When you have a food and nutrition blog, people talk to you about digestive issues quite a bit.
People ask me about stomach pain after eating, diarrhea, constipation, indigestion, and everything in between. When my husband had undiagnosed Crohn’s Disease, stomach pain after eating was a major symptom and telling factor. Seven blissfully symptom-free years after surgery to remove part of his small intestine, when he had chronic diarrhea for two months, the medical establishment couldn’t do anything to help him.
Two days of going grain-free fixed his elimination better than it had been in his whole life and nixed any stomach pain after eating. Just. Like. That.
So I guess we’re pretty comfortable talking about poo around here.
And when digestive issues come up, I often say, “You know, you should just try going grain-free. Just see what happens…”
And then people want more information.
It’s daunting to cut an entire food group out of your diet, especially one that may have previously been, say, the foundation of your eating habits (aka the Food Pyramid).
Cutting Out Food Groups IS Hard!
When we first decided to go grain-free to see if my husband might have a gluten sensitivity, I admitted here at KS that I was a little nervous, and that I expected some difficulties.
There were some folks who pretty harshly told me that new diets are easy and I should stop complaining.
I beg to differ.
Cutting something from your diet that you usually eat every day, if not every meal, is far from easy.
I’m no superwoman, and I don’t claim to be.
Going grain-free, or dairy-free, or nut-free, or gluten-free…those are BIG changes. And it’s okay to be scared to death of trying them.
It’s okay to wonder, “What in the world am I going to eat?”
It’s okay to wish you didn’t have to do it.
But it’s also okay to take baby steps and do what you can each day.
If you feel like you should try an elimination diet of some sort, well…you probably should.
Tell yourself you’ll do it for one day.
Tell yourself you’ll do it every lunchtime for five days.
Tell yourself you’ll start next week, then spend this week researching recipes, collecting ideas, making lists, and buying a few new ingredients that you might need. Make a meal plan and just start thinking about it. You’ll be so much more prepared.
This post is sponsored by Plan to Eat.
Why Plan Meals for Special Diets?
Of course, a little recipe organization and meal planning is good for those of you who are eating whatever they want, too.
I visited a friend today and remarked on her cute chalkboard with the week’s meals listed. She started telling me how much her family likes seeing what’s coming, and then got more and more excited as she described the benefits of meal planning, which she’s only done for a couple weeks. In that SHORT amount of time, she’s already noticed:
- wasting less food because she thinks about what’s in her refrigerator and plans to use it up
- using food from the freezer more consciously and regularly
- getting in and out of the grocery store more quickly
- using more meat than usual and yet spending less
- she was particularly pumped about the amount of money she is saving by shopping only once a week since she knows what to buy for all five days
I couldn’t be happier for her that she’s discovered the joys and true freedom of menu planning. And all I did was say, “Cute blackboard…that new?”
How to Get Started Menu Planning
You just gotta write it down. Once you do, you’ll be more likely to stick to your plan. Have fun with it! You could:
- Use Pinterest to collect recipes.
- Write a simple list on paper or in a notebook.
- Buy a cute chalkboard, whiteboard, or bulletin board
- Write it on the fridge with magnetic poetry (maybe I’m stretching there)
- Try an online menu planner like Plan to Eat
I admit, I’m still a paper and pencil person, but only because I keep saying I can’t do one more thing on the computer.
However. Whenever I do any strange diets or use a bunch of new recipes, Plan to Eat is my go-to tool. Because of the speed of the “import recipes bookmarklet,” I can just quickly drop new recipes into PTE online and my entire grocery list is auto-generated and ready when I walk into the store.
Plus, once everything is in Plan to Eat, I can drag them around the weekly planner to make things fit my real life daily schedule, make notes on my favs (and not so favs), and I’ve realized that more and more of my recipes are easier to find in my computer than my paper copies, which might end up on the counter, on my desk, or just…AWOL.
This way they’re always in my phone, and I’m ready to cook much faster.
