Natural Weight Loss Truth

Well, it’s all over the place–health-food stores, grocery store isles-heck, even food at gas stations–all gluten-free. 

In fact, I just saw:

Gluten-free blueberry cakes

Gluten-free white bread

Gluten-free potato chips

It should be a godsend that they’re offering us so many gluten-free products, right? 

Absolutely not-further more, know that the “gluten-free” craze is largely a scam.

But let’s be very clear–it’s not the principles that create the scam.  Gluten is a serious problem.

The problem lies in the bastardization of what truly healthy gluten-free food really is.

The ”gluten-free” marketing craze is very similar to the low-carb lifestyle craze –(remember the name Robert Atkins)?  Low-carb lifestyle plans (and the Atkins diet) are largely based on very sound principles.  They got twisted by food industries looking to make a quick buck so much so that someone would stuff their face with 2 hotdogs, a block of cheese, 5 sticks of pepperoni, a diet coke and some aspartame-laden dessert, and think they were eating healthy. 

No choices could have been farther from healthy, and nothing could have been farther from a low-carb nutritionalists’ recommendations;  eating processed sh*t doesn’t classify as a “low-carb” lifestyle.

Now, after having failed, many of those same people sit in front of their computer eating Twinkies, Doritos, and a two-liter of Coke.  All the while commiserating with the local mis-informed MSN commentary and agreeing ”Boy, they’re right; I’m sure glad I quit low-carb stuff–sure is dangerous”. 

Was their failure truly their fault? Not completely–their limitied knowlege was exploited by the big food companies such that they could be sold sh*t (as long as it had low-carbohydrate levels), and they thought they were being healthy; they just didn’t know any better.

How does low-carb compare to gluten-free?

Good question:  Both natural low-carb and gluten-free lifestyles are based on sound principles.  It’s just that the marketing of them got exploited by companies looking to make a profit.  But again, like simple carbohydrates found in sugar and grains, gluten can also be very damaging:

Gluten sensitivity, was once considered rare, now affects an estimated 1/3 of the North American population. In other words, there’s a good chance you’re sensitive to gluten.  Because it affects people in different ways, there are also varying degrees of sensitivity.  You may not even know you’re sensitive to gluten. Accoring to the Gluten Intolerance Group, 80 people are undiagnosed for every one person diagnosed with the gluten sensitivity.  PubMed says that gluten intolerance is associated with celiac disease, and leads to symptoms ranging from fatigue, abmormal periods, and abnormal bowel movements all the way to  intestinal cancer and lymphoma.

“But shouldn’t we should be  thrilled with grocery stores are offering us gluten-free alternatives”?

Definitely not.  To a large degree food industries aren’t interested in making you healthy.  Instead, they provide  products that they can make money from.  So, remember those gluten-free cakes from the beginning of this article?  They also contain things like: sodium benzoate (also linked to hyperactivity in children), high fructose corn syrup, linked to leptin resistance and weight gain, and of course, sugar and processed flour, both which spike blood sugar levels, cause hormone fluctuations, and contribute to obesity. 

So then, by eating these “gluten-free” foods, you’re actually getting fat, just like you would by eating other sugary foods.

“But Dr. Mike, you’re telling me that I shouldn’t by “gluten-free” food from the supermarket.  What should I eat instead”?

Great question–there are so many healthy meal choices that don’t contain gluten, there’s not enough places to write them in a complete blog, or a complete cookbook.  To start, you would eat lots of vegetables, some fruits, some meats, and nuts.  Wheat flour can be easily replaced by coconut flour and flax, and almond flour.  There’s some great gluten-free choices (and ways to jumpstart weight-loss) here as well.

The whole “gluten-free” industry is just getting heated up, and there’s much more to follow.

But rest assured, the large concensus of people who are currently doing “gluten free”, will soon be trumpeting  how it doesn’t work. 

And make no mistake- it won’t be for the ineffectiveness of the concept, it will rather be for the belief in the mis-information about what gluten-free truly is.

 ”Beware of false knowlege, it is more dangerous than ignorance”  -George Bernard Shaw