Another not GLUTEN FREE enough for me tale ...

So it has been another frustrating week for me on navigating the ability to manage my dietary restrictions while striving for 'better health and wellness' and still getting gluten into my diet! 

So Health Canada came along in 2014 with their new 'food labeling laws' that are suppose to PROTECT those of us with food allergies from being exposed by hidden ingredients in processed foods and so forth. They have increased their rules to require any 'hidden' ingredients as part of a processing to not be any of the 'allergen concerning' ones so if something says 'spices' and it has a nut/wheat/egg/dairy/etc in the spice mix they now have to disclose that. These new standards should make Canadians feel safer about managing their food allergies - right?  Things should be getting better for eating out and making safe choices in products sold to me in the stores?

HOWEVER, at least in my own experience, I am finding this to be anything but true! It feels harder TODAY than it did 10 years ago when I was first diagnosed!

Everywhere I look more and more foods are being labelled and marketed to us as 'gluten free' and stupidly I trust this term cause the government has 'laws' to protect the consumer!  However the more I investigate these laws as well as the companies ingredients and manufacturing practices the more I realize that while they might pass FDA and Health Canada requirements they are still NOT gluten free ENOUGH for me, who as a Celiac is one of those few who by experience has to have NO gluten in my diet, not just 'limited to less than 20 parts gluten', in order to experience what it is like to have any semblance of HEALTH in my life!  

So I cannot trust the government but surely I can trust the Celiac community to provide me with SAFE labeling and information?

Well turns out the Celiac community has 3 different organizations that will offer companies 'certified gluten free' status but when you look into what that MEANS you find out that ALL of them still allow SOME gluten to be in the product and still get this 'certified gluten free label' so depending on your own sensitivity we cannot even trust this 'certified gluten free' labels!

For those with actual 'gluten allergies / sensitivities' the challenge lies in the way 'gluten free' is DEFINED in Canada, United States and many other countries. Because unlike the 'nut free' claims where a product cannot have even come in contact or been grown NEAR nuts or looked like a nut and so forth to be 'banned' anywhere a person with a nut allergy might come in contact with it the definition of 'gluten free' in many countries actually allows for foods that contain gluten, are grown and processed with gluten and so forth to stil BE labelled gluten free as long as random testing shows it is 'less than 20 parts per million! This just boggles my mind how this is being promoted by government officials to be SAFE! But than again these are the same government officials who allow drugs to be approved to give your a longer erection or more energy and what that have serious side effects listed including 'death' as a warning with them but lord forbid someone claims that soaking their foot in 'lemon oil' helped to cure their athletes foot because that is not an approved claim!

So it is no surprise that the many in the Celiac community who actually SUFFER with Celiac verses just being 'researchers' of the disease are not impressed with this 'definition' because it actual contradicts other actual  research on the effects of 'any gluten' on a Celiac including the FDA's OWN risk assessment research paper? From what I have read it appears they've basically chosen a HIGHER amount of gluten being allowed to be present during manufacturing because it is the threshold that they can easily test for in a quick manner verses the amount that is SAFE for a Celiac, depending on the severity of their disease, to consume without adverse health reactions and therefore is not considered a 'risk'???

Which brings me to my most recent frustration is with the claims on that Wheat, Barley and Oat grasses are 'gluten free' and therefore safe for consumption in a gluten free Celiac diet ... and HIDING in many of our vitamins and other supplements because they are considered 'gluten free' and therefore do not need to be disclosed in their proprietary blend but still marketed as gluten free???? 

I have recently signed up to do a 30 Day Detox and one of the items required to help with the Detox were 'greens' that needed to be purchased 'online' so because reading labels on tiny little images online can be a challenge and I could not find the PDF with the ingredients (should have been my first clue) I called the manufacturer and asked 'Was trying to read the label online and having a hard time and just wanted to check are your Greens fully Gluten Free' and was told OF YES mame ALL of our health care products are gluten free. So I placed the order and waited for my item to arrive! Typical of our shipping here it takes a while and I have already started the rest of the detox protocol without the 'greens' so when it finally comes I am so excited to get going on this Detox I stupidly just toss it into my smoothie and go on about my morning. About an hour later I feel like CRAP ~ sorry for the TMI but literally I am feeling like CRAP! Having a total auto immune response including my skin is on fire and I want to crawl out of it!

