Over the summer, a friend of mine recommended that I read the book "Wheat Belly" by William Davis MD. I lean towards skepticism when presented with literature that suggests dietary change, especially given the American penchant for obsessions with fad-diets and obsessive attention to eating that leans upon a lot of unfounded research and media fueled paranoia regarding weight and appearance. The book was a gift so I figured that nothing bad could come of it, perhaps a few wasted hours but nothing more. I was determined to tear it apart; a need to criticize scientific research seems to have been drilled into me throughout my college career. I received the book, and over the course of a week or two I finally got through it. The writing was clearly not targeted at the scientific community and a lot of it sounded cheesy and tacky. After reading it, I decided to experiment with eliminating gluten from my diet; I admit I was seduced by the potential for reducing the intensity of my depressive episodes and feeling better about my body. The challenge appealed to me, so I set out with the idea that removing gluten from my life would be a difficult, but temporary challenge.
I started over the summer by seeing if I could go an entire day gluten free. My family's dynamic is such that a random drastic dietary change would not go over very well, so I decided to play it safe. I felt hungry, grouchy, starved and peeved afterwards. My only solace was that I could eat as much fruit as I want, but I was left out of much of the family meals and snacking events. I realized how hard becoming gluten free would be, especially at school where the meal plan is included in tuition so impossible to opt out of if you live on campus. My job wouldn't supply me with enough money to support myself independently from the meal plan. Despite the initial terror of realizing that I may be in over my head, I decided to proceed as I originally intended.
My first week on campus was a week before all other students arrived; dining halls were opening and serving far better food than they do usually so there wasn't too much of a struggle to find food to eat. The first week and a half felt like a detox. I was perpetually hungry, I wanted to buy out Dunkin' Donuts and wallow in pounds and pounds of wheat products. My determination to control my cravings and my sheer sense of will power prevented me from caving and I managed to make it through the first few weeks with no purposeful infractions and perhaps one accidental wheat ingestion. The list of things a gluten-free diet precludes is extensive and something I imagine most college students would find impossible. You must say no to: (most) Chinese food, soy sauce, pizza, ramen, bread, cakes, cookies, crackers, cereals, hot dogs, many salad dressings, granola, (some) ice cream, home fried potatoes and many other foods.
At the beginning of the semester, around three weeks after eliminating gluten from my diet I found that I never experienced bloating after eating or the feeling of hating myself after eating a huge meal. I didn't feel cravings for different foods as much as I did before. If I ate enough at each meal I lacked the sense of perpetual hunger I previously had. More likely a sign that I was recovering from depression than a dietary change, I found myself better able to be motivated to do things and was less overtired for no particular reason. (Now my over tiredness is a result of an odd sleeping schedule and perpetually being woken up by my roommate in the middle of the night.) I spent money on some gluten free snacks to stave off the perpetual hunger I felt during the first week or two of changing my diet. I bought yogurt, cheese, gluten free ginger snaps, gluten-free Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, and strawberries to keep in my fridge (which is actually only mine for the semester). I found the changes in how I felt to be compelling enough for me to continue being gluten-free. I'd gotten used to most of the challenges and I felt like I could keep it up as long as I felt like it.
This was a good idea, but the dining halls seemed to have other plans for me. If serving "nutritional yeast sauce" wasn't bad enough all other foods served were contaminated with gluten most nights except for plain white rice. As much as rice stripped of all nutritional value holds great appeal to me, I quickly found myself frustrated with my "rice, beans and carrots" meals or "spinach, tomatoes and italian dressing" meals. I had occasionally given myself one or two "off days" and eaten foods with small amounts of gluten in them and I figured that everything would be okay if I simply stopped being gluten free and went back to continuous wheat consumption. I ate a huge sandwich at a local café filled with all kinds of yummy wheat-y ingredients convinced that I was done for good. It was just too difficult to find a consistent source of gluten-free food and I was spending what I felt was too much money on other foods.
That night and all of the next day, I knew the sandwich was a mistake. I felt ill all night and my stomach felt like I had been poisoned. I lay in my bed feeling the light tinge of a headache coming on, put my stomach pain out of my head and fell asleep. All of the next day I felt perpetually nauseous. I felt sick to the point of vomiting and couldn't focus or eat the next day. I tried sipping water and slowly drinking soup thinking my problem was related to stress or dehydration. I hadn't slept much the night before and got a migraine around halfway through the day that knocked me off my feet until the day after. Due to that experience, I don't think I will ever return again to eating foods with wheat in them 100% of the time. If I'm a guest or in a desperate situation, I'm sure I will have no choice, but I honestly feel as if there is something incompatible with human digestion in modern wheat. I am not the type to hop onto fad diets, to claim that coffee causes cancer one week and prevents heart disease the next. I am a skeptic, a critic, broke and hungry, yet in my experience I can't deny the positive effects I've seen after removing gluten from my life. I can't deny that every time I've slipped up I have become at the very least moderately ill. I'm not trying to change people's minds or convert them into giving up every delicious food on the planet, merely sharing my experience with becoming gluten free this semester.