If you’re worried about the upfront time “cost,” because you do have to get the recipes into PTE, don’t – this bookmarklet thing is so cool! It makes a pop-up window sit right next to the website you have open, and you can scroll through either place and copy and paste right into your “recipe box” on Plan to Eat. It seriously takes more time to find the recipe in my long-winded posts than it does to move it over. 
A word about copyright: Bloggers and online recipe writers do work very hard to make sure they publish original and delicious recipes. Please be sure to always source exactly to the page you found the recipe, and really, best practice is to only copy the ingredients and write your own method instructions, or just link to the original and let PTE friends check it out there. That’s both legal and courteous. I can upload my own recipes whenever I want, though, because they’re mine!
If you want to check it out, PTE offers a free 30-day trial. Bet you start seeing the financial savings that fast, just like my friend did!
I’m so glad of the chance to remind you of the importance of meal planning for those of you trying an elimination diet of ANY sort.
When you’re working so hard to make changes, you have to be kind to yourself and know what you’re doing each day, or you probably won’t make it.
But Should YOU Cut Gluten?
After hearing stories like Amy’s, watching my husband’s amazing experience with going grain-free and then figuring out it was gluten that bothered him, and hearing statistics like:
One in three Americans may have some issue with gluten.
I’m to the point where when anyone talks of an unexplained malady, a pain that they can’t get rid of, or a health issue that doctors can’t figure out and are just medicating, I automatically think, “They should cut gluten.”
When I see a child out of control or struggling academically or with their health, and especially when I notice dark circles under their eyes, I think, “I bet they have a gluten problem.”
I can’t always be right. Not everyone can have an issue with gluten.
But one in three is a pretty huge percentage of the population.
So maybe it’s a good idea to follow the advice of Dr. Tom O’Bryan, searing words that I heard on a podcast way back at the beginning of our journey and I’ll never forget:
“If anyone has a health issue of any kind, they should start by cutting gluten.”
It might not help, but what if it does?
Gehenna Food
If you’re familiar with the Bible, you may have heard this (paraphrased):
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. Better to go into life crippled than to be thrown in to Gehenna, where the fires never go out.”
The point of the verse is this: if something causes you to sin, it’s better to cut it out of your life rather than end up in a place of eternal suffering.
For some people, gluten (or dairy or sugar or corn or soy or…) makes them feel like Gehenna.
If that’s you, you shouldn’t be doomed to eternal suffering.
Cut it out.
Pray about it and be open to listening to God’s Word.
Be brave, be bold, and try an elimination diet, cutting out all of the possible offenders and figuring out what’s bothering you!
What About a Grain-Free Diet?
I mentioned the importance of meal planning when starting any sort of elimination diet, and how hard it can be to find new recipes that fit.
That’s why I often recommend that even if you’re just trying to go gluten-free as part of an elimination diet, you might as well just go grain-free first. In a lot of ways, it’s easier than remembering what contains gluten and figuring out gluten-free recipes that seem to have fifty different kinds of flour and a few assorted gums, and grain-free can have more dramatic results anyway.
If you do want to try eating grain-free, do these first:
- Buy a lot of vegetables.
- Plan meals where you can just skip the grains – stir fry without rice, a burger without a bun, soup laden with veggies and no pasta or rice. For a few days, that’s really not that hard. Gather some ideas into Plan to Eat so that you don’t forget to buy any of the veggies you don’t normally pick up.
- If you want some bread-like products, don’t freak out about all the Paleo or grain-free recipes (or gluten-free ones) and ingredients you’ve never heard of. Buy one bag of coconut flour, found here at Tropical Traditions for typically the best price – it will seem uber expensive at first, but you don’t use much, maybe 1/4 cup at a time in recipes, so that bag should last you a while. (Check out the coconut flour testing I did with three different brands. I also tested various brands of almond flour and almond meal.)
The biggest surprise so far is that it hasn’t been nearly as hard as I thought to figure out what to have for dinner. We’ve eaten mostly salads and simple sides for lunch, and most of my husband’s lunches have been “raw” – nothing cooked at all – to mimic the “cleanse” Jordan Rubin recommends in The Maker’s Diet. Although it might not have been the best idea for a digestive inflammation like Crohn’s – raw vegetables are harder to digest and cause flare-ups for many – it seemed to have a good effect on him from day one, so we continued.