So as always when that happens I look at 'what did I eat or touch today' so I can journal and compare to help me figure just what I am not coping with or combos of foods I am not coping with ... so first place I go is to have a look a closer look at my new 'gluten free greens' I had last and flip back the ingredient list and low and behold it says 'WHEAT / BARLEY / OAT GRASS" and I am sitting here having spent a lot of money on what I was promised on the phone, after having said I was a Celiac, was a gluten free item and thinking what the hell how can something with WHEAT, OAT AND BARELY in the name be marketed as 'gluten free'?

OK so for those who do not understand ~ the FDA and other governing bodies liken wheat grass to a vegetable instead of a grain because the plant has yet to produce a seed, which would then allow the plant to be considered a grain. Findings from USDA research notes, “Gluten is found only in the seed kernel (endosperm) and not in the stem and grass leaves.” Which is why it can contain the 'gluten free' label under USDA and Health Canada standards because it is the 'grass' being processed.

Sorry I am not a scientist or a researcher or even a really great 'gardener'. However I come from over 25 years of 'growing children' and I have a garden I do my best to tend and in my experience whether being a plant or a child they all MATURE differently even though they may be been planted all at the same time .... so how can you be 100% SURE that the some of the 'grass' in your product did not 'seed' before being plucked???

Answer from manufacturers "Oh well we cannot ~ but even if we missed some it would have less than the allowable amount so it is still safe' .... oh gee thanks for that diddy makes me feel REAL safe!

So my advice to those who SELL these types of products ~ be HONEST with your customers! Labeling or marketing your wares as 'gluten free' when they are NOT might get the 'non Celiac' who has been led to believe gluten is evil to buy your product but for those of us who ARE Celiac and our health relies on sourcing actual gluten free products all you are succeeding in doing is making us leave your market place entirely ... we are giving up gluten free as a trusted source of healing or treatment of our disease and opting for no grains at all, no processed foods at all, growing and making our own food, beauty and cleaning supplies ... and if the statistics are to be believed we represent ONE in THREE people so over a 30% of the market share!

My advice for those who are looking to avoid gluten because of a true allergen or intolerance that negatively affects your health .... get your VITAMINS and GREENS from clean natural sources! FRESH fruits and vegetables have just as many and in some cases MORE nutrients than these so called 'power greens' being marketed to us to give us better health and wellness! 

If you need help ensuring you are getting enough 'vitamins' in your diet journal your food with an app that actually tracks that! I am a lover of My Fitness Pal but there are lots of options on the market research which one will work for your lifestyle!

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much

Be Totallyawake4-life

 

Christmas Cards ~ Ya or Nay

I just received my very first Christmas Card in the mail this afternoon ~ I cannot explain how it warmed my heart to open up the mailbox and see the hand written address from one of my old friends and the anticipation to rip it open and see what she'd sent me - hand made or store bought doesn't matter to me I love and cherish them all. With our busy lives and no longer living in the same city we do not get together in person nearly often enough, which is likely why getting a hand written card with a 'catch up note' is so very dear to me! 

I just LOVE getting greeting cards in the mail, I know I am bias because I also love making hand stamped cards, however the tradition of 'snail mail' cards seems to be going the way of the dodo bird as each year I seem to get 'less and less' sent out to me and admittedly with the cost of stamps in Canada right now my Christmas Card list has gone from sending over 300 cards during the holiday season to reach out to those in my life I do not see often enough but want them to know that they are often on my mind especially during the holidays to now being weaned down to basically 'reciprocity' based ~ if you sent me one last year I will make sure to send you one this year otherwise I will send you a 'virtual greeting' via social media and keep the snail mail card tradition for those who are still invested in it. 

So it got me to thinking what is the 'norm' out there in the world so thought I would put it out there and see just how many people actually still partake in the tradition of sending out the 'family Christmas card' to loved ones that you might not get to see over the holidays?  

Leave me a comment below on your thoughts on the Christmas Card .... love to get them and send them ? Love to get them but get busy this time of year and always forget to send them? Prefer to send virtual greetings?

Have an amazing day!

Margaret

Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much!

Be Totallyawake4-life

CHEMICALS a neccesary evil or should we ban them all?

So was reading a heated debate in a forum today around this meme .... the conspiracy theory of many that the meme is a attempt from the evil Monsanto corporation to trick us into thinking all their chemicals and genetically modified foods are good for us! Now do not get me wrong I am no fan of Monsanto and many of their practices but I do not believe this meme was planted to confuse consumers but rather to empower them!

