Gluten - Should you Avoid it?

We are bombarded with so many messages about gluten. Gluten is a protein found in the following grains; wheat, barley, rye, kamut, oat, spelt, green spelt. Gluten gives these foods the “stickiness and elasticity to dough” and allows them to rise when acted on by yeast.
It has 2 separate portions of protein which make the whole protein called Gluten, and these are “Gliaden” and “Glutenin”.

Do I think you should you avoid Gluten if you have Crohn's Disease? Yes. I do avoid it and have felt the benefits of not having it in my diet. 

Products in the supermarket which have Gluten added [SNEAKILY] to them in one way or another and should therefore be avoided include:

Frozen and canned vegetables, instant potato, mashed potato, croquettes, fries/chips, broths/stocks, yoghurt, muesli, cream cheese, low fat milk products, processed cheese, herbed butters, herbs and spices, sausages, luncheon meats, crumbed meats, fried herring, pickled herring, chocolates, marzipan, chocolate ice-cream and desserts, malt flavoured sweets, soy bread, millet bread, linseed bread, soy noodles, wheat bran foods, rice crisps, cornflakes, baking powder, baking ingredients, glazes, soy sauce, condiments.

Food manufacturers are even clever and even disguise how they label food. Here are some of the labelling “gluten guises” on ingredient labels:
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Barley and any words associated with it e.g. pearl barley’
Wheat and any words associated.
Rye, oat, oatmeal, spelt, and any words associated with them.
Breading, bread stuffing, brewer’s yeast, durum, hydrolysed wheat protein, malt/malt extract/malt syrup/malt vinegar/malt flavouring/malted milk, modified wheat starch, semolina, seitan [ a meat substitute used in some vegetarian dishes].

Now the following foods are naturally GLUTEN FREE foods:
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Fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, milk and milk products, fish, poultry, meat, eggs, oils [except wheat germ oil], rice, corn, millet, buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, soybeans, sesame seeds, water, tea, wine [check label] fresh squeezed juices, caffeine [not made from barley malt].

Now I know this food list may contain foods that you can't tolerate as well but where possible I recommend eating foods from that list.
 
Now feel free to contact me if you require any further information about what foods I recommend eating at [email protected] or check out my Facebook Page - My Crohn's Doctor. 

Yours in Health and Wellness
Dr Michael

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