Do you find the world of gluten overwhelming? These handy facts will help you navigate through the sea of gluten intolerance.
What is gluten?
Gluten is a general name for the proteins found in wheat, barley, rye and triticale. Wheat varieties, like durum, semolina, spelt, farina, farro, graham flour and emmer also contain gluten.
Gluten — meaning ‘glue’ in Latin — is the sticky stuff in flour. It’s what makes pizza dough elastic, for instance, or keeps your biscuits and cake from falling apart.
Foods like bread, cookies, cakes, pasta and cereals, are mostly made of wheat and contain gluten. Even products like soy sauce and face moisturizers may have gluten in them.
Barley is present in beer and brewer’s yeast, while rye is often used to make bread and beer. It can also be found in many cereals in the supermarket breakfast food aisle. Incidentally, rye also has the lowest gluten content (3.177mg/100g of grain) when compared to other grains.
Oats are gluten-free, but are often grown side-by-side with wheat, resulting in cross-contamination. This can cause serious harm to a person with gluten intolerance or celiac disease.
What are the symptoms of gluten intolerance?
Symptoms of gluten sensitivity can manifest in different ways. People affected by celiac disease, for example, experience the most severe form of gluten intolerance.
Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition whereby the ingestion of gluten leads to damage within the small intestine. People with this condition may experience diarrhoea, nausea, vomiting, blistering skin rashes, pain and fatigue after eating gluten products.
Only recently have doctors begun differentiating between celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS) and non-celiac wheat sensitivity (NCWS).
In people with a non-celiac wheat sensitivity, eating bread, pasta or other foods containing wheat can result in a stuffy nose, sneezing, rashes, hives, stomach cramps, headaches or asthma. While others report symptoms such as a foggy mind, depression, ADHD-like behaviour, constipation, bone and joint pain and chronic fatigue.
How can you manage gluten intolerance?
Talk to you doctor if you suspect you may have a gluten intolerance. Often, patients feel much better once they eliminate wheat and other gluten-containing grains from their diet.
The best way to do that is to avoid cake, crackers, pasta and cereals. Also, carefully read packaging labels, because even cosmetics like soap, moisturisers and bath lotions can contain gluten. Foods and cereals with quinoa, rice, chickpea flour, nut flours (if you’re not allergic to nuts) and teff are good alternatives.
Living a gluten-free life is not difficult. In fact, I still have a great time researching and developing gluten-free recipes that are delicious and easy to prepare!
References:
Celiac Disease Foundation: https://celiac.org/
American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology: https://acaai.org/
Kompetenzzentrum für Ernährung (KErn): https://www.kern.bayern.de/presse/117367/index.php
National Health Service, UK: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/food-intolerance/