Food-Allergy-Gluten » Dealing with gluten allergy

Dealing with gluten allergy

If you are diagnosed with Gluten food allergy, what is the next thing you must do? Change your diet. But that sounds easier than it actually is. Gluten, as any person familiar with Gluten food allergy knows, is present in many of the foods that would be considered part and parcel of the everyday meal. Gluten food allergy is caused by barley, wheat, rye or even milk products; in other words, from breakfast cereals, bread buns and ghee, to potatoes, pasta and chocolate. It is easy to see why coming up with a list of replacement foods for a gluten-free diet can start to quickly seem insurmountable.

Fortunately, the major players in the food industry have caught on and are now providing a lot of gluten-free alternatives that can serve as readily substitutes to the meals that what are so accustomed to. Of course, not everything labeled gluten free is actually gluten free. Without the benefit of the elaborate testing instruments required to verify such a claim, it would be difficult for any ordinary person to tell. One approach when buying off-the-shelf or processed gluten free foods is to go for products from companies that have a reputation and, where possible, have a credible channel of recourse if the quality of the actual product is different from what is on the label.

An even better alternative for dealing with Gluten food allergy is to go for fresh foods that do not contain gluten in their natural state. For instance, virtually all fruits and vegetables are gluten free. However, if and when they are cooked, you must pay special attention to the conditions under which the cooking takes place. Using flour to thicken the stew of cooked vegetables will introduce significant amounts of gluten to the meal.

Though often vilified in many conversations on healthy eating and good dieting, all types of meat are gluten free except for processed meat such as hot dogs. You cannot however afford to ignore the down sides that meat meals come with. Taking large amounts of meat, and more specifically red meat, has other negative and potentially life threatening repercussions on overall health including raising the level of blood cholesterol.

Thus, taking meat or any other food for that matter, as part of treatment for Gluten food allergy must be done while bearing in mind the total health of the person. In addition, and as mentioned earlier for cooked vegetables and fruits, the types of ingredients and additives used when cooking meat are also important as they can ‘contaminate’ the meat. Nuts and seeds are another class of food that is gluten free.

Finally, as one transitions into a gluten free diet, one thing that persons suffering from Gluten food allergy must guard against is nutrient deficiency. This becomes even more important if one is already at an intermediate stage of gluten food allergy where the villi in the intestines have been significantly destroyed and the body is already demonstrating signs of the loss of nutrient absorption capability. Certain processed gluten free foods are simultaneously depleted of their nutritional value by the very same process. One must ensure that all gluten free meals eaten have the nutritional value that the body needs.

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