After years of managing my type 2 diabetes with weight loss, diet, and exercise, it came back with a vengeance! My doctor at the time, who is a huge proponent of medications, had me on 3 different pills, all of which made my life difficult, between constant testing, extremely low glucose, and huge spikes. So I started reading up on the problem on the internet, where I found a few articles about people who were able to stabilize their glucose levels by eliminating wheat from their diet. In July, I decided to try life without wheat, which is no easy feat! If you read labels, you would be shocked to find that wheat is in all sorts of things which you didn't know it was in. I have been buying wheat-free products, largely from Bob's Red Mill, including almond meal/flour, brown rice flour, and oat flour. That particular website also has a plethora of recipes. We also use corn tortillas and taco shells quite a bit when we have sandwiches. My blood sugar has never been better, even on insulin. Over the past two months, my average glucose count is 107. Has anyone else here gone wheat-free? If so, what do you use?
Absolutely! I think grains are behind most of our problems actually. Grinding up dry growths from the ground to create a new food was genius, but sounds more like desperation than anything lol. We're made up of mostly water, it seems our food should mimic that and wheat definitely doesn't. We're just not made to digest it. When I cut wheat out of my diet, a plethora of issues I wasn't even really aware of went away. My longest standing issues that bothered me every day vanished. I don't find it healthy in the least. For anyone. But that's just my two cents. I find the wheat free life simple, since I mainly eat whole foods anyway.. packaged foods have far more than wheat to sabotage our health with. Once in a blue moon is fine, but part of the every day diet, no way.
I have gone gluten free for several reasons and been pretty pleased with the results. I discovered that I had a mild sensitivity to large amounts of gluten when every time I ate store bought whole wheat breads, which have added gluten, I got really gassy immediately after the meal. I decided to go gluten free and cut out refined sugar to reduce subclinical inflammation, which so many people have even when they are young and seem to still be really healthy. I want to address this issue now, before I develop health problems in the hopes that I will have more years of good health. I think GMOs may be a big factor in why people are developing gluten sensitivity. It has only been in recent years that people have become aware of how many grains in their daily diet were GMOs. I only became aware of it maybe 3 years ago and immediately started looking for the GMO free labels, but that was after 23 years of being unaware and eating who knows what.
There is a commonly believed fallacy that gluten-free and wheat-free are the same thing. I have many friends who offer me their gluten-free foods which contain wheat. I hate being rude, but I can't eat that food and find it necessary to explain why: Gluten-free and wheat-free are two different things, though there is much cross-over. Gluten is found in wheat, but also in many other grains, including rye and barley. It is also used in many imitation meats. I can eat foods made with rye or barley, providing they contain no wheat at all. And, if I wanted, I could eat things like gluten-based mock duck or turkey. I don't happen to think that sounds even remotely appetizing, so I don't. I have no problem with gluten, unless it's wheat gluten. My abstension is from wheat in all of its forms and all foods which contain it.
I do believe that it has done everything you've said in the OP, but it's not something I would ever try. I am too concerned about my daily fiber intake to eliminate wheat as a lot of the bread that I eat has a good amount of fiber in it. Even when I eat the bread types that have no more than 2 grams, it still adds up for me.
I was concerned about fiber intake as well, but I found quite a few substitutes for wheat, some of which have more fiber than wheat bread. I’m big on granola, nuts, beans, oatmeal and other oat products. I make my own “trail mix” kind of thing with things like granola, nuts, pumpkin seeds, raisins, and once in a while, chocolate bits. It’s, of course, simply my own choice, and I don’t care about “converting” people, though I am kind of big on educating about it, as with other things people frequently misunderstand.
