Responding to Audience Queries on Gluten Free Lifestyle and Celiac Disease Ep. 166

Can a simple cheat day wreak havoc on your health if you have celiac disease? Absolutely. This week, we're cutting through the confusion surrounding gluten-free living with a series of listener questions that deserve straight answers. We'll unravel the mystery of whether vinegar and corn flour are truly safe for those avoiding gluten, and I'll share essential tips on scrutinizing labels to keep those sneaky gluten grains out of your kitchen.

Join me on today's episode as we chat about "cheat days" and why even trace amounts can cause significant harm to your body. Plus, we'll discuss the varied timelines of healing after a celiac disease diagnosis and what factors influence how quickly you might feel better. This episode is packed with crucial insights for managing a gluten-free lifestyle effectively. Make sure to check out the episode links below for a more comprehensive discussion on the impact of cheat days.


Previous Episode Mentioned
https://www.thehealthyceliacpodcast.buzzsprout.com/1720208/8775065-celiac-disease-and-cheat-days-ep-14


Find out how Ultimate Celiac System can support your Celiac journey here
https://belindawhelantraining.com/ultimate-celiac-system

Wish you could get gluten free meals on the table fast that the whole family will love? Check out Meal Plans Made Easy
https://belindawhelantraining.com/gluten-free-meal-plans-made-easy

Join my free community and grab your copy of 11 Mistakes People Make Living Gluten Free here https://www.belindawhelan.myflodesk.com/11mistakes

Check out my Daily Health Tracker here
HEALTH TRACKER | The Healthy Celiac (belindawhelan.com)

I am so happy to be featured in Feedspots Top 10 Celiac Disease Podcasts
https://blog.feedspot.com/celiac_disease_podcasts/

And I would love to connect with you on Instagram thehealthyceliac

If you have a spare moment, please pop over to Apple Podcasts and leave me a review. Thank you!




Music Credit bensound.com 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:24

Welcome back to this week's show. Now I'm doing something a little bit different on today's episode and I'm answering some little questions that I get sent that usually haven't been enough to be an entire episode. So what I've done is I've just put a whole heap of little questions together for today's show and I'm going to be answering those for you. Alright, so let's jump into the first question and the first one. I get asked quite often is vinegar gluten-free? So yes and no, so gluten can actually be lurking in vinegar. It's just a matter of making sure that you read your labels and knowing what you are looking for. So one of the big things to look out for is always barley and rye, because they will not be gluten free. So if you are buying brown vinegar, that's the one to be very cautious of, because usually that has got gluten in it. So make sure you're reading your labels. But you'll find that your typical types of vinegars that have been distilled are gluten free. So things like your apple cider vinegar, your white vinegars, things like that we're usually safe with. But with everything, I still say read your labels, because if it's had any extra flavorings added to it, it may then no longer be gluten-free. So I hope that answers that first question for you today.

Speaker 1: 1:39

All right, the next question is is corn flour gluten-free? Now, you would assume that corn flour is gluten-free because corn flour, that corn flour is gluten-free because corn flour, but unfortunately it's one of those sneaky, sneaky ingredients that can actually be made from wheat. Why, I don't know. It's ridiculous. But again, it's about reading your labels and making sure, when you buy a corn flour, that it either says 100% corn or 100% maize on it, and there's no mention whatsoever of wheat on the labeling.

Speaker 1: 2:15

All right, the next one is quite heartbreaking to be asked, and it's would it really do that much damage if I had a cheat day, maybe once or twice a year, where I indulge in gluten? Not a good idea and, yes, it would do that much damage. So we know that we need to avoid gluten at all times. We need to be making sure that we don't even get a crumb. So can you even begin to imagine the amount of damage that would be done if you had a cheat day? So let's just say you had your favorite food or you had a dessert or something that was completely full of gluten. That is an astronomical amount of gluten compared to a tiny crumb. So, yes, it would do damage and it would take your body quite some time to heal. You might just be getting over healing from that and then you go and have another cheat day.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Not worth it, not worth the damage that's going on inside your body, even if you are one of those people that are asymptomatic, where you don't actually notice the damage that's happening. So a lot of us get symptoms, so we don't actually want to eat gluten. But if you're one of those people that doesn't really notice how you know most people feel when they have gluten, when they've got celiac disease, where they have the brain fog and the diarrhea and the pain and all the different things like there's hundreds of different things that can happen but if you're one of those people that doesn't feel it, there's still damage going on inside your intestine and you know your villi can get damaged and then your body is not absorbing the nutrients from the food that it needs to and that can cause further implications down the road. I'm going to link below about an entire episode that I for an episode that I did on this about cheat days. So please, if this is a question that you have, please go listen to that full episode. So just wanted to cover that one off, because that is not safe. Definitely All right.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Next one is how long will it take to feel better? I think that means after going gluten-free and getting a celiac disease diagnosis. So I know I have talked about this in the past, but just quickly I just wanted to cover it off again and it's basically how long is a piece of string? This one is really hard to answer because we are all different. We all had different, I guess, symptoms in lead up to getting our diagnosis and we all had a varying amount of time of damage done in the lead up to our diagnosis. So those are the two first factors that we need to take into account. So if you were dealing with those symptoms for a very long time prior to your diagnosis, you are more likely to take a bit longer than the next person to start to feel better.

