Posts Tagged ‘gluten free’
Snacking Simply… Raw, Grain-Free, Paleo-Friendly
That being said, I don’t know why I haven’t been eating more dates. I’ve read this recipe in a few raw food “cookbooks,” and I think it is ingenious:
Ingredients: 1 date, 1 pecan
To make: pit date, if needed. place pecan inside date.
enjoy.
Pure genius.
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You Are My Sunshine…. Vit D
This morning felt so cold, I couldn’t believe it. And all day has been cloudy so far. Just another reminder to swallow those Vitamin D pills when I get home tonight from my long day up on the hill.
Up until about a year ago, I never paid Vitamin D much attention. All I really knew was the basics:
- it works along with calcium and magnesium for bone health
- your body makes it from sunshine
- it’s added to pasteurized milk in this country
- it’s fat soluble like Vitamin A- which means you can overdose because your body stores it instead of excreting it through sweat/urine.
Pretty much all common knowledge. It wasn’t until I went down to see the Endo in Houston that I learned that I had a severe vitamin D deficiency. (I found this very ironic, since until I moved to the Pacific Northwest, I felt like I spent my life baking in the sun.) That news meant, of course, that I had to find out more. And much to my surprise, this is one fascinating nutrient.
I’ve read that Vitamin D deficiency has been linked to iron deficiency. The reason may be that individuals who are iron deficient have trouble metabolizing Vitamin D…. but I think that it is likely more of a correlation than causal relationship. Persons with fat malabsorption often have Vitamin D deficiencies, meaning that it requires some dietary fat for absorption. Symptoms of fat malabsorption include diarrhea and oily stools… (sorry again to be graphic). Fat malabsorption is associated with a variety of medical conditions including… drum roll please: CELIAC DISEASE. And, like I mentioned before, people with celiac or other malabsorption problems (like Crohns, etc.) are also very likely to have iron deficiency.
On another point high caffeine intake (300mg/day, which is equivalent to 18 oz of regular coffee) inhibits both vitamin d and iron absorption from the diet. Just another reason for me to cut back… (it is just sooo hard! Starting tomorrow!)
BUT… diet is not the best way to get vitamin D anyways. Our bodies prefer to make it from the sun. 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure at least two times per week to the face, arms, hands, or back without sunscreen is usually sufficient to provide adequate vitamin D. Of course, this news flies in the face of the recommendations of your dermatologist- all of whom push the sunscreen. Unfortunately, if you are slathering on the sunscreen (spf 8 and higher) you’re blocking the UV rays that your skin needs to produce the required amounts of Vitamin D.
Hmmmm…. skin cancer or rickets?
Just kidding.
What makes the sunlight issue more difficult is that many of us live in Northern latitudes where the angle of the sun and weather patterns hamper our best efforts to tan. Also playing a role are season, time of day, cloud cover, and smog, affect UV ray exposure and vitamin D synthesis. For example, sunlight exposure from November through February in Boston is insufficient to produce significant vitamin D synthesis in the skin. Complete cloud cover halves the energy of UV rays, and shade reduces it by 60%.
According to the National Weather Service’s data for the period between 1951-1995. There was an average of 67 clear days per year. That’s it. 71 days were partly cloudy and a whopping 227 days were ENTIRELY CLOUDY!!!!
I am severely deficient in Vitamin D and I get outside to run every day, and I’m fair-skinned (the more pigment in your skin, the more sun it takes to make adequate amounts of vit D). It is hard to imagine how anyone here could be high without a supplement.
So, why does any of this matter?
There have been hosts of more recent studies that have linked high levels of vitamin D in the body to much decreased incidences of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and Alzheimer’s, among others. What is very interesting is that the levels needed for this kind of disease prevention are far above those needed merely for optimal bone health. These findings have led to an increased awareness of the nutrient and talks to increase the federal government’s RDA, which is currently a pathetic 200 IUs for adults under 50.
