Here I am, in Grain Free land
How did I get here?Many years ago now, I sat in my herbalist’s lab.“That there” she pointed. “That’s one of your white blood cells eating an undigested morsel of food”. Bleuch. She was doing a live blood analysis. She had a drop of my blood on a slide under the microscope and it was projected onto a screen for me to see the antics and carryings on within. She said that because the food was leaking through the damaged lining of my intestine, my bloodstream picking up the slack. No wonder I was always tired. And headachy. And bloated. And irritable… My system was not handling what I was putting into it. Time for an overhaul. And so began a gradual revamp of my eating habits. First I cut out wheat, and felt better. But overtime, I slumped back into feeling tired and bloated again. I gave up all things gluten. Huzzah! Another revival into normality. But there were still good days and bad days. So what the hell was it? “Do you realize how grain-heavy your diet is?” A friend asked one day. “Do you crave these things?” Yes. And again, yes. By this time, I’d read enough to know that the body does craves the things it copes with badly.
Why do I stay here?Now, I have never been diagnosed professionally, but after giving up grains, all my symptoms disappeared. I lapse back into dark side, and they all come scuttling back like homing pigeons. To me, it’s a no brainer.So here I am in the present day, working mother of 2 young boys. That alone is enough to make the average person tired and occasionally grumpy....or more than occasionally... So you’d think that after all this time and experience that I would have learned to keep my diet on the straight and narrow. But no. Instead, it’s a cycle. I’m good for a period, then I lapse. Perhaps there’s a dinner at a restaurant where they serve garlic bread; or being away from home, and hungry and there’s nothing else available. But what I forget (or more accurately, deny) each time is that even the smallest amount of naughtiness can bring back the cravings. Cravings are agony. Just like a junkie, it’s all or nothing. And so the headaches start, the bad night’s sleep…..no choice now but to start climbing back out the hard way. Perhaps like anybody with an addiction – and that’s what it is: tolerance, withdrawal, relapse – it’s like a bad personality trait you’re stuck with for life. But I feel so, so good without the grains that I don’t care a single bit that I was born with a bad personality…um, metaphorically speaking….
Is there anybody else here?I’ve talked to many people over the years about a grain free diet and the whole new world of alternative ingredients that opens up when you look beyond the mainstream. (Trying my hardest not to sound too evangelical). Many of them have given it a try, as an experiment, out of curiosity, out of pity, or even just to make me shut up. But whatever their reason, every single one of them has reported having more energy and having a wonderful clarity of mind. OK, so they could have been humoring me, but that doesn’t explain why they try it again, and again.So late in 2008, after the birth of my second child, I started up Grain-free-gluten-free.com. It was easier to do that than it was to keep scribbling grain free suggestions for people on the back of beer coasters. |
