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| Nutritionist and Author |
Are you starting 2012 off not knowing the basics about genetically modified foods and the health risks associated with them? If so and if you live in Tucson, there’s an easy way to remedy that situation: Attend a couple of short movies.
by Melissa Diane Smith
How to avoid genetically modified organisms when you also avoid gluten.
When Marcia Popp, a 50-year-old graphic artist, began a nutrition coaching program with me last year, she had numerous health problems, including multiple food and environmental allergies. She also had been diagnosed in 1990 with a systemic immune condition known as eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS), which she developed after taking tryptophan supplements that were later found to be tainted.
Marcia had already cut gluten out of her diet nine years earlier, so I advised some different dietary changes to cater to her other food intolerances. I knew that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were implicated in allergies – and that the tryptophan that was linked to EMS had been produced using genetically modified bacteria – so I also recommended that she avoid the eight major genetically modified (GM) foods to see if it made a difference in her condition.
by Melissa Diane Smith
(Opinion) – After four years of inactivity on the matter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reopened a public comment period for its proposal about labeling foods as “gluten-free” and said it aims to publish a final rule and start allowing official gluten-free labeling in the third quarter of 2012. Members of the gluten-free community around the country are excited about this development with many thinking gluten-free labeling approved and monitored by the FDA will automatically protect them from unwanted exposure to gluten. But will it?
by Melissa Diane Smith
There are good reasons for men to pay attention to symptoms early.
Every single person I meet or hear about with gluten intolerance is female. I feel like the only guy who has it, writes one man on a celiac forum. Do men really have gluten intolerance far less often than women, or do they pay less attention to symptoms that are common signs of gluten intolerance?
Not sure what changing your diet can do for you? My client Marcia who wrote the following testimonial wasn’t sure at the beginning either but she has been completely won over by what my individualized nutrition coaching program is doing for her. So are her doctors, including one who wrote me, congratulated me on the wonderful results she has had, and said “Way to go!”
I am so grateful that I am able to help people like Marcia in this way! Keep in mind that this is a person who was eating gluten free to begin with, but still needed some fine-tuning to her diet. Here’s Marcia’s story:
I originally contacted Melissa about how and what to eat because of multiple food sensitivities I was recently diagnosed with (I have been gluten-free for almost 9 years). Working with Melissa has taught me to eat properly for me. She set me up with a personalized diet for my sensitivities, symptoms and conditions. I definitely eat against the grain! In addition to grains, I avoid dairy, eggs, beans, processed foods and all GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Eliminating the GMOs has made the most impact for me.
by Melissa Diane Smith
New to the topic of genetically modified organisms? Here’s a quick primer.
Imagine engineers manipulating common food crops and making them produce their own insectide or making them resistant to chemical herbicides that kill other plants. These sound like scenarios that you might see in a scary futuristic sci-fi movie, yet they have already happened and many of us are unknowingly eating foods that are genetically modified in one of these ways – or both of them – every day.
by Melissa Diane Smith
A group of Italian researchers has written in the most clear medical language so far that non-celiac gluten sensitivity exists and affects many more people than celiac disease. But gluten sensitivity lacks definitive blood tests to diagnose it, so the best test right now to determine it is seeing if there is relief in symptoms from a gluten-free diet trial.