IMO the point of this meme is that ...

1) EVERYTHING is a chemical and therefore labels on your stuff that read pick us we are 'chemical free' and so forth are VERY misleading ... reality is that everything even the air or oxygen we breath and water we drink are listed on the periodic table as a chemical by its chemical name Dihydrogen Monoxide as well as its abbreviation of H20 for example and BOTH can be totally toxic and deadly to human beings!

This DHMO.org website for example continues to play a huge social experiment on those in the Internet community who tend to believe that if its on the internet its 'true' and if the Internet says it is dangerous it must be \dangerous' literally in-sighting people to create petitions to the government and companies to BAN Diyhdrogen Monoxide ... all because they blindly trusted what they read, they cannot pronounce the word so it must be evil and it sounds convincing with links and science and it IS TRUE .... the fact is that WATER can be DEADLY to humans but fact is you will totally DIE without it. Nature is about BALANCE! I enjoyed this read from the Logic of Science website about the 5 Simple Things about Chemicals you need to know.

This is another example of meme making the rounds on social media this week with everyone sharing and saying Subway needs to take action and remove this chemical .... people are totally missing the point that they are asking Subway to remove WATER from their subs! It is making a joke on the previous social media campaign for them to remove the azodicarbonamide from their bread ~ which they did to appease public outcry but the fact is it is FLOUR in general out there so anything you eat with flour you are eating this 'chemical' that YES is also in yoga mats .... it is an FDA approved chemical in food in SMALL DOSES so if you are not 'making your own flour' you are likely ingesting this daily anyway even if you are boycotting Subway. 

 Another example of a 'April fools joke gone bad' when a radio host announced that this 'dihydrogen monoxide' was coming out of the local drinking taps and it had the community in an uproar and made it all the way to SNOPES in an attempt to stop the rumor from continuing but yet still here it is circulating the Internet! 

2) Speaks to the fact that we need to understand 'chemicals' and the role they play in our lives as well as that being reminded that even 'good chemicals' can become BAD if not used in moderation, properly and so forth!

The great 'paraben' debate is a prefect example .... parabens can occur both NATURALLY in food such as  blueberries, mango, barley, strawberries, black currants, peaches, carrots, onions, cocoa beans, vanilla, to name but a few well-known foodstuffs ... and yet blueberries are toted as many to be the 'miracle antioxidant' at must have to live a long healthy life the same time! 

According to the FDA Parabans them self, either naturally occurring or synthetically mimicked, are not 'evil' and they serve a benefit in nature but the challenge is that like water if you are allowing too many into your lifestyle than you will have challenges with your health and well being as some research has shown ... however we do not BAN water from our life we find the BALANCE ;) 

While we are talking about understanding 'chemicals' the same argument holds true with the marketing label 'all natural' which people will pay MORE to have but is also one of my biggest pet peeves that people do not understand are you truly GETTING what you are paying for?  

Everyone assumes 'all natural' means SAFER but the fact is that as a easy example cyanide can be extracted from the pits of peaches and reality is it is ALL NATURAL but I would not want it in my skincare or smoothie or anything that is going to be absorbed through my skin .... yet lots of skincare companies LABELLED ALL NATURAL will use 'peach pits' in their exfoliation products or you find then all the time in processed peaches, baby food purees and juices where they do not bother to remove the pit before tossing them in the big ole processing plant ... so what is the long term damage to the human body ingesting those small amounts of cyanide cause we know in large quantities its DEADLY? 

For me the biggest lesson in this was the whole GLUTEN FREE labeling ... the FDA allows for a certain amount of gluten to be present in something and still be labelled gluten free because for the 'average Celiac' does not show any adverse health effects with that amount of gluten. However after 10 years on a traditional 'gluten free diet' I was still SICK and exhibiting all the signs of Celiac not as 'severe' as when I was eating a full gluten diet but not 100% better. The removal of ALL GRAINS from my diet and limiting processed foods and dining out I have seen a huge change in my health in the past 12 weeks so for ME the 'approved amount' was having a cumulative affect in my body making me sick. So we need to pay attention to our bodies and what is going in them to find a way to BALANCE our own health needs through watching our eating and living habits.  

3) Is empowering us to remember that the reason we often cannot pronounce ingredients on labels is that the labeling laws typically require the 'Latin name' for things first and foremost verses the common known because the common name may change depending on where you live, the language you speak and we send our wares all over the world now  ~ not many of us learn Latin these days to be able to easily 'pronounce' a name? 

