What is gluten?
First, I must start off by saying that I am by no means a doctor, a certified dietician, or a scientist. You should always consult an industry professional before you take advice from anyone or anything, especially when it comes to your health. Secondly, I am not going to get all scientific and complicated on you. I am here to explain things to in layman's terms. My goal is to help you understand what gluten is so you can understand how to live a gluten-free lifestyle easily. The third to remember is knowledge is key and once you have the knowledge, this new life change won't seem so complicated.
When I was advised by my nutritionist and doctor
to cut wheat and gluten
out of my diet,
I didn't know anyone that
was gluten-free...
It was extremely overwhelming and foreign.
I was about two weeks into my 100% gluten free lifestyle when I accidentally ate something that had gluten/wheat in it. Within 30 minutes I began to have reactions. Apparently when you give something up, the more serve your reaction can be. What I didn't understand at the time was that the product did not specify wheat or gluten whatsoever in the ingredients. It was in that moment that I decided I needed to fully understand what "it" was that I was not supposed to eat.
Neither did I for quite a while into this journey.
The only thing I knew quite frankly was that it was in
wheat and grains, but not all grains...
To be honest, I didn't quite understand that as well.
Like how is buckwheat, not wheat?
It literally has the word wheat in it?!
Did you know
that gluten
itself does
not physically exist in the world?
"until you understand what gluten is, it's going to be
hard for you
to live a completely
gluten-free lifestyle"
From then on for the next year or so, I would read endlessly about gluten/wheat free living, learning as much as I could. Anytime I came across someone who was gluten free I would talk with them exchanging as much knowledge as possible.
What I can tell you is that until you understand what gluten is, it's going to be hard for you to live a completely gluten free lifestyle. Not everything and every place you go to is going to be labeled gluten free, and what is even better is being able to make your favorite gluten containing recipe gluten-free by learning how to swap out things.
The first thing to know is that before bread was industrialized, bread in its original form only contains 3 ingredients: flour, water, and salt. Yes, that is absolutely it! Gluten comes from two proteins that are made when the flour and the water are mixed together. Gluten is what holds your bread, cake, or cookie together.
Essentially if you left flour and water on the counter, at some point it would begin to bubble and inflate. The reason why it inflates and becomes stretchy is because of the gluten that is created during this process.
where
does
gluten
come
from?
FLOUR
+
WATEr
=
gluten
If you have ever made gravy on thanksgiving or any type of sauce where you needed to thicken it, what do you reach for? Flour. Now that you are gluten-free - you will reach for cornstarch.
This is why you will find that gluten-free bread in general has a more spongy texture and seems dense much like pound cake.
​
In general it easiest for people to assume that gluten is wheat and/or bread, but now you know that is not the case.
Sometimes this information may be way beyond what Aunt Sally wants to hear about at the holiday dinner table, but what is imortant is that you understand what it is.
For those of you who are reading this that have
gluten sensitivity:
check out
Berkshire Mountain Bakery
in western Massachusetts. They make sourdough bread in it's original form, which means there is very minimal gluten.
good news they ship!