The Environment & Your Symptoms – Is There A Mismatch?

The Nursery toy, gas mask, old watch on white background.10,000 years.

Does that seem like an eternity to you? If so, you’re not alone.

Yet, 10,000 years is the number most often quoted by doctors, scientists and other experts, when explaining why grains – especially wheat – are a relatively new addition to the human diet.

You might be thinking, “How can that be? Haven’t humans been eating grains for most of their existence?”

How can something so abundant, and so integral to your diet, be harmful?

It’s what we call an ‘evolutionary mismatch’.

In other words, much of our modern lifestyle is based on products and foodstuffs that the human body isn’t designed to digest or otherwise process.

This includes chemicals and a host of other modern ‘conveniences’ that, in the long run, do us more harm than good – even though societies have seemingly thrived on grains for thousands of years.

That said, there’s a lot of talk in the media these days about threats to the environment, and whether the EPA will survive our current political climate.

Without getting overly dramatic – or political – about this state of affairs, here are some simple steps you can take to protect your health.

Starting today!

 

Knowledge is Power

What if government oversight of the environment and our food supply were to disappear overnight? What then?

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Introducing: A Gluten Primer – Everything You Wanted to Know From A-Z!

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Do You Have Street Smarts?

Always Seek Knowledge AcronymWhen it comes to managing your special diet – do you have “Street Smarts”?

You might be wondering what I mean by this.

While not always easy to come by, Street Smarts means knowing how to handle just about any situation that comes along – especially when you find yourself tempted to stray.

It means knowing that when you’re harried and frustrated by circumstances beyond your control – or, well meaning folks who don’t seem to understand or care – you’re able to make an informed choice because you understand the long-term damage that can result from that one exposure, however small.

My newly released video series A Gluten Primer – Everything You Wanted to Know From A-Z explains well, literally everything – in a collection of 26-videos plus a 2-hour tutorial.

In a nutshell, though, here’s what it ultimately comes down to:

 

Knowing what foods are safe to eat

It all starts here.

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Are You Losing Your Mind?

AlzheimerDo you ever have days where you’re feeling super forgetful?

Like not remembering the name of your favorite book, or movie, or that ‘thingy’ you’ve been meaning to buy for weeks – what was that called again?

Maybe you’ve realized that the lines have blurred over the sequence leading up to an event that – even though it happened years ago, used to be so clear in your mind.

A ‘Brian Williams’ moment, if you will.

Then again, maybe you’re thinking one thing, but the words don’t come out quite right.

What the heck is that all about?

Are you losing your mind?

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Mimics, Marauders & Masqueraders

Comedy and tragedyEver feel like there’s a lot of drama happening in your body?

I call these mimics, marauders and masqueraders. They’re present 24/7. The good news is that your immune system is beautifully designed to deal with these pranksters at a moment’s notice, through the.

However, sometimes your immune system gets confused. You might think it’s making a mistake, but the reality is that it’s simply doing what it’s designed to do – protect you. What’s really happening here is that some of these invaders are actually very clever,  mimicking or masquerading as something other than what they really are.

Let me explain.

 

Cross-Reactivity

As you may already know, gluten is a family of proteins found in wheat and is therefore present in any foods that are made from wheat – although it can sometimes appear in other guises, as well.

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How to Look 20, When You’re Well Past 50 (60, Even)

HedbergWEB Color KK32 CROPA while back, a friend whom I hadn’t seen in awhile exclaimed that I looked about 20.

Of course, I didn’t believe her. (When I look in the mirror, I’m as critical as the next person).

But I was pleasantly surprised and secretly quite pleased to hear this.

Who wouldn’t be, right?

After all, it isn’t exactly easy to pass for 40 years younger than your actual age!

“What about my gray hair?” I asked her, thinking that was a dead give-away.

She brushed that aside, saying it didn’t mean a whole lot.

Well, OK then.

The thing is, this wasn’t an isolated incident – which, to be perfectly honest, leaves me a bit baffled..

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Got No Willpower?

A bowl of mixed salad with a tape measure for healthy eatingWhen it comes to tempting treats – do you firmly believe you have zero willpower?

Are you convinced this lack of control mean you’re deficient as a human being?

Or equally bad, that there’s something terribly wrong with you?

Well, here’s the good news: there might be a perfectly logical explanation for your apparent ‘lack of willpower’!

And it all comes back to your diet and the state of your digestion.

Let me explain.

On a deep, physiological level, it’s possible that your body isn’t absorbing the nutrients it needs, and this can happen for a number of reasons.

The most common ones would be a poor diet, or a flawed digestive system – either one of which can lead to a leaky gut.

Not to mention a host of other problems – including nutrient deficiency! (You could literally bestarving– and not even know it.)

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Why Your Aches & Pains Are A Good Thing

 

Fresh organic eggsDo you sometimes feel like a human guinea pig?

Perhaps you’ve even experimented with different foods, in an effort to figure out what might be a trigger for you.

Let me preface this first by saying – if you have Celiac disease, or an Autoimmune condition, this is in NO WAY a license to re-introduce gluten!

Got that?

However, your dietary triggers could also be dairy, eggs, or nuts – or any number of different foods.

Let’s take a closer look at eggs for a moment.

Are eggs a regular part of your diet?

They use to be for me, too.

I often enjoyed scrambled eggs, or an omelet for breakfast.

And I absolutely LOVED making soufflé! (As fancy as that sounds, it’s not that hard. Seriously!)

At this point, however, it’s literally been years since I last ate eggs.

In recent weeks, however, I decided to re-introduce them – as a human experiment, if you will.

Using me as the guinea pig.

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Are You Losing Your Mind?

AlzheimerDo you ever have days where you’re feeling super forgetful?

Like not remembering the name of your favorite book, or movie, or that ‘thingy’ you’ve been meaning to buy for weeks – what was that called again?

Maybe you’ve realized that the lines have blurred over the sequence leading up to an event that – even though it happened years ago, used to be so clear in your mind.

A ‘Brian Williams’ moment, if you will.

Then again, maybe you’re thinking one thing, but the words don’t come out quite right.

What the heck is that all about?

Are you losing your mind?

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5 Simple Ways to Pamper Your Skin

Gal Toiletries SmallDid you know that your skin is your largest organ?

It’s also your body’s #1 defense against the outside world.

Back in the early days when I first went gluten-free, I attended a lecture that was geared toward gluten-free folks like you and me.

The presenter was very insistent that there was no need to be concerned about putting gluten-containing products on our skin.

He said it was virtually impossible for gluten in skin care products to be a problem – because we weren’t ingesting it.

At the time, I thought it made sense.

But guess what?

He was wrong!

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