I have heard stories in the news about pro-athletes switching to gluten-free diets and how it “helps their training season so much” and how they “feel so much better”. But I have also heard that some of those same athletes have a free-for-all once their season was over, gorging themselves on gluten-filled products. That whole philosophy seems counter-intuitive to me. If you truly do feel that much better without it, then just go without.
For example, I am lactose-intolerant. As much as the thought of having an ice cream cone sounds like it would be awesome… I’m not going to do it because I know the aftermath is no way near as worth it as the temporary taste of the ice cream.
And a lot of people seem to jump on the gluten-free bandwagon and eliminate it from their diet on their own, which means they can’t get tested for celiac or gluten-intolerance because they’ve already removed it from their diet. If someone truly suspects the NEED to go off gluten, perhaps they should work with their medical professional to get their diagnosis.
ARTICLE: Gluten-free diet may be a waste of money for some, new research suggests.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
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With all that ranting aside… the first chapter is full of good information about inflammation and how diet affects our health. Some of the things that I found particularly noteworthy:
- Early humans ate a diet that was 65% animal/fish-based, 35% plant-based with no refined wheat or sugar
- Modern humans eat a diet that is 35% animal/fish-based, 65% plant-based with lots of refined wheat and sugar
- Early humans ate about 104 grams of fiber a day, while most modern humans eat only about 15 grams a day!
- A diet high in wheat, sugar, meat and oil but low in fruits/veggies creates an imbalance in pH levels, making us more acidic.
- A more acidic body has more inflammation, which opens the door for disease.
- Acidity robs the body of calcium, magnesium and potassium.
- Citrus is NOT acidic in the body, it’s actually alkaline or neutralizing. (Thus the reason drinking warm lemon water each morning before breakfast is so good.)
The science is pretty interesting!
The book has a chapter on how to start the lifestyle with advice on portion sizes, testing your pH and a sample neutralizing meal plan. Another chapter focuses on some cooking basics, teaching the reader the differences in different cooking methods, temperatures and food safety, plus an appendix on gluten-free baking principles.
As for the actual cookbook?
The Gluten-Free Good Health Cookbook: The Delicious Way to Strengthen Your Immune System and Neutralize Inflammation
The recipes are pretty straightforward. They don’t contain a lot of “weird” gluten-free ingredients that would be hard to find. Even in the dessert chapter, they have souffles and mousses that are built off a tofu base.
The chapters for recipes are:
- Sauces and Gravies
- Soups, Chowders and Chilis
- Vegetables and Side Dishes
- Grains
- Fish and Seafood
- Chicken and Turkey
- Meat
- Desserts
It covers it all! (You can find organic and gluten free deals with Meijer coupons on their online retail.)
One of my favorite recipes in the book is for mixed roasted vegetables. It allows for a lot of flexibility depending on what veggies you have available and isn’t hard. It calls for a little bit of maple syrup, which I wouldn’t have thought of on my own but it really helps to bring out the vegetables natural sweetness during the carmelization process in roasting.
The book is a simple paperback and doesn’t contain pictures. I do think the science and health information at the beginning is important. They point out one of my biggest pet peeves with the medical field and that is the way doctors seem to treat problems instead of a patient as a whole. I want doctors to figure out WHY something occurred, not just prescribe a pill and send you on your way.
I do think this book would provide those who already know they have Celiac or gluten-intolerance with a wide range of recipes and I think the book would help educate those who are newly diagnosed with some of the info how their diet affects them. But like I mentioned at the beginning… if someone is really convinced they have issues and want to be certain, don’t cut gluten out before talking with and getting tested by a doctor. We do have to take our health into our own hands so often, but sometimes playing armchair -(or Google-) physician isn’t the best practice either!
BTW – there wasn’t a chapter specifically on gluten and athletic performance, but a lot of the info in Chapter 1 on inflammation can definitely be applicable to some athletes’ woes.
Text in italics is sponsored content
This book was provided to me free of charge for purpose of review. Opinions here are my own.
Jill Will Run 
i agree – people are jumping on the GF “fad” for no reason. BUT, i do think there is a lot more wheat/gluten in our diets than necessary via all the processed foods. that doesn’t mean you need to go GF though, just eat more wholesomely.
Agreed! It kind of freaked me out a while ago to read about the amount of corn, wheat and soy that are added to processed foods. Things that if you made it at home would NEVER have contained those items. So we’re overconsuming various items just because they’re used as additives. The whole food industry needs some help!
Several of my runner friends have gone gluten-free with amazing results. I just don’t want to have to give up cupcakes ;). I’m trying to do the research too, and I think you are so right about there being so much more in what we eat than we are even aware of.
My friend owns a cupcake bakery… it would be tragic to give those up! I completely understand! 🙂
Thanks for sharing the facts from the first chapter. I was interested by the bit about a more acidic body leading to more inflammation and disease. I’ll have to try and remember to read up more on that.
pH balance in the body is really intriguing to me too. It was something discussed in the Brendan Brazier presentation I went to a while ago too. I’m kind of interested in getting some testing strips to see how my pH stands!
Great review! It sounds like an interesting book. I have so many stomach problems that I sometimes wonder if I have a gluten tolerance problem, but I am slightly skeptical of the GF “fad”, as Lindsay referred to it. I should probably go to the MD about it! It does look like this would be a good read. I’ll have to see if I can grab a copy of it from the library or something.
I’ve wondered if I have gluten issues, just because I have so many digestive issues and that seemed like an easy thing to demonize these days. But both this book and Brendan Brazier’s presentation talked about pH balance in the body and how if that’s off it can cause excess inflammation. That inflammation can affect all parts of your body, so it could be digestion or muscles or energy or whatever! So that makes it even harder to self-diagnose! What item is causing me to be off?
That’s also proof that really, there isn’t any ONE diet fix for everyone, that we truly are individuals and we need to follow our own bodies. (I know that you know this!) So much of the world seems to promote that we’re all the same and just need to follow their “fix” and we’ll feel fantastic, perform like athletes and look like supermodels! LOL!