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Caroline Osborne
Natural Health Consultant
Why Gluten Free Dairy Free?
Haven't wheat and milk been staple foods for thousands of years? Why are they suddenly such a problem for so many people?
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The answers lie in modern food production, and in modern health care and lifestyles.
Wheat and milk are not the healthy, natural foods they used to be.
Modern wheat has far more gluten than older varieties. Bread is the worst form of wheat, using the highest gluten content of all. Also, today's soft sandwich bread is cooked using a fast baking method which uses far more yeast than traditional bread making. Yeast can cause long-term digestive problems and lead to food allergies and sensitivities, or make existing conditions worse.
Unless it's organically grown, wheat will have residues of agrochemicals - artificial fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. These have been linked to a variety of health problems, including food allergies.
Milk is a purpose-made baby food, in its natural state ideal for the new born and growing infant of each mammal species. As the youngster matures it naturally looses the enzymes for digesting milk - milk is not a food for adults so they don't need the enzymes.
The cow's milk so cheaply available in supermarkets comes from cows which have been bred to produce many times more milk than their ancestors. This leads to frequent mastitis - infection of the udder which results in pus in the milk. The milk is pasteurised to kill any germs, but this also destroys the enzymes naturally occurring in the milk. In raw milk, these enzymes help to digest the sugars and proteins in the milk. Pasteurisation also changes the form of calcium and other minerals in milk, making them less bio-available. You might as well eat chalk for calcium.
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Most dairy cows are fed on grains because it's cheap, whereas a cow's natural food is grass and other fresh herbage. They're regularly given artificial hormones to increase their milk production even further. These hormones are produced by GM technology.
All of this combines to make milk today very far from a good natural food.
When it comes to babies, there is more to consider. Cow's milk is very different from human milk. The ratios of fat to protein to sugar is different, and cow’s milk contains different proteins. Milk is far more complicated than just being a source of protein, fats and sugars. It contains special proteins and enzymes which aid with digestion. It doesn't just provide the perfect food for each mother's baby - it helps to develop the digestive system, promoting probiotic growth; it provides immunity for the newborn and helps develop the immune system for the future.
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Cow's milk is designed to grow calves from deer size to cow size in barely a year. Human babies take a lot longer to grow to adult size and so need much less protein. Also human breast milk has high levels of medium chain fatty acids, needed for healthy brain development. Cows aren't known for their intelligence and don't need so much of this.
Other reasons for the increase in food allergies and intolerances lie in lifestyle and healthcare choices, particularly for babies.
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Babies are often weaned far too young, when their immature digestive systems aren't ready to cope with foods other than their mother's milk. This includes bottle feeding infants on formula milk, whether it's based on cow's milk or soy. A new baby’s gut lining is permeable – it has holes large enough to allow antibodies through to the blood. This is how babies get immunity from their mothers. If a baby is fed anything other than his or her mother’s milk in the first months, it is very likely to develop reactions to that food.
Antibiotics and some other medicines can lead to poor digestion and hence to allergies. Antibiotics kill off all the beneficial bacteria in the gut, which normally help us digest our food and keep other microbes in check. Without these probiotics yeast in particular will quickly grow out of control, causing a wide range of health problems including allergies.
There is some evidence that vaccines can have a negative effect on a baby's immune system, making them more likely to develop food sensitivities, allergies and other immune disorders.
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The result of all this is a situation where the number of people with food sensitivities is growing, with gluten and cow's milk being the commonest food allergens today.
This is your basic guide to all things
gluten free and dairy free.
Get it now!