Is eating gluten-free food healthy?

Introduction to gluten-free foods 0:00

Hi everybody. It's Tuesday. I'm back. Aren't you excited? Today we're going to talk about gluten-free foods and how that may or may not be in some cases good for our health. So I hear this all the time, but it was gluten free. So gluten, hey Jen, you took time off for your lunch, yay! That's the best part about you being here. Hey, Leslie. Glad to see you guys here. It makes this so much more fun, so easier when I know you are there, thank you for being there. Gluten-free foods. Well, gluten doesn't do anybody any favors, and yes, it's somebody.

Lisa, hello. This is awesome. I have so many friends today. So eating gluten-free foods. Gluten isn't great for our diet. It isn t good for anyone to consume. But the problem is when we try to go gluten free, a lot of times we look for these glutenfree substitutes, right? And then that puts us in a whole nother predicament. And so it's really important that even though something is labeled as gluten-free, that it doesn't necessarily mean that its healthy.

Why gluten-free labels can still be unhealthy 1:32

So we still have to be reading the labels, we have still to know what's inside of it. It's kind of like when you pick up a box of something and it says fat- free. Just because it does not have the fat, does it not mean it has a lot of other things. that aren't desirable. When we're trying to be healthier or when we are trying heal or if we try to lose weight, whatever our goals are, it's not going to support us in any of those ways. What are some things to look for? Well, a concern with lots of these gluten-free foods is heavy metals.

And you're thinking, how could these be connected? Well, a lot of the gluten-free foods are made from some type of rice base. And there was a study done that found that people that eat a gluten free diet or consume a lots of gluten, free foods, that they had double the arsenic. than the average person. And we find this in pesticides and herbicides. It's really not good at all. When we look at our water reports, we see high levels of arsenic sometime in water. So that's why your water filters are really important to look in your area, make sure that you have a good water filter on there.

They also had higher mercury than average persons too. So I'm going to put a link to the study here so that you guys can take a peek at it. I know some of the people that watch they really like looking at the studies. So here's a So what happens there? How does that happen? And why are people that are eating a gluten-free diet more susceptible to these things? It goes back to, like I said, rice. Usually these gluten free foods are very heavy on rice ingredients. Rice is very contaminated with arsenic and mercury.

And what makes it even more difficult is it doesn't even matter if the rice is organic, because it does it help.

Heavy metals in rice-based gluten-free foods 3:25

Rice is just partial to absorbing these from the soil, and we don't have a way to prevent that. What makes even harder is that they found that especially brown rice, which is usually the go-to for those of us that are trying to be more health conscious, they've found brown over white rice has 80% more arsenic. It's just what it's prone to absorb. Some safer gluten-free alternatives, instead of using rice, look at the ingredients, because they have to be making it out of something. You don't want that something to become rice.

A good alternative is quinoa. I make a really good cinnamon quinhoa, And if you're on whisk, I can share the recipe with you. It's still a little heavy in the carbohydrates because it does have some dates in it. But I do use it as a treat once in a while when I want something special and you can eat it hot or you could eat a cold. So look for a quinoa base as opposed to a rice base when you are picking out these gluten-free foods. Another good alternative to rice, if your just consuming rice in general as an ingredient in your food, Are the hearts of palm rice by natural heaven so i'll put a link to that in here too, this is really super good.

Love quinoa in my salads. Yes, it's very good for your salads." So you might like this hearts of palm rice too, Lisa, because this is a really good option. I made this, I had found a garlic ghee. It was a garlicky infused ghee, you could make your own very easily, but I happened to find it in the health food store. And I used the garlic, ghee with these hearts, of Palm rice and a little bit of Himalayan salt. Oh my gosh, is so good, just even by itself. It's a great option to the quinoa even because it's next to no carbohydrates where the Quino is still heavy on the carbohydrates.

Quina does have other nutrients that hearts palm doesn't. Mixing and matching would be helpful. Not all quina, not all of the hearts of palm, but mixing and Figures the gluten-free stuff that tastes the best are rice-based. Well, not all the time, but sometimes, yes, that's the case. So another thing, lots of baby cereals. If you have, for me, my granddaughter, they make kid cereials. And if you're an adult that still eats cereal, I they'd make a lot of those from rice. Looking for alternatives to breakfast foods, if your a cereal eater or if kids are cereal eaters, or you have young kids and you're thinking about baby cereal,

Safer gluten-free alternatives and rice substitutes 6:12

the rice cereals are not good at all for the same reason. It doesn't matter if it's gluten free or not gluten-free. If it is very heavy on the rice, I don't like the hearts of palm. I think it has a funky taste. Well, the mashed one, didn't liked that at all. The rice version I liked and maybe I didn t have that taste because I was mixing it with other things. I put it in like tomato-based type sauces. I haven't had that issue. So it's probably more of just what you're mixing it with if you try and eat it plain or if your mixing with something else.

