health and nutrition take place there.

[JaneV2.0]

Very sound advice; I can't argue with it. Or with "...not drinking the diet industry's Kool-Aid and doing your own research to find what works for your unique body, and refusing to feel shame or guilt over it."

[Dhiana]

To serve a satisfying dinner for a lot of guests with varying food needs and choices I do a build-your-own meal such as burritos. With all the side choices provided there is always something for everyone. Can't eat the gluten in the burrito shells? That's ok, just put your ingredients on the rice or the spinach. There's refried beans, salsa, mango, fresh chopped tomatos, spinach, cheese, sautéed onion & peppers, sautéed chicken, even fresh strawberries & blueberries that you can put on a burrito shell with a smear of cream cheese.
Dishes that are made are cooked with the least amount of ingredients possible for ease of creation and for the comfort of my guests.

I really, really hate the idea of a guest should just eat what is put in front of them. As a host I would feel just awful if a guest felt they had to eat something they didn't like just because they were a guest. Hence the build-your-own concept

[Dhiana]

I hear ya, too....it DOES feel like a hobby or sport or something sometimes, with a tinge of superiority at times from those who think their way of eating is THE way. Ugh.

The latest thing I heard from a friend of a friend is how BAD, I mean TERRIBLE soy is for you, unless it's fermented. Has anyone heard this?

Soy is BAD? Yes and No. There are millions of Japanese here that seem to be doing just fine For me personally, it is just evil! As a vegetarian I've eaten a fair amount of tofu and soy milk over the years. Not too often but enough for me to realize that the plant estrogens were creating very heavy periods the months I was happened to have a tofu meal. In the land of tofu, I do my very best to limit my soy intake.
I'm also someone who had very bad reactions to the hormones in the Pill so it makes sense and I should have made the connection years earlier!

This could all be good news for me during menopause...we'll see

[JaneV2.0]

I've had more than my share of soy over the years, but it's a highly-processed, thyroid antagonistic, and often GMO product with a huge environmental impact, plus it tastes like putty. Other than that...