When you’re affected by gluten, other food intolerances or allergies, to the point where your health is negatively affected, you’re far more likely to be sensitive to food additives that have digestive problems as side effects.
50% of those who suffer from Celiac disease continue to have digestive problems after going gluten free. Some of that is from eating hidden gluten, but a big portion of that will also be other common allergens, along with any food additive with digestive effects, which is most of them.
There are many of us who’ve successfully managed to rid ourselves of a lot of digestive problems associated with Celiac disease by getting back to basics, and preparing our own meals from scratch.
Why We Have Problems Realizing What We Eat Isn’t Healthy
In our modern era, we really have gotten far too used to buying too much-prepared food. The line of what people think is ok food has shifted a long way in the last hundred years. It used to be that if food came in virtually any form other than straight from the field, it was considered processed. Now, many people really think that if the package says it’s “healthy” or “natural” or “whole” or any number of other “positive” descriptions, it somehow can be considered to not be counted as processed.
The reality is that much of what we’re told about food comes from the marketing and public relations departments, and not from any legitimate factual data. Many things that we’re told are never questioned. Just because we’re told something about some food product doesn’t mean we should blindly accept it.
The High Cost of Convenience, and the Sad Price You’ll Pay
Another area that’s gotten out of control, in my opinion, is convenience. It’s so bad that many people really have a hard time if they have to spend more than 5 to 10 minutes in the kitchen preparing their food.
This convenience comes at a very high price. The biggest price is the deterioration in our health. Deteriorating health takes time to really show up, and there’s really very few people looking into the root cause of most health ailments.
There are plenty of people looking into new, expensive drugs to treat symptoms. But there’s a lot less people looking into the root causes, and how to truly prevent these chronic diseases.
Those that have found some root causes, often related to diet decisions, simply don’t have the marketing budgets to get their results widely known. Even when they do, the processed food manufacturers and the pharmaceutical companies wage a counter campaign that pretty much silences any useful research.
Many times I’ve joined discussions on websites and forums, to discuss some new findings. There will often be some “trolls” who sound so sciency and official countering with the “company line.”
These people are lying, or twisting the truth, or insulting anyone who is promoting a truly more healthy way of eating, but it takes hours of countering their arguments back and forth to finally show that they’re not telling the truth.
Unfortunately, very few people would have the diligence to follow these kinds of threads that often get extremely long.
Why We’ve Lost Touch With Our Food
Our modern world has really removed us from our food, our connection to where food comes from and how it’s prepared. We’ve lost our perspective with what truly is actual food.
Real food doesn’t come in plastic shrink wrap, styrofoam, a plastic container, a box, or any kind of packaging. A containers purpose should solely be to allow transporting it in it’s raw or close to raw state. Such as a bag to hold apples, or a tray to hold blueberries, or even a bag to hold a chicken or a slab of meat.
There are some suitable food that is only limited processed that is acceptable. Such as pure butter, made ONLY from cream. Or some cheeses made from ONLY cheese ingredients, and not colorings and stabilizers, etc. Or ground seeds, such as grains (if you eat grains), or nuts, etc.
How to Gain Control of Your Meals
Learning the basics of how food should be prepared is a good place to start, if you happen to have somehow lost touch with your food.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to always prepare absolutely everything from scratch, but you should at least understand some of the process. This will allow you to make informed decisions on what to buy, and particularly what not to buy.
When you understand that soup should have only a few edible ingredients in it, you quickly realize that what’s sold in a can, virtually every can, is not food. It’s part food, and part chemical preservatives and flavoring to cover the bland, boiled to death food.
The reality is that pre-prepared, processed food tastes terrible, and the only way to make it palatable is to load it up with fake flavors, and fake stabilizers, so it doesn’t deteriorate into a mushy, pasty mess.
Simple Steps to Get Started
If you’re new to preparing your own meals, start simple, if you find it too daunting. As you get used to it, you can add some complexity and new flavor experiences.
Prepare a simple protein, whether it’s meat or some beans. Boil up some vegetables. If you don’t like them plain, then add some fresh herbs. Add some potatoes or steamed rice. Prepare a salad with 3 or 4 veggies, and make a simple shaken salad dressing.
This is a great start, and will get you more used to the kitchen. If you really are new to cooking, there are some great resources available that will teach what all the food preparation techniques are. Here are a few, and you can also search for similar terms in a search engine, and even on YouTube, which can be an unbelievably good resource to learn exactly how to prepare food.
CooksRecipes.com – Cooking & Recipe Tips & How-To’s
Real Simple – Food – Cooking Tips & Techniques
The Spruce – Cooking Terms and Techniques for Absolute Beginners
Teri’s Kitchen – Cooking Glossary
Over time, you’ll learn more and can then confidently expand your meals to include a lot more variety.
Cheers!
Thora Toft
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Further Details to Help You Build New Habits – from Thora Toft’s Site – Feast for Freedom
When you’re ready to add a bit of variety, check out the Recipe Section at Feast for Freedom here:
https://feast-for-freedom.com/cook/recipes
Get the FREE “Gluten Free Eat Real Quick Start Guide,” that includes a free Membership. Membership allows you to gain access to all of the recipes, and more Tips and Tricks on eating real and eating gluten free.
https://feast-for-freedom.com/
And start Creating… and of course, start Eating… great tasting, homemade food, you get to make yourself!
Research and Sources
SCD Lifestyle – The Toxic Truth About Gluten-Free Food and Celiac Disease
Verywell – Do You Still Have Symptoms, Even Though You’re Gluten-Free?
Verywell – Gluten vs. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS): Which Is It?
Celiac.com – Additives And Preservatives
