The Kingdom, The Power, and The Gluten-Free, Part 2

I fucked up.

Having diagnosed myself as gluten-free, I quickly began a series of tests. New diets are always exciting for my temperamental stomach. I get to try out foods. And try out, I did. Can I eat ice cream? Can I eat sugar? Can I eat meat? Do I want to?

No, no, no and NO.

If you were to see me walking down the street, you could tell that food did not agree with me this week. My stomach is protruding in that way it does. While the whole of my physique has been (finally!) slimming down, reacting to rigorous visits to the Y and being gluten-free, my middle section does not follow suit. I look bloated. I look like a root beer barrel.

What's worse - I feel like a root beer barrel. Fat and stout and stuck on the floor.

I know, I know, I hear you. Get thee to the GASTROENTEROLOGY! My insurance card came in the mail on Friday. Tuesday morning, I will make the call. We shall solve this mystery sooner than later. Or perhaps later than later, considering the length of my mother's doctor's waiting lists. Either way. With imagination, I'll get there.

In the meantime, I've come up with a brand new hypothesis.

I think my body is speaking to me. It's saying: Hey Farty, I'd like to stick around for a while. I'd like to live a long and happy life. Therefore, anytime you eat something that's bad for you, I'm going to punish you, so you stop. Eventually you'll get the picture. I will be patient, but persistent. Let's hope you get the message soon.

Stomach protruding. Message received.

My loud-mouthed bod cannot take all the credit though. There's also John Robbins, heir to the Baskin-Robbins fortune, whose book, "Healthy at 100" I am currently reading.

Robbins grew up on a diet of ice cream. He grew up sick. Post-college, he abandoned the Baskin-Robbins company, and set out to learn and preach healthy eating and ecology. Today, he's in his fifties, and understandably more interested in health and aging, as well as how food and diet impacts longevity.

In the first four chapters of "Healthy at 100," Robbins references studies done on the four longest-living peoples on Earth. They are the Abkhasians of Russia, the Vilcabambas of the Andes in Ecuador, the Hunzas of Pakistan, and the Okinawans of Japan. They live past 100. Some live as old as 130.

Who would want to live that long? I mean, from the American perspective, old age is synonymous with misery and degeneration, hospitalization and chronic disease, right?

The people of Abkhasia, Vicabamba, Hunza, and Okinawa don't suffer from any of the same diseases as Americans do. They don't spend their last years in a hospital. They are active. They go to work every day. They garden. They climb mountains. They have sex. They don't have heart attacks. In Okinawa, women are not tested for breast cancer. It just doesn't happen.

Diet is a huge part of their success. Guess what they eat? A 99% plant-based diet.

Only the Abkhasians and Okinawans eat animal products. For breakfast, the Abkhasians indulge in fermented cow, goat, or sheep's milk. Yogurt, basically. The Okinawans do eat meat, but it's mostly fish, and it comprises a measly 11% of their diet. All four cultures get their protein from nuts, the carbs from whole grains, and their veggies fresh from the garden.

Because they eat better, they feel better. They don't mind growing old. They also don't stress as much. They don't seek comfort in food.

This past week, I dove into a mug of Breyers for exactly that reason: comfort. In the back of my mind was the test: let's see if I can eat this, now that I'm gluten-free. But really, honestly, I was stressed.

I hear from friends often, that they'd love to change their eating habits, but they don't want to give up comfort foods. My reply is this: Can you come up with a substitute? Because really, true comfort comes from going to bed feeling satisfied, not overly full, knowing that you will grow old gracefully. That, and knowing the person sleeping next to you doesn't have to smell your farts.

Girl Gone Gluten-Free, Part 1

This past Monday night, I sat in a small sushi restaurant in Brookline, Massachusetts with my friends the Dudgeons. The four of us picked at a largplatter - raw fish for Cy and Peter, avacado and sweet potato for Kate and me. There was only one problem. The sweet potato sushi came doused in soy sauce.

Soy sauce is one of the many hidden sources of gluten. There's gluten-free soy sauce out there, but this place didn't have it.

My chopsticks hung in the air. "Should I eat them?" I asked.

"It's probably only a little bit," said Peter.

"Yeah, you're right," I said, and dived in.

Even if there is only a little bit of gluten in soy sauce, that little bit flamed through my guts like a blowtorch. It wasn't painful; it just bloated me up like a balloon and proceeded to turn everything I ate into good ol' school nasty assplosions. Thank God I drove up and back to Boston alone. Three days later, I'm finally starting to be able to eat again. With the help of a little Gas X.

Most people think that going gluten-free means staying away from wheat. Wrong. There are so many places that gluten hides out. Here are some of the most secret.

1. medicine
2. vitamins
3. natural flavor
4. salad dressing
5. malt
6. soy products
7. garlic and onion salt
8. lotions and chapstick
9. shampoo, conditioner, soap
10. modified food starch
11. hydrolized vegetable protein
12. vegetable gum
13. malt vinegar
14. vitamin E
15. beer

Basically, if a food isn't labeled as gluten-free, there's a risk.

Even for the gluten-tolerant, it's important to know what ingredients are in your food. It's also impossible to know for sure. Even a term as simple as "vegetable gum" tosses around in my head, without a clear cut definition. I think I know what it means... it's like gummy stuff that comes from vegetables right?

Check out this definition that I found on www.foodadditives.com.

The thickeners are modified food starch or certain vegetable gums. When these thickeners are added to the beverage, they absorb the fluid and the fluid thickens. Breaking down the starches reverses the thickening action and almost all water in the beverage is available as free fluid for absorption by the body. If the thickening agent is vegetable gum, it will continue to hold water even during digestion. Thus a vegetable based thickening agent may reduce fluid availability to the body. Commonly used thickening agents are pectin, agar-agar, lignin, algin, and gums.

All gums are polysaccharides, that is similar to sugars but with many sugar units making up a large molecule. They are bland in taste, odour less and tasteless. They may have a nutritional quality besides the primary function but they certainly help in digestion and may be used as laxatives.

And I still don't have a clue what vegetable gum is.

This is what I think about when I think about the fact that I can no longer indulge in yummy breads, salad dressings, soy ice cream, pumpkin beer. My diet is more constrictive than ever. But I can't say that I mind. There's a certain peace of mind that comes with knowing that my food is food, made from the ground, not in a stainless steel laboratory.