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A Salad Every Day???
I figure, if you add enough fresh veggies to a salad, some crispy nuts, and a good selection of homemade salad dressings, you don’t really feel like you’re “eating light” or missing out on anything at lunch. We include:
- lots of peppers
- tomatoes
- cauliflower
- broccoli
- carrots
- cucumbers
- avocado
- fennel
- water chestnuts
- dried fruit
- cut fruit
- crispy walnuts
- crispy sunflower seeds
- I add cooked chicken, hard boiled eggs, or cheese when I need a little something extra and don’t feel like a raw lunch
These don’t go all in at once, but you can imagine the variety we end up with. I also vary the greens a bit, using fresh spinach and cabbage sometimes.
Make a list of what you CAN eat.
Here are some of my favorite grain-free and gluten-free recipes and resources:
Grain-Free Breakfast Recipes
Grain-free Pizza Quiche (or salmon version, right)
Grain-free Pumpkin Breakfast Porridge
Orange Vegetable Pancakes (use coconut flour or almond flour)
Grain-free Almond Apple Pancakes
Potato Vegetable Pancakes (Latkes) (use almond flour or arrowroot starch as the thickener)
Grain-free Appetizers, Snacks and Sides
Cabbage Salad with Goat Cheese
Green Bean Chips (an alternative to potato chips)
Coconut Flour Muffins (and more) in Healthy Snacks to Go
- Brussels Sprouts People will Actually Enjoy Eating
- Plan to Eat’s blog has categories for gluten-free, dairy-free, and Nourishing Traditions recipes
Grain-free Main Courses, Soups and Sides
Quick Cauliflower Rice in the Instant Pot
Grain-Free Cauliflower Mac and Cheese
Instant Pot (or slow cooker) Chipotle Copycat Beef Barbacoa
Instant Pot Sweet and Sour Meatballs (AIP and GAPS friendly) or try this other meatball recipe
St. Patrick’s Day Veggie-Laden Shepherd’s Pie (arrowroot to thicken)
Savory Greek Sausage Stuffed Autumn Squash
Katie’s Simple Cabbage Soup with Secret Super Food
Homemade Burger & French Fries (just skip the buns and use lettuce or portabella mushrooms instead)
Chicken Leek & Barley Soup (Leaving the barley out and being heavy-handed with the leeks and carrots made for a surprisingly thick, very delicious and nutritious soup.)
Black Bean Soup – The first night, I already had black beans soaking for Black Bean Soup, so I made it for myself and the kids and simply omitted the beans for my husband. You would think that a soup without the main ingredient would be terribly insufficient, but he said it was really good. I did have about a half cup of leftover taco meat that went perfectly into it, so I suppose I created a taco soup, grain-free style.
Grain-Free Instant Pot Mac n Cheese
Grain-Free Chickpea Pizza Crust
Allergy-Friendly Instant Pot Chili
- I have SO many more grain-free recipes! FIND THEM ALL HERE, UPDATED EACH TIME A NEW ONE IS POSTED!
- Keep in mind that almost all soup recipes can be made grain-free by removing rice or pasta and using potatos or turnips instead
- Grain-free Tomato Pizza Tortillas
- Puerto Rican Chicken
- Honey Dijon Chicken Casserole (thicken with arrowroot)
- Potato Beef Bake (same as above)
- CSA Greens Recipe: Italian Salmon (or Mushrooms) with Greens and Goat Cheese
- plus just about all the condiment recipes
- Roasted Winter Vegetables with Fennel
How Does Grain Free Affect Your Food Budget?
I have no good news here. There’s just no getting around it: meat, nuts, dried fruit, and even vegetables, most of the time, cost much more than grains and legumes, especially coming from my perspective of grinding my own bulk whole grains, making everything from scratch, and using dry beans. I just stocked up on $130 of grass-fed beef and chicken, which would usually last 2-3 months, for sure. I don’t think it will stretch that far this time, although I am still managing to stretch one package of meat into 2-4 meals, including leftovers.
