Vegan Gluten Free Diet? (Gluten Free - General Guidance)
Hi everyone! This is my first time postng here. I've been using vegweb for a couple of months now, you may have noticed me bombarding your website with all of my pictures, lol. I actually didn't even realize that this "chit-chat" section existed until amymylove pointed it out to me. This makes me really happy because I'm tired of all the negative people on yahoo.answers. So I was wondering about gluten free food.
Is there anyone that is on a vegan gluten free diet just to live a healthier life style? Is there any benifits to a gluten free diet if you don't have gluten intolerance? I was just wondering because I see all this stuff at my whole foods and i'm wondering if there is something that I should know. Thanks for reading this. I'm really excited to have a reliable vegan forum!!
Welcome!
That is a great question. Personally, I don't feel that there is anything wrong with gluten. I think you ordered my book, Radiant Health, Inner Wealth recently? If so, you may find the section on allergies ("An Interesting Take on Allergies") to be interesting.
Basically, my contention is that, aside from unusual circumstances, gluten is fine when mainly consumed in a non-GMO, organic, whole-foods state. I think our bodies naturally react to things when we over-consume them in their altered, refined state, like so many do with wheat products today.
Personally, I try to just eat a variety of foods, eat as many sprouted and whole grains as I can, and not worry about it. However, I do have a lot of gluten-free cooking students so I also respect their choice to avoid gluten. In my book, I've labeled all of the recipes as GF if they're gluten-free. Sorry if I'm remembering wrong, but I'm thinking you have my book so I hope this helps!!
:)
Gluten is a natural part of wheat and other grains and should be ok for you unless you are like me and have Celiac Disease or an allergy to wheat or other grains that contain gluten. I think some people try and avoid gluten because they want to avoid over processed foods.
I have to say though, it is nice to see stores like HF marking which products are GF right on the shelfs. It makes mine and the lives of people like me a lot easier. That being said, you still have to read tons of labels, because I have found some stuff marked GF that was not, and had to let the management know, also many "accidently GF" products are ok for me and not specifically marked as GF. But I've been reading labels for years and am super good at it.
(which annoys me some because there are people with gluten troubles who might want to eat what they shun for strange-to-me reasons!).
Oh yeah, believe me, I would eat regular bread if I could!