Built2Last wrote on 11/01/11 at 20:07:46:



I would gladly risk not being evened out, and have the discussion be more relevant.

I think it will be a fun experiment.  So far, no change, though I don't expect much this soon.  Same beer belly (I still drink beer, good beer made from barley, not fortified with wheat or corn syrup).  Same tinnitus.

The book has good reviews on amazon and I think will be worth reading. I am most curious about the author's self-experiment where he changes from modern wheat to heirloom wheat.  That seems like a good way to isolate the GM wheat variable.

(having not read the book  ) I don't see what distinguishes wheat from say, corn.  Corn is another genetically modified, mass produced mono-crop that should have all the drawbacks of wheat.   I read The Omnivore's Dilemma, a great book by Michael Pollan.  It explains how corn is overproduced, then split pretty much to its individual molecules and re-integrated into just about every food we eat.  Fountain drinks?  Corn.  Chicken McNugget glue?  Corn. There is a chemical marker that can be found in a blood test to show roughly how much corn a person has consumed, and for us, that index is much higher than for people in countries without as much mono-agriculture.  I thought it was funny when Pollan said something like: "You think Mexicans eat a lot of corn? Compared to them, we are a bunch of walking tortilla chips."

So how come wheat is being picked on instead of corn?  I don't know, but will at least read the book.

I am still wheat free, except once when I had to buy a sandwich at school.
I tried rice pasta in my paglia e fieno recipe and it turned to a pasty mass while cooking, so I will look for an alternative.

This is pretty hard I have to say, I'm on chicken (not breaded), peanuts, green beans, and jalapeno stuffed olives... so far...

arteacher wrote on 11/02/11 at 07:43:08:


Wow.  Congrats on the wheat-free-ness.

Pasta is an issue for we wheat-free folks.  There are few alternatives.  Most non-wheat alternatives are grain-based so they still have the associated blood-sugar spikes.  So, they aren't quite as bad as wheat, but they are high-carb.

Shirataki noodles, spaghetti squash, and thinly sliced zucchini are good for pasta-ish dishes.  The shirataki noodles are actually noodles.  They have very little flavor, but they aggressively soak up whatever the flavor is of the stuff they are sitting in.  Last night, my current wife made an intensely flavorful marinara sauce with garlic meatballs, and dumped it over the shirataki noodles.  My, oh, my, was it delectable.

I like spaghetti squash a lot, but I prefer it as a side dish with butter and salt.  I think I'll try it with the meatball sauce mentioned above.  Spaghetti squash cooks up quickly and easily in a microwave,.. just remember to poke a few holes in it or you'll have a squash-o-nuke explosion.

When I have to get a sandwich or a burger, etc., I just eat the innards and toss the bread.  This works pretty well at McD's or Wendy's or Burger King.  I just get a double burger with extra veggies and ask for a knife and fork. Some places like Red Robin will serve any of their burgers bunless,.. wrapped in large sheets of lettuce so you can hold it like a burger.  Hardee's was doing this for a while too, but I don't know if they do anymore.

Along with that previous post, there are lots of sources of wheat-free recipes on the internet, so you can have goodies, breads, pancakes, etc.  This morning I made pumpkin pie and a loaf of bread, for example.

Another example,.. here's a recipe for lemon cheesecakey things.  These are plenty good for any kind of diet or non-diet.  

1 cup ground walnuts
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter, softened, or coconut oil
Sweetener equivalent to 3 tablespoons sugar
12 oz cream cheese or Neuchâtel cheese, softened
1½ tablespoons coconut flour
2 large eggs
Grated rind and juice of 1 medium lemon
½ cup coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350º F.

In small bowl, mix together ground walnuts, butter or coconut oil, cinnamon, and one-third of sweetener. Spoon into paper cupcake liners and press down with spoon until flat.

In large bowl, place cream cheese, eggs, and coconut flour and blend at low speed until well-mixed. Add in lemon rind and juice, coconut milk, remainder of sweetener and vanilla and beat until thoroughly mixed. Spoon mixture over top of walnut crust in cupcake liners.

Bake for 30 minutes. Remove and cool.

Optionally, decorate with slice of strawberry, shaved dark chocolate, or mint leaf. Store in refrigerator.

The guy that came up with the recipe said he made the batch, had a couple, and put the rest in the fridge for later.  He went out to do yardwork for a few hours, came back in to have a few, and, you guessed it, they were gone.  (teenagers)

bill67 wrote on 11/02/11 at 09:44:00:

I like eggs too.