I have discovered spaghetti squash, which is the one replacement for grains that is just as cheap as its namesake. I promptly bought a half bushel of them the day after we decided to go grain-free, just so I could have some easy-as-spaghetti meal options.
The one positive impact on the food budget is probably in the cheese department, because since my husband is staying dairy-free for a while, too, we just skip the cheese in most recipes. Also, thank goodness it’s apple season. We have picked four bushels of apples at under $10/bushel in the last three weeks. A bushel is a lot of apples, in case you’re wondering. We love our apples.
Someone asked last week if NOT buying the grains would at least help the budget be less out of control. Because I buy so much in bulk, it’s hard to say what we’ve spent the last few weeks compared to normal Kimball life, but I have noticed this: not preparing the grains has spared a lot of prep time, especially in the evenings. I have not missed soaking things and getting sourdough sponges started, not one bit.
I wonder what I’ve done with all that extra time? I think I’ll go look for it now.
More Info on Going Grain-free
The basics: getting started
- Remember to meal plan and use Plan to Eat to help you stay organized!! The 30-day free trial will be plenty to try a Whole30 or similar. 🙂
- FAQ’s on the Grain-Free Lifestyle :: including grain-free snacks and ideas to feed kids without grains
- Tips to Keep in Mind When Starting a New Restrictive Diet with Kids
- How to Bake Grain-free with Coconut Flour
- How Do 3 Brands of Coconut Flour Differ?
- Comparing 3 Brands of Almond Flour (and the difference of almond meal)
background info
- The Comparison: The Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD), GAPS Diet (Gut & Psychology Syndrome), and the Maker’s Diet
- Jordan Rubin and the Maker’s Diet
- Why is Gluten Such a Problem
- How Much is Too Much?
hungry for more?
- WHAT IF GRAIN-FREE DIDN’T WORK FOR ME?? Sometimes, grains aren’t the problem. If you’ve tried an elimination diet and it didn’t work to decrease bloating, constipation, or stomach pain, you’ve got to read Suzanne’s story and the very real solution.
- Five Keys to Weight Loss with Real Food
- How Did We Do on the Lenten No Grains/No Gluten Challenge?
- Monday Mission: Chew Your Food
- Key Steps You Can Take to Heal Your Gut
Other Resources Around the Web
Cara, who has been feeding her family grain-free (GAPS) for quite a few years, is an expert I turn to when I need a new recipe. She has a number of resources for sale:
- Health Home and Happiness Starter Package (most popular!)
- Grain-free freezer cooking class – do it in an afternoon!
- Grain-free meal plans
and more…
- Allergy-Free Cooking classes from Traditional Cooking School
- Customizable meal plans for any limited diet (especially FODMAPS)
- Heart of Cooking‘s Allergy Free Menu Planners (for any allergy or combination!)
- Beyond Grain and Dairy or Baking with Coconut Flour by Starlene Stewart
- Everyday Grain-Free Baking by Kelly Smith of the Nourishing Home
- The Grain-Free Lunchbox
- Against the Grain: Delicious Recipes for the Whole Food and Grain-Free Diet by
Phew! I think that’s it. All my grain-free knowledge, all in one place. If you have weird digestive stuff going on, diarrhea, stomach pain after eating, or just wonder about any sort of gluten or grain sensitivity…give it a try for a few days. You don’t have to have a ton of resources to skip grains, even for a week.
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Plan to Eat. See my full disclosure statement here.
I agree. You focus on the things you can eat! And you refine and improved over time. I cook mostly without wheat and dairy. (a couple members can have those so there are a few items in my house but they aren’t included in meals) And a completely agree that you can need to make sure eliminating a food doesn’t cause you to pick up other bad habits…gluten free or dairy free can still be code for eating a lot of other crap food….go healthy instead.
The transition is hard, but I find the challenge of it gets me through. Like, “oh yeah? Watch me! It’s maintaining it over months and years that I struggle with.