So unlike the Internet Urban legend that all long complicated word  are EVIL the fact is many of those long complicated words are things we NEED, there is no conspiracy theory to trick us into being poisoned.  Some manufacturers, who have the space on their label, will also add the 'common name' beside it in brackets but if the space on a label is limited they just do the required Latin cause they have no choice ~ its the law. If you are unsure about a chemical's 'properties' LOOK IT UP the information is at our finger tips!

IMO the challenge if you are wanting to eat and live as 'clean and natural' as possible is ensuring you are sourcing foods, cleaning supplies, skincare and anything else that are not full of TOXIC chemicals be they 'all natural' or 'man made' chemicals .... find the MODERATION of chemials that are of benefit to you and limit and remove those that serve no purpose! 

For example I love cleaning with my ENJO cleaning cloths because it is just the specially cut fiber cloth and the cold water from the tap that gets you the deep pore clean result that leads to less bacteria and no residue left behind. They save me loads of money on additional 'cleaners' natural or otherwise cause they clean the whole house for me. HOWEVER my ENJO is only as healthy as the WATER I use with it ... so if I have toxic water source as my supply even though water is 'all natural'  than I am not going to be getting the SAFE BENEFICIAL HEALTH results that they quote in their research for their products despite the fact that everything I used is ALL NATURAL.

In my humble and long winded opinion THAT is the point I believe the above meme is trying to make ... because of FEAR and MISS-EDUCATION the fact is ALL chemicals are getting a BAD RAP because people no longer have a basic understanding of 'chemistry' and many will believe anything they read on the Internet as Gospel without researching for themselves and as a result and they lobby and push for the removal or banning of things that in reality were not the issue but were just 'misunderstood' by the public! 

So what do we DO to help ensure we are eating as clean and living as healthy as possible .... rememeber the rule about MODERATION!

The challenge with processed foods is not the chemicals we cannot pronounce but that often they are full of 'unnecessary chemicals' things that add calories, sodium and FAT to them to give them longer shelf life or better flavor so we are willing to pay so much for them ... because they are full of fillers and additives THAT is what makes them unhealthy choices for a 'stead diet' and the reality is THAT practice occurs in processed foods labelled 'organic' or otherwise.  Convenience foods are not meant to be a LIFESTYLE CHOICE they were meant to be just that convenience they are not BAD for us on their own WE make them BAD for us by making them a steady part of our diet so that the cumulative effect of their ingredients make us unwell!

Combined with the fact that manufacturers want to sell their products to us, they will use BUZZ WORDS to market their food in order to get you to buy it over their competitors ... they always have and always will. I see things all the time labelled 'fat free' or 'gluten free' that should not even HAVE those ingredients ADDED TO IT in the FIRST PLACE but people will buy it over the other brand cause the buzz word about fat and gluten being evil in the media caught their eye. 

So in conclusion this meme is not an attempt from Monsanto to get us to stop reading labels so they can slowly poison us ... fact is YES we definitely NEED to be reading the labels and counting the chemicals in our food but we need to be reading and counting for the RIGHT information ....do not get caught up in the 'buzz words' specially when it means PAYING MORE for something but not getting anything different than the other company.  

Instead I suggest we focus on how MANY ingredients are in a product, do they NEED to be the product, what purpose do they serve? We want our food to fuel us and not be full of 'empty fillers' cause it allows them to make a product cheaper or increase their profit margins. What is the point of having a 'full belly' if you are still starving cause you've chose nutritionally void food choices?  

Educate ourselves and do not rely solely on the word of OTHERS cause there is far too much misinformation out on the internet as well. I have always found the Environmental Working Group website a useful resource to start when trying to learn about what is in my food, skincare, cleaning supplies and what to avoid.

I myself love to read, I am a hoarder of information and I have never taken anything anyone has told me at 'face value' until I have read and confirmed it for myself from a source I trust and even than in somethings I still remain questioning of it. Been that way for as long as I can remember ... I encourage others to do the same. Do not take MY word on things .... it is just my opinion and perspective ~ I share it to get myself and others thinking. Feel free to question and push me back ~ I love to hear alternative rationales ... so go forth and read, question, debate .... stretch the mind and nourish the soul! 

Have an amazing day!

Margaret
Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much
Totallyawake4-life