One of the most interesting tidbits for me is that Vitamin D functions more like a hormone in your body than it does like an actual vitamin. It affects your calcium absorption, thyroid, and immune system.
There are two types of Vitamin D commonly available in pill form: D2 and D3. D3, or cholecalciferol, has been found to be up to 10 times more potent that equal amounts of D2. The problem for vegans is that D3 is made from an animal source (Lanolin, which is derived from sheep’s wool). D2, on the other hand, is made from yeast and perfectly suited to vegans.
The upper limit for consumption of Vitamin D (D3) is about 2,000 IUs per day for adults. If you are deficient, your doctor will probably tell you to take more, or prescribe a 25,000 IU tablet that you take once per week.
In order to achieve the full benefit of the nutrient, many experts are recommending supplementing with 1,000 IUs of D3 per day.
Just please don’t use it as an excuse to drink more gross cow’s milk. The benefits of your increased vitamin D intake would come no where near to outweighing the health risks…. not to mention the acne and phlegmy mucus… but that is another post entirely.
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Nutshell…
We even ordered desert….and I don’t want to spend any more time describing it, because it is making me drool thinking about the grilled pinapple and brown sugar sherbet.
Highly recommended.
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Stoking the Fire…. Iron Scores
Today I got the results from the team blood test we had on Wednesday.
Drum roll please…..Ferritin is 16!*
Because low iron is so prevalent in distance runners, (why? see my post entitled Running Into the Ground) we screen our athletes twice a year with blood work from the health center. The woman who stuck me with the needle asked me what year I was when I got on the table. She was embarrassed when I told her my age and that I’m a coach. At least she complemented my veins.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait that long to get tested. At the end of June I began a pretty steep decline. I went from feeling somewhat decent on runs, to starting to get tired, to having an allergy induced asthma attack while running on Wildwood. That hasn’t happened to me in a few years- and it has only happened 4 or 5 times in my life. I do know from experience (and the allergist) that it is brought on by exposure to the allergen AND severe fatigue. Since the allergy tests revealed that I am basically allergic to Oregon, or at least all of its trees and grasses, I knew that fatigue was the main culprit.
The heat over the fourth of July in Ashland only made me feel worse, so I emailed my Endo in Houston to ask for some blood work. I was overdue in checking my thyroid’s status anyways. The only red flag from the results was, of course, my iron. Ferritin was 6. Again. Again! I thought the gluten-free diet was supposed to be helping, but apparently my intestines are still not in shape.
So it has been 5 or 6 weeks of stomachaches now. 5 or 6 weeks of reading gluten-free forums and message boards in search of some kind of help from the celiac community about how to overcome the chronic anemia. I have known about my iron issues since college. I was even sidelined my sophomore track season with chronic anemia. At least now the malabsorption problems have been somewhat explained. (i.e. in people with celiac, gluten destroys the microvilli which line the intestine to aid in capturing nutrients).
I’m trying to figure out how to go about getting a drip or even injections, but I am without insurance…. so who knows. I am just anxious to get rid of the stomach pain and GI problems again. I can only liken it to eating a steaming bowel of hot buckwheat**….EVERYDAY!!!
* The level of ferritin in your blood is a measure of your body’s iron stores. Ferritin is a protein containing iron stored in your bone marrow and liver. My highest recorded ferritin has been 18, the lowest was 5. Under 30 is a red flag. Ideally, much higher is better for performance.
**I actually did this by accident 3 weeks into my gf life- thought it was the cream o’rice cereal. Paid for dearly for it for three days afterwards.
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Chocolate Chip Cookies
Saturday we finally had a house warming party….. I think it has been 2 and 1/2 months…. but better late than never. It wasn’t the greatest idea as far as timing, not only because of Hood to Coast, but because it was the first weekend we had practice with the team. That meant that both mornings we were up at 6:30 or earlier… Yesterday I was dragging so much!