My daughter just requested “those muffins” when she saw the photo up top – I think we’re off for a bit of coconut flour orange-cranberry muffin baking! (since our dietary restrictions mean that I don’t have your book)
Lauren,
Love that..I’m stubborn like that and it helps with challenges in the kitchen, too. Btw, I would offer a full refund on any book for ANY reason, including that you can’t find enough recipes for a particular allergy. Many recipes fit dietary restrictions and others have adaptations in the notes…
🙂 Katie
We eliminated dairy from my daughter’s diet almost a month ago. It was definitely a hard transition, but we’re finally “there.” The first week was the hardest, and I think she still had a little dairy each day because I kept forgetting just how many foods have dairy in them! It was also difficult since many of my typical meals have cheese included, and I often gave cheese or yogurt as a quick snack. Also, since I couldn’t include dairy in meals, all I could think of were meals WITH dairy in them. Thanks for the grace shown in your post, as well as the baby step examples. That all helps with the “Mommy guilt” from during the transition!
I am breastfeeding my 3 mo, and it finally became obvious that something in my diet was seriously messing her up. So, two weeks ago I started an Elimination Diet and cut out all of the top 8 food allergens all at once. She got SO much better!!
But I tried wheat again two days ago and she reacted BADLY!! So thank you for posting about gluten-free and other diets. I needed se encouragement!!
Carrie- me, too! I’m gluten free anyway, and I had been doing GAPS before I got pregnant, so I’ve done lots of dietary changes before. Still doesn’t make it easy…
I have also found that my 5 month old has had silent reflux, to where she didn’t spit up, but would have apparent pain. Cutting out tomatoes, citrus, and chocolate (yikes!) has made all the difference. If you don’t feel like cutting out gluten is the entire answer, I’d encourage you to try this. I thought I’d be safe now that she is a little older and I had tomato sauce a few times last week. We’re just now recovering. I’m just glad to have my happy baby back!
Keep at it, Momma! You can do it!
Elle
We went grain/dairy-free for a year & I think going grain-free would be so much easier if we didn’t have severe nut allergies. Grainy gluten-free subsitutions just don’t cut it for our family. We will have to have a glaringly obvious reason for its benefit if we’re going to try that again in the future!
Most people actually go through the five stages of grief when they first enter into a gluten free lifestyle. You’re quite right that it’s not as easy as some people think it is. Usually though, what I hear is that people “couldn’t do that, it’d be too hard” or that they’d “just die.”
Well, I was dying before but not now. I’ve been gluten free for nearly four years and I’ve never been healthier.
I also try to use as many whole grains in my recipes as possible, and I also use rapadura as my sweetener. I’m not a strict follower of the Nourishing Traditions lifestyle, but I’ve learned a lot from Sally’s book and I’ve taken some of it to heart. I don’t always soak my grains, but I do use full fat dairy products (when my body is digesting dairy) and a lot more cultured dairy as well.
If you’d like to link to my site please feel free.
Amanda,
I can totally believe that about grief – it’s such a change and loss in the way we live life!
I thought of your blog just after I closed my computer – doh! – updating now! Sorry about that!
🙂 Katie
Added your blog to information in our FB group Living Gluten Free!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/LivingGlutenFree/
Okay…whoever said starting a new diet is easy is CRAZY!!!! We started eating “real food” last September. There was so much to learn and we had to pick it up quickly because of the change to my son’s diet. We spent entire Saturdays in the kitchen experimenting and it was exhausting! Not to mention the countless hours of research and hours spent locating/interviewing local farmers.
Everything runs smoothly now and thanks finding to your website (wish I had know about it in September versus November) we’ve discovered tons of short cuts! But I wouldn’t wish those first few months on anyone. And it definitely was not easy.
