Yeah, I cut out gluten out of sheer necessity 13 years ago. But I'm now learning that, unless we have celiac disease, it's not a healthy long term strategy as it reduces the diversity in our gut microbiome. So I'm slowly reintroducing sprouted versions of several gluten containing grains, knowing that, if I need to, I can switch back to gluten free anytime to give my body a break before continuing the process again.
OOh that's interesting. Do you have any articles that you have found particularly enlightening in this regard that you could share? I mean, for now, being gluten-free is doing wonders for our kids so it needs to be the strategy in place for us, but it is always useful to be armed with as much info as possible. I wonder if there is another way to replace the missing gut microbiome that gluten specifically provides?
I don't have any handy, but I've resolved to do better at capturing links each time one of my gut health mentors mention a research study because I find them so hard to find on my own.
Definitely hear you that it's a strategy for now. I was so grateful to be put on a gluten free diet at the time because I was in so much pain I couldn't function. So I hear you.
And to clarify, it's not the gluten itself that I think we need, it's that cutting out all those wonderful wholegrains that happen to contain gluten that is the issue.
It might be that if you were really diligent about consuming a wide range of non-glutenous grains (buckwheat, quinoa, brown and red rice and other rice types, etc) that you may get enough diversity on the grain front that it doesn't matter. Doing this would put you ahead of many other people health-wise because most people are not getting enough fibre or enough diversity of plants.
So I think that's they key here that I more want to convey: (Slowly) increasing plant diversity and (slowly) increasing fibre intake leads to the best health outcomes. (Again, there are several high quality research studies on both these but I need to collect them so I can reference them!)
But to summarise what I've heard shared several times:
Aim for a minimum of 30 different types of plants per week &
Make sure you're getting more than the RDI of fibre for your sex - from plants not supplements (the RDI's are the bare minimum and most western countries are not getting anywhere near the bare minimum)
The two people who I have found so far who teach this the best (read the latest nutrition research and then translate it for laypeople into simple and easy to understand takeaways) are Simon Hill (in Australia) and Dr Will Bulsiewicz (in USA).
Oh, good!
Yeah, I cut out gluten out of sheer necessity 13 years ago. But I'm now learning that, unless we have celiac disease, it's not a healthy long term strategy as it reduces the diversity in our gut microbiome. So I'm slowly reintroducing sprouted versions of several gluten containing grains, knowing that, if I need to, I can switch back to gluten free anytime to give my body a break before continuing the process again.
OOh that's interesting. Do you have any articles that you have found particularly enlightening in this regard that you could share? I mean, for now, being gluten-free is doing wonders for our kids so it needs to be the strategy in place for us, but it is always useful to be armed with as much info as possible. I wonder if there is another way to replace the missing gut microbiome that gluten specifically provides?
I don't have any handy, but I've resolved to do better at capturing links each time one of my gut health mentors mention a research study because I find them so hard to find on my own.
Definitely hear you that it's a strategy for now. I was so grateful to be put on a gluten free diet at the time because I was in so much pain I couldn't function. So I hear you.
And to clarify, it's not the gluten itself that I think we need, it's that cutting out all those wonderful wholegrains that happen to contain gluten that is the issue.
It might be that if you were really diligent about consuming a wide range of non-glutenous grains (buckwheat, quinoa, brown and red rice and other rice types, etc) that you may get enough diversity on the grain front that it doesn't matter. Doing this would put you ahead of many other people health-wise because most people are not getting enough fibre or enough diversity of plants.
So I think that's they key here that I more want to convey: (Slowly) increasing plant diversity and (slowly) increasing fibre intake leads to the best health outcomes. (Again, there are several high quality research studies on both these but I need to collect them so I can reference them!)
But to summarise what I've heard shared several times:
The two people who I have found so far who teach this the best (read the latest nutrition research and then translate it for laypeople into simple and easy to understand takeaways) are Simon Hill (in Australia) and Dr Will Bulsiewicz (in USA).
Super, thanks so much❣️🙏