It strikes me that many people are coming to the understanding that gluten isn’t all that good for us mere mortal humans. I’ve been of this thought for a little while. My mother is coeliac which means gluten is a complete no-no. So, I’ve been monitoring myself when I eat gluten-containing foods. I have found that if I ever get a crook tummy or a bit of wind (well, more than normal) it’s after I’ve eaten bread or pasta or pizza…you get the idea. Now, I don’t eat these foods very often (although I really like to) but my ad hoc investigation seems to validate the ideas of Robb Wolf and other.

So, here’s the challenge:

One week of not eating anything that contains gluten. That should be simple enough.

If you’re up for it, the bigger challenge is to go one month without gluten.

I expect that anyone who takes up this challenge will be feeling a whole lot better about themselves very soon.

Healthy?

If you haven’t worked it out yet, I’m a big fan of simple. An even bigger fan of thinking for yourself. And a huge fan of evidence-based activity.

Today, there are so many “diets” that it’s enough to drive you completely bonkers. And most of them are – please pardon my French – complete bullshit! If people actually stepped back a moment and thought for themselves they’d soon discover that pills, potions and quick fixes don’t work and are not sustainable.

Worse still, our government agencies have got the heads planted firmly in the sand (perhaps an upgrade from where they normally plant them). Take a look at the so called Healthy Food Pyramid from Nutrition Australia. Does anything look wrong to you?

Please tell me that I’m not the only one looking at this diagram and thinking “what the…?” It’s all over the place like a mad woman’s shopping. Let’s take a quick step back…

Mmm, fresh!

Consider the humble human being – Homo sapiens – as a species we have existed for about 200,000 years. Not long in the scheme of things. We lived as hunters and gatherers until about 10,000 years ago then we start to get civilised. Soon, we domesticated animals and developed agriculture.

So, have a think about it. We lived for almost 200,000 years as hunter-gatherers and for under 10,000 years we’ve been moving to an agriculture-based diet. In this time do you think our genetic make-up has changed? If our genetics have in fact altered in the last 200,000 years, the change would be infinitesimal.

As the situation stands we are eating foods that we are simply not designed for.

What you eat matters! There is no use concerning yourself with portions, combinations, meal timings, Glycaemic index values…blah…blah…blah…if you are eating crap! It can’t get any simpler than that.

What to do? Go Paleo, baby! It’s not pseudo-science. It’s been proven over hundreds of thousands of years. Eating from a can or a box is not good for you. Eat fresh, eat real whole foods and you will be healthier than ever. Visit Dr Loren Cordains’s site for all the Paleo info you need.

Need a simple nutritional guide? Here’s CrossFit’s maxim:

Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that will support exercise but not body fat.

Dead simple!

Selected references:

• Wikipedia
• CrossFit
• Robb Wolf

Someone very near and dear to me is living with Coeliac Disease which Wikipedia describes as:

“an autoimmune disorder of the small intestine that occurs in genetically predisposed people of all ages from middle infancy. Symptoms include chronic diarrhoea, failure to thrive (in children), and fatigue.”

It isn’t a nice disease to live with and requires a restrictive diet for effective treatment. Now, I don’t have Coeliac Disease so will not get up upon my soapbox to disburse sage advice. What I will say is this: all diets are restrictive! And they should be, it is only by removing those inclusions that cause illness or other unwanted effects that any diet can work.

The Coeliac must be careful to ensure that they do not digest any gluten in their diet. I know a perfect diet for these people – The Paleo Diet. No gluten to be found anywhere!

And before anyone comments that I am prescribing a difficult diet to follow, I’d like you to know that I follow it myself and with great results.