As someone who is in the midst of my first major detox, change is HARD! I’m living off a limited list of fruits, veggies, and brown rice. Focusing on what I can eat has been the key to my success thus far. However, I can NOT wait to be able to have chicken stock back this weekend! Planning is essential though as I move forward in gradually adding foods back into my diet. It is far from easy and is very daunting to take on. HOWEVER, it IS possibly if you have the desire. In my case, health reasons gave me the desire/need.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks new diets are hard! 🙂
My solution for meal planning for the past year has been to have rotating seasonal menus, complete with recipes and grocery lists. Then I download it in a PDF to my Kindle so that I don’t have to rely on the computer being on/available while I’m making dinner.
I didn’t think recipes in particular are covered by copyright.
Cirelo,
ingredients aren’t, but method sort of is…if it’s a bit fancy, not just “dump, stir, bake, etc.” Either way, it’s just polite to make sure bloggers get the traffic they deserve if you love one of their recipes.
🙂 Katie
Can’t wait for the grain-free snacks! I cut out gluten a few months ago and am loving the benefits, but still trying to expand my circle of what I can eat.
We started eliminating processed foods from our diet last January, not for any particular health reason, but just to eat more naturally. I did one thing each month: grocery store meats, aspartame/”low-fat” foods, MSG, food dyes, white flour, HFCS, etc. It was WAY less traumatic that way; eliminating everything all at once can definitely make you feel like there is NOTHING left. Now my kids are so used to it they (almost) never ask for multi-colored cereal any more. (I was a little embarassed–but super proud–in a small store last week when my kids were asking me “Is this one poison?” for every bag of chips and package of donuts.) My 5 year old even requested baked oatmeal for breakfast this morning and meatloaf in his lunch yesterday! I used the internet like crazy to try and find substitutions and new ideas. Websites like KS made it so much easier to plan, get inspired, and feel confident. Thanks for all your hard work, Katie!
That’s AWESOME! 🙂 Katie
Thank you so much for posting this. I’ve been considering going on GAPS, as I have numerous medical problems to overcome, but have been absolutely daunted by the task of eliminating dairy from my diet! So nice to know that I’m not alone in the trepidation :).
I see you mention all elimination diets, but you don’t mention vegetarian/vegan diets. My family went vegetarian last September and our biggest struggle is adapting recipes that we really like to not include meat, or finding items on a menu at a restaurant. Our culture is so into gluten-free right now, that vegetarians/vegans are overlooked among all the ads and promotions for BACON!! haha. Please don’t leave us out…I love all your grain and bean recipes and I’m so excited because I just found this blog and I want to start sprouting, but even here, conversations about chicken stock don’t apply to me, and there’s no mention of making vegetable stock instead.
Christie,
I hope you can still benefit from the philosophies in this post and so glad you love the meatless recipes at KS…but I do believe that meat is a good thing in diets, particularly chicken stock. I’ve realized I can’t be everything to everyone…
Also, I do discuss vegetable broth in The Everything Beans Book, although it is not a 100% vegetarian book (about 50/50, if I remember correctly).
🙂 Katie
I went gluten free in August. I had been working on reducing our grain consumption for several weeks before that and a graphic demonstration by my body after eating some gluten after a week off of it made the decision a lot easier to stick to. The thing I have the most trouble with is what to bring when we are eating away from home. I am so glad that there will be even more gluten free recipes in the new Healthy Snacks to Go. Meal planning is the biggest thing that helped me make the transition to GF. It probably didn’t hurt that I was on an elimination diet for three weeks to start with so just cutting out gluten felt easier. 😉 I will agree with AmandaonMaui, there is definitely a grieving process that goes with a major diet change. I had one episode when I first went gluten free and went to the monthly ladies luncheon at my church and was crying at the table because there was nothing I could eat. All in all it has been a good change and the benefits outweigh the negatives so I will be sticking with it. Now if I could just find a decent hamburger bun recipe I would be set!
Perfect timing! First of all, I’m not advertising anything. Not sure if you’ve ever heard of FlyLady.com with Marla Cilley but that’s how I found out about Leanne Eli from savingdinner.com. Anyway, I just got an email from savingdinner.com with a special offer for freezer menus & recipes for gluten free and also paleo recipes. She threw in some freezer grill recipes as well. I’ve done her freezer menus for many years and love them. If you go to the website, you’ll see the gluten free special advertised clearly on the first page.