I started over the summer by seeing if I could go an entire day gluten free. My family's dynamic is such that a random drastic dietary change would not go over very well, so I decided to play it safe. I felt hungry, grouchy, starved and peeved afterwards. My only solace was that I could eat as much fruit as I want, but I was left out of much of the family meals and snacking events. I realized how hard becoming gluten free would be, especially at school where the meal plan is included in tuition so impossible to opt out of if you live on campus. My job wouldn't supply me with enough money to support myself independently from the meal plan. Despite the initial terror of realizing that I may be in over my head, I decided to proceed as I originally intended.
My first week on campus was a week before all other students arrived; dining halls were opening and serving far better food than they do usually so there wasn't too much of a struggle to find food to eat. The first week and a half felt like a detox. I was perpetually hungry, I wanted to buy out Dunkin' Donuts and wallow in pounds and pounds of wheat products. My determination to control my cravings and my sheer sense of will power prevented me from caving and I managed to make it through the first few weeks with no purposeful infractions and perhaps one accidental wheat ingestion. The list of things a gluten-free diet precludes is extensive and something I imagine most college students would find impossible. You must say no to: (most) Chinese food, soy sauce, pizza, ramen, bread, cakes, cookies, crackers, cereals, hot dogs, many salad dressings, granola, (some) ice cream, home fried potatoes and many other foods.
At the beginning of the semester, around three weeks after eliminating gluten from my diet I found that I never experienced bloating after eating or the feeling of hating myself after eating a huge meal. I didn't feel cravings for different foods as much as I did before. If I ate enough at each meal I lacked the sense of perpetual hunger I previously had. More likely a sign that I was recovering from depression than a dietary change, I found myself better able to be motivated to do things and was less overtired for no particular reason. (Now my over tiredness is a result of an odd sleeping schedule and perpetually being woken up by my roommate in the middle of the night.) I spent money on some gluten free snacks to stave off the perpetual hunger I felt during the first week or two of changing my diet. I bought yogurt, cheese, gluten free ginger snaps, gluten-free Ben and Jerry's ice-cream, and strawberries to keep in my fridge (which is actually only mine for the semester). I found the changes in how I felt to be compelling enough for me to continue being gluten-free. I'd gotten used to most of the challenges and I felt like I could keep it up as long as I felt like it.
This was a good idea, but the dining halls seemed to have other plans for me. If serving "nutritional yeast sauce" wasn't bad enough all other foods served were contaminated with gluten most nights except for plain white rice. As much as rice stripped of all nutritional value holds great appeal to me, I quickly found myself frustrated with my "rice, beans and carrots" meals or "spinach, tomatoes and italian dressing" meals. I had occasionally given myself one or two "off days" and eaten foods with small amounts of gluten in them and I figured that everything would be okay if I simply stopped being gluten free and went back to continuous wheat consumption. I ate a huge sandwich at a local café filled with all kinds of yummy wheat-y ingredients convinced that I was done for good. It was just too difficult to find a consistent source of gluten-free food and I was spending what I felt was too much money on other foods.
That night and all of the next day, I knew the sandwich was a mistake. I felt ill all night and my stomach felt like I had been poisoned. I lay in my bed feeling the light tinge of a headache coming on, put my stomach pain out of my head and fell asleep. All of the next day I felt perpetually nauseous. I felt sick to the point of vomiting and couldn't focus or eat the next day. I tried sipping water and slowly drinking soup thinking my problem was related to stress or dehydration. I hadn't slept much the night before and got a migraine around halfway through the day that knocked me off my feet until the day after. Due to that experience, I don't think I will ever return again to eating foods with wheat in them 100% of the time. If I'm a guest or in a desperate situation, I'm sure I will have no choice, but I honestly feel as if there is something incompatible with human digestion in modern wheat. I am not the type to hop onto fad diets, to claim that coffee causes cancer one week and prevents heart disease the next. I am a skeptic, a critic, broke and hungry, yet in my experience I can't deny the positive effects I've seen after removing gluten from my life. I can't deny that every time I've slipped up I have become at the very least moderately ill. I'm not trying to change people's minds or convert them into giving up every delicious food on the planet, merely sharing my experience with becoming gluten free this semester.