Be careful if are a cereal eater or your kids are cereal eaters. You want to try to get away from that for the same exact reason. If you find this interesting with the arsenic and the rice, here's another link. Consumer Reports did a great article on this with a link to this in here too. And it's called arsenic in your food. Um, so they talked about this extensively and actually they did another one too, where they've talked the rice based infant cereals. So if you have, you know, kids in family that you're concerned about, or that he'd like to try to help them level up their health and what they're eating and you can find it.

You might find that helpful too. The next issue with gluten-free foods is the glyphosate. Glyphosate. This one is, you guys know Roundup, right? And a lot of people heard about the lawsuit that they had years ago, where they actually deemed it as a carcinogen, which was great because it is. And it brought a lots of attention to how glyphose contributes to things like cancer, but it makes a big impact in our health even before it gets to the point of cancer. Don't assume that just because, well, we don't have cancer yet, or at least not in a way that comes up on any kind of tests, that this isn't a concern for us or this is an issue or there's this, isn t something that we should be aware of.

No crispy treats. Oh my gosh, rice crispy trees. Les, I'm gonna slap you. So there was a blogger in Canada I think his name is Tony Mitra.

Glyphosate concerns in gluten-free products 8:27

He logged thousands and thousands of food records and he found that gluten-free foods were two to three times higher in glyphosate in the US and Canada. Um, so it's definitely a that just because we're no shouldn't be concerned abo it contributes to lots o cancer, gastro disorders precursors to a bigger h Gastro disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, autism, infertility issues, Alzheimer's, you know, so all these things that we don't want in our life. So here's a link to a good article that talks about some of those things too.

So that's another concern. Last but not least, as if these weren't enough reasons to be more cautious and aware, back to the glyphosate for a second. Right now, they're finding that because it's so widespread, it is contaminating everything and they are even finding trace amounts of it in organic food. However, eliminating as much as possible is still always the goal. So buying organic foods is going to be, for sure, the best way to get rid of the most of that nasty little bugger with the glyphosate.

Now we have phytates and anti-nutrients. Even when you get a non-rice-based, organic, gluten free food now we have this other issue. So we'll talk we talk about phytates and it's also called phytic acid you might see it listed as and the problem here is that it is not like it something that's going to be listed on the ingredients. Okay. The problem with this is that it binds to healthy minerals and it keeps us from being able to absorb them no matter how much of them we eat. So minerals like iron, zinc, calcium, these are all really big deals and they'll bind to them.

Even if we're eating the foods or even if you're supplementing these minerals, it can still create deficiencies because of this issue.

Phytates, mineral absorption, and final advice 10:49

So this is why when we consume grains, We want them either fermented like a sourdough. Um, if we're talking about a bread grain, um, or you want to, like nuts and seeds. That's why we had that whole, uh, video on soaking them overnight and then dehydrate them, dehydrating them because it allows these phytates. It allows this phytic acid to break off and you rinse them and dehydrated them. So then this way you don't have this issue. All right. But a lot of these gluten-free foods, they've got these oats or almond flour or almonds, and they're really high in this phytic acid.

Soy is another one that's really a high source of phytates. So best rule of thumb is if you're going to do something like that to make it yourself, or do it in a way that allows this to break off so that you can, like I said, soak them overnight or make it into a sourdough form, that kind of thing. This way it's not going to deplete your mineral stores because we need them. We need it for our brain function, our immune system needs them, everything. I mean, they're huge. So I'm not saying go and eat gluten.

I just pointing out that just because something says gluten-free, it doesn't mean that it's healthy. Gluten isn't the only consideration in those scenarios. Yes, Les, that could be why you're more sensitive to the soy too. Les was having an issue with a bar that had a lot of soy in it. And yes, that could be why you're sensitive to that. And it gives you that gassiness. So bottom line, making your own food is always best. Staying away from processed food's always the best I heard somebody say one time and it was great.

Your food shouldn't have ingredients. It should be the ingredient. And that's a really great way to see it. So if you need more help on this, let me know. Because we want to make sure that while we're going through all of this trouble to level up our health and heal and to making a bigger impact in this area, we wanna make that we are doing it in the best way possible. And it's just one more way that you can level-up your game. Thank you guys for being here and for watching. If you're watching the replay, definitely let know that watch the re-play because Even if you weren't able to make it on live, it's still great to see your faces.

And if have questions or comments, please let me know as well. I'll see you guys tomorrow.