I wish I could quit you, Gluten

The whole gluten thing is really annoying. I wish people who aren’t bothered by gluten would just not worry about it and keep their opinions to themselves. Gluten totally screws up my digestive system. I suffered for years with heartburn, constipation, headaches, and general indigestion. Someone suggested I try cutting out gluten. I thought it was a pretty ridiculous idea, but tried it anyway. Within a week or two I felt great, and never have any of those problems anymore unless I accidentally eat gluten. I suspect I may have had anemia, but I need to go to a doctor to check it out. Food is just food. Giving up gluten is no big deal. Being sick all the time is.

I like asian, & indian kinda food. I don't want to burst your Gluten Free bubble, and I don't know if this is an answer to your question at all. But... Indian and other Asian cuisines are fricken FULL of wheat. The region of India where most Indian food in Western restaurants comes from is, like, one of the world's great wheat producers. This is like saying, "I've cut out all corn from my diet by only eating Mexican food." The vast majority of all Asian noodles, too, are wheat-based. Just because the stereotype is that Asia = rice does not mean that the Asian food you're eating can't possibly be wheat based. Even huge chunks of China are wheat-dominant rather than rice-dominant. To answer your question more: it's my understanding that gluten intolerance is basically an allergy. Either it makes you sick or it doesn't. If you are really gluten-intolerant, wheat-based food, whether in bread form or jiaozi form, will make you sick. I don't think that exposing yourself to X amount of wheat is going to "preserve" your tolerance for it, or make you more tolerant of it, or whatever. If it makes you feel sick, don't eat it.

I would investigate a concept called FODMAPs, which stands for Fermentable, Oligo-, Di- and Mono-saccharides and Polyols. It's basically the idea that a lot of people with various bowel issues have various forms of carbohydrate malabsorption. I did an elimination diet based on the concept and I was lucky enough to have a BF at the time who is a scientist and we did a hydrogen breath test for fructans, which seemed like the likeliest candidate. Turns out, I produce quite a bit of hydrogen from it, so staying away from fructans has been a great thing for me. My diet these days is kind of a "paleo" diet, with rice and a little low-lactose dairy. The good news is that FODMAPs concept was developed in Australia, so there might be a GI doc near you who is willing to work with you on it. But it's vitally important to rule out celiac, since untreated, it can cause serious problems later in life. There is a blood test that misses some cases, so a biopsy is often the gold standard if that is negative. The genetic test isn't terribly accurate. Not all celiacs have strong reactions to wheat and they may even have less of a reaction than people like me who get bloating/gas/diarrhea immediately. There are many people who don't even know they have the disease until they are elderly because it manifests weirdly in things like skin reactions instead of GI problems. Celiac means you have to be very very very strict. FODMAPs intolerance is more forgiving. For example, I eat Thai Food often and Sushi. Yes, a lot of sauces (most soy sauce) have wheat, but since it's the fructans in wheat that bother me and I know that, I know soy sauce has little to know fructans and it's OK. Also, gluten sensitivity is a http://www.celiac.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=137%3Akey-differences-between-cd-and-gluten-sensitivity&catid=7%3Anews-a-events&Itemid=64. Just because they don't know the exact etiology and there isn't a diagnostic test doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Then that would mean all kinds of things like IBS and fibromyalgia doesn't exist. There are http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1741-7015-10-13.pdf http://www.nature.com/ajg/journal/v104/n6/full/ajg2009188a.html of scientific

It is possible to have Celiac and not react in a big way to wheat - my brother in law was diagnosed because of persistent anemia rather than big gastro symptoms. My son on the other hand has big gut misery when he eats wheat - and he also has Celiac - it varies a lot. You are correct that you have to be consuming gluten to have a meaningful blood test for Celiac since your body will not be producing the antibodies they test for if you're not eating wheat. As imagineerit said, there is no test for gluten sensitivity. That said, I stopped eating wheat a year ago after reading more and living in an essentially gluten free household and my migraines stopped. When I have (inadvertently) consumed wheat I have had migraines - twice in a year after weekly migraines for more than 30 years. So for me that's pretty convincing and it was a very small quantity of wheat. I didn't bother getting tested for Celiac before stopping eating gluten - we knew it ran in my husband's family and like you I had gradually stopped without it being a big plan. I don't eat many processed foods and didn't before I stopped gluten either. I know other people who are gluten intolerant who vary in how they react if they consume gluten. One friend will choose to suffer for something irresistible and will feel lousy for a day. Another chooses to never consume gluten and when she has been glutened feels very ill for many days.

I'm not saying all Asian dishes are full of wheat, but that just because a cuisine is Asian in origin doesn't mean it uses rice rather than wheat for starch items. Enjoying Asian food more than, I dunno, French food or whatever doesn't mean that you are avoiding gluten. Most Asian noodles that aren't explicitly called rice noodles are made from wheat. Dumplings? Typically wheat-based. Aside from maybe dosa, the vast majority of Indian breads are wheat-based. Flour might be used to thicken sauces, especially in Western restaurants. Etc. It's relatively likely that if you order something like tandoori chicken it will be naturally gluten free, but the same would be true of American barbecue chicken.

