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| Nutritionist and Author |
Many people want to know more specifics about my new holiday E-book, such as what type of flour and sweeteners I use in my recipes. Rather than answer people individually, I decided to put the most common questions I have been receiving and my answers in this Q&A interview in case you were wondering about these questions, too.
Q. How is your book different from other cookbooks?
Copy from the Back Cover of the Book:
There’s a little-known secret to enjoying the holidays with health, energy and no weight gain: Eating against the grain. Preparing low- to no-grain foods may be unknown to most people but it is an overlooked strategy for making delicious holiday meals quicker, easier and with far less fuss.
In Healthier Holidays Going Against the Grain, nutritionist Melissa Diane Smith offers 135 simple tips and 25 original recipes that can help people who eat any of the following diets:
If you’re a parent of a food-allergic child, the phrase, “Let the buyer beware,” can’t
be more true. An alarming number of products sold as allergen-free actually contain harmful amounts of allergens, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found – and American children with food allergies end up suffering unnecessary reactions, including life-threatening reactions that send them to the hospital.
This news comes on the heels of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that found that food allergies among children in the United States are on the rise, having increased 18 percent from 1997 to 2007.
An update on my Top Celiac Researcher Speaks Out About Gluten Sensitivity post: This past week I asked Alessio Fasano, M.D., from the Center for Celiac Research, a few questions for a magazine article I was writing. He said that there is “no doubt” that gluten sensitivity affects many more people than celiac disease does and that 60 to 70 percent of the patients who come to the Center for Celiac Research fit his criteria for gluten sensitivity. His criteria for gluten sensitivity is not testing positive for celiac disease or for wheat allergy but responding positively to a gluten-free diet with resolution of symptoms. New screening tests for gluten sensitivity may be coming in the near future to change the criteria, Dr. Fasano says.
Are you experiencing anxiety about the worldwide economic crisis and wondering how you can tighten your budget? One simple way is to slash the number and amount of gluten-free products you buy. Gluten-free foods aren’t available at most stores so people have to spend more money to drive to locations farther away to purchase them. Even worse, gluten-free products are two to three times more expensive than regular products, according to a 2007 study. That’s a hefty price to pay for people experiencing tough financial times.
Consider also that it’s not just the cost of gluten-free products – it’s the cost of those products to our health. Few people in the gluten-free community or natural food industry like to talk about it, but many gluten-free products are simply junk foods that happen to be gluten-free.
The researcher who established that celiac disease is much more common in the United States than long thought is now speaking about gluten sensitivity.
Alessio Fasano, M.D., Medical Director of the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, is known for conducting landmark research that showed that celiac disease is a common gastrointestinal disease in the United States, with prevalence rates comparable to those in Europe. Now is he conducting research and speaking about gluten sensitivity, a non-celiac intolerance to gluten. Gluten sensitivity is a condition that many people who have tested negative for celiac disease have long suspected but that most traditional celiac disease researchers have not acknowledged.
Welcome to the increasing number of new visitors to this site! Many of you are looking for gluten-related information, and early posts I wrote a few months ago tend to get missed by newcomers.
So, here is a rundown of gluten-related stories you might have missed:
If you like the against-the-grain information you receive in Nutrition News and Notes but are hungry for more, join the Going Against the Grain Group! By not yet being a member, here are topics you’ve missed:
How to Spring Clean Your Diet
Creative Vegetable Ideas
Eating Further Against the Grain – when a gluten-free diet isn’t therapeutic enough
Baking with Coconut Flour
Eating Gluten Free in Restaurants
Summer Vacation from Cooking
More Summertime Strategies
Recipes, including Filet of Sole Florentine, Greek Halibut, Cool Noodle Tabouli for One, and Banana Coconut Muffins
Helpful Convenience Products from Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and more
Humans aren’t alone in being sensitive to gluten and having symptoms including diarrhea, bloating, fatigue, depression and skin rashes and blistering. Rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, develop gluten sensitivity and these same gluten-related symptoms. They also recover when put on a gluten-free diet.
The gluten-free movement is growing exponentially. Consider this: Two years ago about 40 people attended the Southern Arizona Gluten-Free Faire. Last year 200 to 250 people attended — that took me and the Southern Arizona Celiac Sprue chapter by surprise! This year the Southern Arizona Celiac Support Group planned for higher attendance, rented a gymnasium to hold the Faire, and more then 650 people attended!
The dramatic increase over last year’s attendance is a record not only for SACS but probably a national CSA record as well! Perhaps most impressive is not the total number of people but the fact that approximately 80 percent of the people who came to the Faire were not SACS members, but new, off-the-street attendees ! That’s more than 500 people in the Tucson area who are new to gluten-free eating but have come to the conclusion that gluten free is the way for them to live for better health.