Gluten free vegan chocolate cupcake with fresh raspberry frosting from Esselon Café. Delish!
I clearly recall the day, almost a year ago now, that I sat in the teaching barn of the herb farm and was introduced to the concept that gluten is detrimental to our health. Our teacher asked for a show of hands — who would be willing to give up gluten, dairy or both for 6-8 weeks and report back to the class about the experience? A couple of brave souls volunteered.
So resistant to this idea was I that my arms not only turned to solid lead but my mind, attached to the comfort and ease of consuming bread and pasta on a daily basis (multiple times a day in fact) recoiled in anger. I was still feeling kind of proud of myself for leaving meat and (most) alcohol by the wayside — now my beloved bread and dairy needed to be suspect as well? What on earth would be left to eat?! I remember going home and telling J about this "stupid" idea that gluten and dairy were bad over slices of freshly baked bread slathered in butter.
Matcha tea soy latte.
My food addictions, however, were soon made physically clear to me when, weeks later, J and I attempted our first mono-diet cleanse (again at the suggestion of my herbalism teacher). Within one day of quitting sugar, caffeine and gluten my body rebelled with even more force than my mind had that day in class. An unstoppable, excruciating headache arose, and I became extremely angry, depressed and scatter-brained. A friend who's an acupuncturist and practitioner of Tibetan medicine recently told me that
real bread addicts (that would be me) who come off gluteomorphins (opiates which come from the breakdown of wheat) can actually go into opiate withdrawal when quitting it.
Recalling how horrible I felt (horrible enough that the 5 day cleanse ended up lasting only 2 and a half days) this revelation didn't surprise me. It has, however, strengthened my resolve to continue what I thought was a brief experiment to omit all gluten and (most) dairy from my diet in an attempt to outwit Rosacea. I'm terribly uncomfortable with the idea of being addicted to
anything, and while eating a piece of bread is not exactly shooting heroin, if gluten is capable of having
that much of a hold on me (while not exactly doing me any favors physically) well,
bye bye.
Gone too soon.
So, while I have had to go (reluctantly) back on my prescription cream to control the symptoms of my recent flare up, I continue to search for holistic ways to bring the source of the imbalance itself under control. One unexpected benefit to this gluten-and-dairy-free experiment has been the disappearance of my chronic shoulder pain and tightness — not a bad side effect, given it's been bothering me almost continuously for over 3 years.
Like any natural treatment, this approach is (mostly) self-directed and involves doing a lot of research and experimentation. Yes you can (and should) work with a naturopath, but ultimately they are not the healer. Their job is to lead you to the true healer, and (drum roll please) that healer is you.
Though I think my diet was already fairly healthy compared to the Standard American Diet (SAD, ironically enough), what I've discovered in the past month is a whole new way of eating. With the help of blogs like
Choosing Raw,
For the Love of Food, My New Roots, and of course Kris Carr's
Crazy Sexy Cancer site, I've started stocking the kitchen with a plethora of fairly new (to me) ingredients like chia and hemp seeds, flax oil, raw cacao powder, dates (lots and lots of dates) and fennel, and I've made some delicious meals, like a dinner of
Coconut Citrus Kabocha Bisque with a huge salad (everything comes with a huge salad these days), breakfast of
Black Quinoa with Almonds, Avocado and Honey, dessert of
Fresh Blueberry and Chia pudding.
We are so lucky to live in a time when so much information and inspiration is available to us at the click of a button! Please share if you have a favorite raw/mostly raw website or blog you turn to for inspiration.
My advice to anyone embarking on a change in diet is Go Slow. Take Baby Steps. Your mind and your body are accustomed to certain tastes and routines and attempting to give them all up at once can be an unpleasant shock to the system (especially if it's gluten!) Decide on what you want/need/are able to eliminate first and get comfortable with that before embarking on the next major adjustment. Be kind to yourself along the way.
It won't take as long as you think. I began this shift years ago by eliminating all meat but allowed myself, when I really felt I needed it, the occasional serving of fish until I learned how to add alternative high-quality sources of protein and omega fatty acids to my diet. Then I let the fish go too. I dropped coffee, replacing it with somewhat less caffeinated chai, and have now let that go as well with the exception of a small cup of chai or green tea (or a matcha latte!) every now and then. I replaced white sugar with raw and have since replaced raw sugar with maple or agave syrup. Next I'll transition to natural stevia powder (which I think I can even grow in my garden) and Coconut Palm sugars. I eased off the convenience of canned foods bit by bit until tending bubbling pots of vegetable stock and beans became an enjoyable weekend endeavor rather than an overwhelming chore. It takes time.
Enjoy the process of adding new ingredients to your kitchen, incorporating a few at a time and seeing how they fit in to your new menus. One week you can introduce yourself to chia. The next you can try replacing your bottled salad dressing with a drizzle of flax oil and a splash of raw apple cider vinegar. The next week sprinkle some hemp seeds on that same salad. Also, as you begin to make changes to your diet you may want to add a high-quality, organic, whole-foods multi-vitamin to your daily regimen. This will help fill in any nutritional "gaps" as you navigate the learning curve that a new way of eating inevitably presents.
I still have so much to learn, but if I am convinced of anything in this world I am convinced of this: what we chose to put into our mouths is of vital importance. Foods truly are the raw materials that our bodies are built from, and even if we've made "mistakes" with our diets in the past, the opportunity to rebuild our tissues using the highest quality ingredients begins anew with every minute.
PS: At least one of those brave students who accepted the gluten and dairy free challenge last spring felt so much better she adopted it as a permanent lifestyle — something that made a huge impression on me and that no doubt contributed to my transition from "angry and unwilling" to "curious and open" to changing my own habits!
