by curcubit » Wed Nov 17, 2021 9:58 am
HI Rose,
I do think non-celiac wheat intolerance is a real thing. Researchers do too....you can type it into google scholar and find lots of papers on it. I personally feel my joints are better when I avoid wheat in all forms. I severely sprained my ankle in my teens, and when I turned fifty I noticed that my old ankle injury began to bother me....traumatic arthritis. I first did a trial of no nightshades for a month and did not see any relief, then tried a month of no gluten. That did the trick. After about six months of that, I began to re-introduce some whole grain rye products (rye crips and 100% rye mestemacher bread) occasionally with no ankle symptoms re-appearing. So i'm not sensitive to gluten (which rye contains), but the wheat. I also can eat farro occasionally (emmer, einkorn) which is ancestral wheat. So maybe it is just the more modern wheats I react too.
I wish I could say avoidance of wheat helped with weight loss, but never noticed that. I have done a wheat challenge and within two days of eating some whole wheat pasta or bread, my ankle pain returns like clockwork. I value my ability to hike, backpack, walk, swim, ski, etc painfree, so I am happy to continue avoiding wheat. I dont use any of the gluten free products...all the crackers, breads, pretzels...too calorie dense and no fiber. I do sometimes miss a nice sourdough sandwich bread, but after ten years I have a whole new world of eating habits that do not involve wheat (Yeah Asian food!). It is great to feel good in my 60 year old body when my peers seem to be falling apart (and eating crap!).
"One cannot pick a flower without troubling a star." Aldo Leopold