Not that this necessarily discounts the validity of the manuscript, but one of the ones linked to by melissam seems to have been http://www.schar.com/us/.

Sorry to cause a cuisine debate, but - I wasn't trying to say that the entire asian subcontinent is wheat free! When I said asian, & indian **kinda** food, I meant the style of my cooking is asian/indian *inspired*. I cook my own food. I buy barely any premixed food because I've usually been on a budget, so it's pretty obvious that I'm not getting any flour. I eat stir-fry's with rice noodles, dhal curries with rice, stews with potatoes, sushi, nacho's, etc etc. And this is the way I have been eating for over a decade. And not on purpose. I just liked it better (and in retrospect, something is not a nice comfort food if it gives me mild indigestion soon after). So yes, the asian inspired food, in amongst the other food I eat, is entirely wheat free. And I do find it pretty easy to eat food from my local malaysian, thai, vietnamese, taiwanese, *insert region of india here*, without it being bread or pasta based, even when eating out. Except for the eternal problem of treats like, what about Garlic Naan? Naaaaan??? On tolerance versus allergy: It isn't an allergy, an allergy is an immune system response. It's an intolerance, like lactose intolerance. Most (western) people have enzymes that break down gluten and lactose (kind of snip it up, like scissors). Other people don't break them down (that's the 'intolerant' part). If you don't break down lactose, instead you get bacteria breaking down the lactose sugars, and you get a gut full of bacteria and air, which isn't so good, but isn't that bad. For gluten, if you don't break it down, the little strings of gluten can literally wrap themselves around your villi in your intestines, and shear them off, as well as doing a bunch of other stuff that I can't quite remember how it is related... Oh yeah, stuff like gluten then entering your blood stream, and other side effects, like your immune system starting to react against gluten, but your thyroid looks really similar to gluten, so can be involved in immune reactions against your thyroid, etc etc (I have a strong family history there, so I get tested regularly but other than a few high TSH blips, it's staying normal). On Miso & soy: My miso isn't wheat based, and I have never had problems with soya sauce, so I figured it must just be low enough to not affect me. And sure enough, on googling, it's such a small amount that under many food safety codes, it would count as gluten free - http://surefoodsliving.com/2007/05/kikkoman-soy-sauce-claims-its-ok/ imagineerit : On gluten-free stuff at the supermarket: I am not going to buy gluten-free anything (oh, except for the chocolate cake at this cafe I go to that I bought anyway!). I'm fine at home, I just need to figure out how to have the willpower when I'm out, or increase my tolerance somehow. Actually, could I have accidentally provoked myself into gluten intolerance by eating so little of it? Snacks: I'll eat any free food. Less of the bready-stuff, but, how am I supposed to pass up free food? Usually I go for the fruit & salami & cheese. The thing I find so frustrating is that I find diet fanaticism really creepy, and the gluten-free thing is the latest fad in that streak, which is why I feel so annoyed that I'm... stuck in it somehow. Many gluten free websites make it out like gluten is fundamentally evil to everyone, rather than just people who can't break it down, and I don't trust them. Or, they're worried about what looks to be *homeopathic* levels of contamination, especially when they've never even been diagnosed with something as severe as celiac. I don't know how to get out of the bermuda triangle of crazy, or where to find advice that cuts out all the bullcrap. This is the whining of a basically healthy person who is suffering from a minor, in the grand scheme of things, condition, and woe, the suffering which it induces. I'd play a tiny violin, but that would sound even worse. I have a couple of resolutions: I don't want to cut out gluten entirely, so like valoius discusses, I going to give myself a break from wheat/gluten etc for a week or two, until my insides go back to normal, then slowly start at just a regular cracker a day, and see if I can keep something like that up without feeling awful. And I'll take some single servings of packet cooked rice when I go out to dinner at friends. I've taken that with me a couple of times, so that if I'm at someone house I can just swap out pasta for rice, so maybe I should just carry them with me always. And rice crackers in packets hidden in the staff kitchen, so I can have things dips & stuff, without the bread.

You can put your faith in a doctor's test, and/or you can do empirical research. Keep a food and health diary for a month (what did I eat, how did I feel) Stop eating anything with wheat/gluten for a realistic period of time, probably not less than 60 days. Keep up the food/health diary. Assess the results. An awful lot of people seem to be getting good results from eliminating gluten/wheat from the diet. I'm considering it. That Diane Rehm show looks interesting.

On tolerance versus allergy: It isn't an allergy, an allergy is an immune system response. The symptoms of wheat allergy are very similar to what you describe, is the thing. Many people have primarily digestive symptoms, rather than hives, etc. You won't know without a diagnosis which process is going on for you. Skin testing for allergies to specific wheat proteins are considered fairly informative, though the gold standard of testing remains "avoidance and challenge" tests.