Ahhh…. the cookies….. everyone was expecting something from me, but I haven’t hosted anything since going GF in March. So I REALLY wanted to make something that would be entirely undetectable from the real thing. SUCCESS!!!
I also accomplished the dairy free part, but couldn’t quite get soy free. Being short on time, I only managed to stop by Whole Foods…. and all their chocolate chips had soy lecithin. So annoying (just like the annoying soy additives to almond milks!)
I was hoping to recreate the recipe in a half batch on Sunday, but I ended up napping instead. It was much needed because, as it was, I was dragging yesterday at the Cafe.
1 C palm oil
1 1/2 C light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 Tbs vanilla (gf)
2 C gf flour mix*
1/4 C fine white rice flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp xanthan gum
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 C shredded unsweetened coconut**
10- 14 oz chocolate chips
1 C toasted walnuts (optional- also could use pecans, etc)
Preheat to 375. Line pans with parchment or silcone sheet or grease.
Beat oil and sugar well, add egg and vanilla and continue on medium speed until fluffy.
Add dry ingredients except coconut. Mix until well blended. Mix in coconut, chocolate, and nuts. Drop onto sheets in balls, they will spread a little.
Bake 8-10 minutes
Cool on wire rack
*Use a GF flour mix that does not already contain leavening agents or gums. I used a combination of garbanzo flour that was freshly ground along with brown and white rice flours and potato starch. The standard rice flour mix of 2 C rice flour, 2/3 C potato flour, and 1/3 C tapioca starch would work fine too.
**For a more traditional cookie, feel free to leave out the coconut. The unsweetened kind gives more texture, moistness, and fiber to the cookie- almost giving it an “oatmeal-like” mouth feel for me.
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For the Health of it…
So how does a compulsive baker with a running addiction and a holy reverence for the perfect banana bread find herself giving up gluten? For the health of it, of course.
I always feel like this is a little AAish, but here goes… I’ve been gluten free for a little over 6 months now. [insert smiles and nods of congratulations here]. To say that it has been a rough half year would be lying. In actuality, I only really miss my oatmeal addiction*, soy sauce at sushi restaurants, and not being able to eat the bread basket at restaurants when they have a wonderfully fragrant olive oil. For the most part, though, I’ve been OK with it. If someone tried to take tortilla chips or cashews away from me, however, there would be a fight to the death.
The funny thing is that I had tried to give up wheat a couple of times in the past on the suggestion of docs, naturopaths, accupuncturists, and a chiropractor- but I never stuck to it more than two weeks because I didn’t see any results. The difference was wheat vs gluten though… I still ate spelt and bulgur and oats and am not sure if I read labels carefully enough. Needless to say, it did nothing for me back then.
The tipping point for me was my digestion. It has always been terrible- maybe my whole life. And, of course, they say it is Irritable Bowel. Let’s just say I tend heavily toward the D side of things.
I come a family of chronic stomach aches. My mother’s was so bad that when she was a teenager, they opened her up (like a c-section) and took out some “needless” stuff like an appendix and a spleen and maybe even her pancreas. Nothing solved her aching though, until at the age of 28, she had me. Since then she still has a sensitive stomach and eats very carefully, but the pain isn’t what it used to be. A pretty good case for pregnancy in my book!
So…. at one particularly terrible point last spring the pain was becoming unbearable. Not only was my stomach distended and painful, the eczema on my hands had returned with a vengeance and was keeping me up at night with the burning. So… I decided to sign up for a cleanse through a naturopath in town. (More on cleansing later). This time I really did give up GLUTEN for two weeks and I noticed a difference immediately, both in my stomach and my skin.
The most striking and obvious affect was that by the end of the two weeks, the eczema that was covering my hands had completely disappeared. Instead of the bright red scaly skin with sores, I had my hands back! The skin was actually soft and normal- it seemed like a miracle.
And so it began…..