Speaker 1: 5:08

It also depends on how strict you are with cutting out gluten, making sure you're all over your cross contact, reading your labels, doing all of the right things. That makes a big difference to how quickly you feel better as well, and also being able to pinpoint other foods that can make you feel a bit blah, because at the end of the day, it's not just gluten that can make us feel crappy. There can be other problems, such as secondary lactose intolerance, or you could be reacting to other foods that are cross-reactive with gluten. There's so many different things and there's ways that you can heal your body quicker depending on what supplements you take, what foods you're eating, what types of exercise you're doing, how much stress you've got in your life. So that is a hard one to answer, but there are ways to heal yourself quicker and to be feeling better quicker.

Speaker 1: 6:02

All right, the next one. Oh, this one's a. This one's a good question. I really like this question, so thank you for sending through. I get this one multiple times, actually, because it is confusing. So I've had screenshots of different labels of food sent through to me and again, it is a tricky one.

Speaker 1: 6:22

So the question is how come some gluten-free food says it contains wheat? Now there are ways that they can put wheat into our food, but it can still be gluten-free. I know it's confusing, but it depends on the processing. People that have a wheat allergy cannot have it, so the product has to say it contains wheat, so the company is putting that warning on there for those people that have a wheat allergy. So if something says gluten-free but then it also says contains wheat, this is where it overrides it. So this is where you need to know which of those I guess ingredients become gluten-free when they are highly refined. So interesting one. There's lots to go into with reading labels. I do cover that off in my program, ultimate Celiac System, but that is one that does come up time and time again. That can be quite confusing, so I hope that helps with that one.

Speaker 1: 7:21

All right, and then the last question that I get quite often is what supplements do I take? So for me, I am a big believer in supporting my diet in multiple ways, so not just through the food that I eat, but also the supplements that I take. I've just started taking creatine because I'm almost in my mid forties and I'm learning more and more about how our bodies start to break down at this age. So I'm very focused on going to the gym and supporting my body, not only my bones, but my muscles and my brain health. So creatine can help with that muscle protection and I'm just yeah, I'm a big fan of doing what I can to support my body. So creatine is my most recent one. Fulvic acid is another one that I absolutely love Not folic acid, fulvic acid, so that's a great one. I might actually do a full episode about fulvic acid Love that.

Speaker 1: 8:17

I take a multivitamin and a multimineral. I take a calcium supplement. I take a fish oil supplement. Sometimes I'll take a vitamin D. I'm still on iron supplements. I do take iron as well, and then I think that's about it. So, yeah, some of those I take twice a day. Some of them are just once a day, but that's my main kind of everyday products and supplements that I take, and most of them I've been taking for a very long time and I certainly notice the difference. Calcium, with the magnesium in it, is amazing for sleep. If I don't take them before bed, I do notice a difference in how quickly I go to bed and fall asleep. So if you have trouble with sleeping, magnesium, calcium supplements are amazing for that.

Speaker 1: 9:04

So I hope that answers some really simple, quick questions for you today and, like I said, I'll post some links below this episode for you to figure out whether you want to go back and listen to some of those other episodes and also please check out ultimate celiac system. If you are having trouble with reading labels and you want to learn exactly how to read labels so that you can safely eat gluten-free food when you go to the supermarket. That's not always labeled gluten-free, so I'll pop a link to that program below as well. But otherwise, thank you so much for listening and I look forward to talking with you next week. Make sure you hit that subscribe button if you're on YouTube so you don't miss an episode, and I will talk to you again very, very soon. Have a great week. Talk to you then. Bye.