“GLUTEN FREE DIET” GOOD OR BAD???
GLUTEN FREE COOKING
“GLUTEN FREE DIET” GOOD OR BAD?
by
Sanford Pinna, M.D.
Copyright 2012
There is a theory amongst physicians and healers around
the world: “Our genes have not changed in the last ten to twenty
thousand years, and, therefore, we should eat the food that we
ate before civilization arrived.”
“If we eat the food of modern civilization, the food developed
in the last ten thousand years, many of us will develop diseases;
or, we will not be as healthy as our Neolithic ancestors.
There is a tremendous amount of good logic in this
reasoning.
We know that our genetic endowment predisposes us
to a wide swath of “Auto-Immune Diseases” wherein our own
Immune System, attacks certain cells as though they were
“foreign” and not part of our endowed cellular make-up.
Is it possible that our modern diet, coupled with an
ancient unchanged immune system, attacks those cells
where molecules found only in modern society have been
incorporated?
Many healers believe that this is the reality and they
advise changing your diet to that of the Neolithic period,
or even, the Pre-Neolithic Period, where many plants were
never used as food.
From this reasoning comes the “Raw Diet” and the
“Caveman’s Diet” wherein food is not cooked. In the
Pre-Neolithic and Neolithic Ages, food was seldom or
never cooked. There was no time to build a fire in the
forests; and, in order to have enough energy to run,
fight and capture game, man ate his food “raw” or
uncooked.
The genetic makeup of mankind, which developed over
hundreds of thousands of years, has virtually not changed in the last ten thousand years.
We still produce the same enzymes and other metabolic
determiners which process our nutrients as we did a hundred thousand years ago.
As a consequence of this unique metabolic process,
many people cannot utilize the foods of the modern
age, such as wheat, milk or peanuts.
Diseases such as Coeliac Disease, Lactose Deficiency
and Peanut Allergies plague a large number of people
in the Modern Age.
The Question then becomes: Should we eliminate
those foods which were seldom or never eaten when our genes were formed, or eat the foods that were created
in the last ten thousand years and deal with the unwanted
consequences?
It becomes an exceedingly tedious task to search
for and to eliminate those foods that were cultivated
in the Modern Era.
Our society is no longer a society where families
lived alone and had a unique diet which they cultivated
and prepared for themselves.
Today, we are an inter-dependent society, where
groups of people have specialized tasks; and, their
products and services are exchanged in a “Market
Place” where fungible tokens called “Money” are used
as a means of exchanging all products, including food.
Buying food without certain molecules, such as,
for example, Gluten is very difficult—but, it can be
done.
The secondary question then becomes: “Should
we use our energy and time to search for and avoid
undesirable foods?”
Gluten is only one of many new molecules found
in the foods of the Modern Era. Each individual has
his or her own complex of molecules which he or she
cannot metabolize without detrimental consequences.
Some of these molecules are so hazardous that
we might easily die from eating foods which contain
them.
Gluten, Lactose, Peanut Molecules are only
three molecules of thousands of molecules which
represent the change in diet from the Neolithic
Age to the Modern Era.
In my opinion, each of us should seek and identify
those foods which can be harmful to our body, as they
provoke minor reactions which we can tolerate, or
major reactions which require medical attention and
medical intervention.
BRIEF SUMMARY:
Because our genes have not adapted to the change in
which humans obtain their food, our bodies have mild to severe
reactions to those foods which contain molecules which we cannot
metabolize, or to which our Immune System regards as “Foreign”
and which our Immune System attacks, producing an “Auto
Immune Disease” which may be devastating.
These foods can be easily identified; either by noting
our negative reaction after they have been ingested—or by
simply learning which foods were not present during the
Neolithic Age.
For example: Mankind did not milk cows or other
mammals during this period because such mammals
were not domesticated and herds were unknown.
Wheat and other grass seeds were not available for
food as mankind did not use farming as a means of producing
food. Farming as a means of food production was introduced
in the Middle East approximately ten thousand years ago.
WHAT TO DO?
Medical scientists have been exploring what is known as
“Exclusion Diets” for the last three decades.
Without question, excluding those foods or molecules to
which an individual has severe reactions has always been advised.
Excluding foods to which an individual has minimal reactions
falls into an area that has never been clearly enunciated.
Excluding foods which have molecules which might
be deleterious to the individual is clearly controversial.
MY OPINION
The opinion of medical scientists across the world
concerning excluding one molecule such as “Gluten” or
“Lactose” has not, to this date, been codified—there is
no consensus.
I believe that if you have the energy and determination
to exclude a molecule that came into the food chain after
humans began to farm you will definitely have a beneficial
result.
Your genes and my genes are programmed to metabolize
food which were present on the planet prior to farming.
Not only can we consume these foods without damage
to our bodies; but, better yet, we can integrate the molecules
of these foods into our cells, our organs and our nervous system
We will look better, age more gracefully and, mentally, have
a more positive and clearer understanding of the Universe around
us.
