Surprising info on Wheat and what really is causing the issues

This is my personal experience and if someone forwarded this to you it is because they love you and want you to live a long time. Take what you like and leave the rest. If none of it works for you by the end of this note then thank you for taking the time to read it. I have developed a serious allergy to conventional wheat products. Up until early November 2006 I had noticed that I sometimes would hurt when I ate wheat. It continued to get worse.

But after starting the Marshall Protocol for Chronic Lymes, it gradually got to the point where I could eat wheat at all. The culmination in missing Dinner because I had eaten Christmas cookies on Christmas eve. Eating any wheat would actually cause me to have to take pain medication. So I gave up all wheat products. This was really very sad to me because I love to bake. However, the benefits I have seen from the Marshall Protocol have made it worth my giving up the last of my vices ;-). However, it made me sad because I am a baker. My job is a computer geek but I adore baking. Have since I was a kid making Christmas cookies with my mom. Losing the ability to sample my products made it impossible for me to bake. Which has made me very sad. I love to play with recipes and see what this will do or just make them up as I go along. Most times they are edible and yummy...some times they are just yuck

So in order to preserve my ability to say thank you from a homemade perspective. I started exploring the alternatives to wheat none of them really had the desired texture. There are good substitutes but nothing bakes like wheat. When discussing this with Dr. Fishman, he mentioned to me that prior to 1950 flour was processed with Iodine. After 1950 or some time around then they stopped using iodine and started using bromine which is toxic to the human body. Hummmmm...could we be poisoning ourselves with our food? Now I take 4 tablets for Iodine deficiency.

Well Dr. Fishman mentioned to me that his wife had found a flour that didn't have bromine in it. King Arthur flour. So I bought some white whole wheat flour recently with the intention of seeing if I might be able to find a way to bake again. I know that I have a worse reaction to white flower then whole wheat. I decided to make cookies. Oatmeal was the test cookies of choice. Since it is lent and my nephew (lup2mbu Cole) had given up chocolate and it has less flour so if I did have a reaction it might not be as severe. So with recipe in hand I made them.
I tasted the batter as I do at every stage of the baking process. No hurting. When the cookies came out of the oven I waited the minimum amount of time and broke off a piece of one. I tasted them and they where very yummy. But the true test isn't till I swallow. Nothing. No pain. Needless to say I thought it was best to test another cookie to be sure that I hadn't made a mistake. I hadn't...but to be sure I had to have at least 5...hey you go 3 months without wheat not by choice and see how many you eat ;-). They are darn good if I do say so myself and so does everyone who ate them ;-)

Now I cannot say that everyone who has been diagnosed with gluten intolerance will have the same reaction. I am not a doctor. I am a women who has looked all her life for something to make me feel better. When I was young my mother worked diligently with doctors to figure out what the source of my problems where. I have always presented hypothyroid symptoms with normal test results. My body temperature however runs low at 96.5 with no medication and blood pressure averages 95/60. As an adult I continued to look for something to make me feel better. I have had great doctors whom I adore and cannot THANK enough for their wonderful treatment. However, we have never been able to find the source of my problems. In my search I have become keenly aware of my physical body and can tell the reactions of the introduction of different items to it. That is how I can tell you that this worked for me.

This has been forwarded to you not as an endorsement for a kind of flour, not to say never eat processed food again. I certainly have not been able to accomplish that task.. However, I will do it where I can. I can recommend to folks that most communities have farmers markets during summer for the least processed produce. Trader Joe's has great organic food at great prices!! Cheaper the highly processed crap at regular groceries. I also highly I recommend you pick up a copy of Nourishing Traditions Cook Book or her DVD Health, Beauty & Strength with Nourishing Traditions Diet. Like all things in life take I pass this on and hope you take what works for you and leave the rest.