If you’d rather not answer that’s ok but I was wondering what symptoms your hubby was having that made you think he might have prob’s with gluten?
Char,
LOVE flylady. So great. I haven’t really done much with the savingdinner website, but it is another example of how mainstream GF is getting!
You can read a bit of our story here: http://www.kitchenstewardship.com/2010/09/22/some-changes-at-the-kimball-house/ (at least I think that’s the post…)
🙂 Katie
I’ve been gluten/dairy/refined-sugar free for 4 months now. Have lost 11% of my body weight without even trying. Have cured both my hypothyroidism and eczema. Also, my autoimmune symptoms have greatly reduced (from MS). I have no doubt that this elimination diet has made a world of difference for me. You couldn’t pay me to go back to my old way of eating! Thanks so much for your blog full of great tips and recipes. I appreciate it! 🙂
Clair,
I understand that gluten is often related to auto-immune diseases – so fabulous that you’ve found relief with a dietary change! I hope your doctor takes note so s/he can help other people seek answers in food….
You’re very welcome!!
🙂 Katie
I’m so glad you are doing another healthy snacks ebook. We love the first one and I really appreciate the fact that you are giving the new one to people who purchased the first one. I have to say that you have made the transition to healthy real food so much easier in my house. Thanks a million.
I just read your post from a couple years ago about going grain free. Did you stop and then go back to grain free? Did you feel like it helped you? I just read GAPS and am debating if/how much to implement from it.
Lindsey,
We’ve done it on and off over the past 18 mos. It definitely helps my husband, but really it’s staying gluten-free that makes the big difference for him. My digestion is best grain-free, too, but not actually bad on grains. It never hurts to try it! 🙂 Katie
My oldest daughter started having digestion issues around the time she started eating grains in the typical baby foods and finger grasping puff snacks. We figured out through an elimination diet that she had issues with the wheat baby cereal, so we cut that out and continued to feed her a gluten free diet. When her younger sister started showing the same symptoms at the same age, she went gluten free too.
Recently I’ve been noticing different symptoms of the same problem in myself. (I remember them from all my research the first time around). So even though our family has already been eating mostly gluten free to go along with the girls, now I’m completely gluten free with them too.
Luckily, none of us have a problem with oats, even the ones that aren’t certified gluten free, so we use those and oat flour in baked goods. It’s an easy, inexpensive substitute, at least for some things.
I also read somewhere that genetics play into gluten sensitivity, at least in part. (I wish I could remember where I read that!) So it makes sense that if my daughters have issues, it might come through me.
Anyways, I have the same thoughts when I hear someone is having issues. They should try cutting out gluten and see what happens. It won’t hurt!
Thank you so much for sharing this article and for sharing the Plan to Eat menu planner!
I recently cut animal products from my diet, while my husband is still very much a carnivore. It makes planning meals and creating a grocery list difficult at times. But, you’ve inspired me to add a section to our white board labeled ‘Menu’.
Right now, like you said, I just have a bunch of recipes saved on pinterest that will probably stay there unless I really commit to creating a weekly menu. I love how this will also reduce on food waste. It’s so easy to go to the store and buy things because we think we will need it, and then find it a couple of weeks later and needs to be thrown in the trash!
While we haven’t cut out gluten, we may think about cutting back on it! I know that eliminating dairy from our diets has benefited our health, but it would be interesting to see if cutting gluten would have the same affect!
Thank you for the recipe and meal ideas. Some variety to what I typically eat is appreciated. I started eating gluten free several months ago because I was having menstrual problems. My symptoms resolved immediately! I then cut out dairy because I was also having some digestive issues. I saw some improvement, but not as much as I would like. So I also cut out grains and my tummy is SOOOO much happier! I think I actually felt worse with the gluten free substitutes. Grain free is definitely the ticket for me.
Best. Post. Ever. Thank you so much!!! This is so incredibly helpful! Love your site and I appreciate what you do!