Gluten-Free Simplicity

10. Being Alert to How Ones Culture Promotes Gluten Use Might Help One Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity.

  Does your culture promote the use of gluten?  If so, how?

My culture (Southeastern U.S.A., Umpteenth generation, of Scottish/Irish/English descent origin) promotes gluten in a big way.  For my people, what is a dinner table without bread?  And surely, cornbread is sometimes there, but they put wheat flour into that also.  Realizing this, then it is no wonder that when I turn down the bread on my plate, the person on the serving end commonly looks bewildered. 

Quoting from a related article:

“Celiac Disease tends to be most common among people of Irish, English, Scottish, Scandanavian, and Eastern European decent. However, gluten-sensitivities can affect us all.  http://denver.yourhub.com/Littleton/Stories/Health-Fitness/Diet/Story~390017.aspx.

If it were not for my culture’s recent fascination with carbohydrate related diets I might really appear to be an oddball.  Unfortunately though, the Atkins diet is NOT a gluten-free diet and was in no way developed for people with Celiac Sprue.  However, one can if need be fuse the two diets together when health conditions require such a venture.  See this link for related ideas: http://www.atkins.com/Home.aspx.

If I grew up in a Latina/o culture, I might have frequently had a choice between wheat or corn totillas with any meal.  In fact, with such a high prevalence of diabetes in Latin American cultures, corn totillas are becoming more and more common as they are thought to be healthier.  If I grew up in some Asian countries, rice would be my grain of choice.

But going back to the topic of this essay about how understanding how ones culture promotes gluten can facilitate gluten-free simplicity:  One of the most common feelings I have had in my decade with Celiac Sprue has been the frustration of being unable to readily find edible foods.  And one of the most horrible ways to complicate such a life has been to form undue resentments and anger about related situations. 

I was finally starting to feel a welcome release from these painful emotions at the moment that I began to accept and even appreciate and value that eating wheat is a really big part of my culture as well as it is in some other cultures.  And that while it would be perfectly fine to advocate for menu mutations for the sake of those who have gluten intolerance; one could hardly expect that the common menus in such cultures would already be changed accordingly.

Sure, cultures can be changed.  And influencing my culture to change its diet to include less gluten would probably be a good thing.  But such change is very slow and that is ok.

Meanwhile, we have a choice: (1) We can resent the various evolution/devolution – related bounties of our culture; or (2) We can nudge a little at a time until our G-F needs become part of the mainstream http://www.slashfood.com/2008/09/20/gluten-free-is-going-mainstream.

• Forgiving Might Help one Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity 6. Humility, Forgiveness, and Grace Might Help one Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity.   On my journey toward Gluten-Free Simplicity I have frequently hesitated -- if not downright sabotaged myself -- during periods while recovering from a gluten relapse.  I have blamed myself, my family, anonymous waiters, waitresses, snack-food manufacturers ...  you name......
• Improving Your G-F Simplicity IQ If you review these items and find the answers, you will probably improve your G-F Simplicity IQ level. Study / Review Items: Very Basic Description of Celiac Sprue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease. http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/956622658.html. Primary sources of gluten in food. http://www.foodprocessing.com/articles/2008/031.html Sources of hidden gluten in food. http://www.babitty.com/?p=89. http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/collections/gluten_free_recipes.html#tips Non edible items containing gluten.......
• Way #22: Recognizing Gluten Relapses as They Happen Might Help as One Attains Gluten-Free Simplicity 22. Recognizing Gluten Relapses as They Happen Might Help as One Attains Gluten-Free Simplicity.   Face it, Relapse happens.  I would even go as far as to say that Relapse is often a part of Recovery.  Just because a person relapses, does not mean that she/he is giving up on......
• Scholarly Gluten-Related Articles This is an evolving anotated bibliography of scholarly articles related to Gluten-Sensititivity and its related diseases and disorders.  If you have an article to suggest for inclusion please do so with a Comment.  Coeliac Disease and Gluten-Free Diet: "Coeliac patients improve vastly when started on a gluten-free diet. After 10......
• Accepting that Celiac Disease is a Genetically Determined Disease Might Help One Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity 16. Accepting that Celiac Disease is a Genetically Determined Disease Might Help One Attain Gluten-Free Simplicity.   Many scientists are now reporting with great confidence that "Celiac Disease is Genetically Determined" http://www.csaceliacs.org/library/howsandwhys.php, or that "susceptibility to Celiac Disease is Genetic" http://www.csaceliacs.org/library/genetics.php.  There are numerous other concurring reports as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease.......

• Harmony 101 When it comes to music, you can look at harmony as the use of chords or pitches simultaneously. The study behind harmony involves the study of chords and the way that they are constructed as well as harmonic progressions and the connection principles that are used in order to govern......
• Other magic ideas - Moon & Numerology Okay, Sigil magic and LOA are , really, not all that hard to do. The problem is getting the practice to deliver results. How Chaos Magic is different from, say Wicca, is that Chaos Magic doesn't suggest there's a right way to do anything. Chaos Magic borrows from scientific method......
• SEO Trade Secrets - 8 Great Tools For Search Engine Optimization About 80% of website traffic comes through search engines. And research shows, if you’re not on the first 2 pages, most people won’t find you. This article isn’t about how to achieve a high ranking. That topic has been done to death over the past few months. We all know......
• Debit, schmebit! This article on MoneyCentral got my attention with the title: Debit cards: A good deal gets better Actually, I thought: "This, I gotta see." Apparently, most of the major banks are now (a) eliminating the fees that they pass on to customers from debit transactions; (b) extending some account protection......
• REVIEW: AnnualCreditReport.com When my wife and I bought our first home 4 years ago, we had lousy credit. It wasn't subprime bad, but it wasn't anything to rave about either. Our poor credit rating was the result of our nonchalant ambivalence toward debt and money in general. We bought a brand......