If you have decided to cut gluten out of your diet to fix chronic fatigue or joint pain or brain fog or an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's, your first move, like most people, was probably to hit the grocery store and swap out for anything that's labeled gluten-free.
Trading wheat for ultra-processed gluten-free junk food isn't really a good choice. You're just trading one inflammatory hazard for another.
Hey guys, welcome back to The Inflammation Nation, where we like to stay up to date on how science can help you craft your own wellness journey. And if you haven't done it yet, take a second to hit that subscribe or follow button right now so that you don't miss content and you can help me reach more people with the message of science-informed wellness. Been listening to the podcast over the last couple of weeks, you know that I've been talking about gluten and related topics. Today is no different. We're going to talk about the other side of the coin today, which is gluten-free products.
If you have decided to cut gluten out of your diet to fix chronic fatigue or joint pain or brain fog or an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's, your first move, like most people, was probably to hit the grocery store and swap out your regular bread and pasta and snack items for anything that's labeled gluten-free. So you bought gluten-free cookies, gluten-free pizza, gluten-free bread, thinking that you're making a
healthy upgrade. Yet weeks or months later, they're still bloated, energy is still flatlined, your health hasn't improved really as much as you had hoped. And you're listening to social media influencers that might be telling you that you just need to do a detox or get a stronger antimicrobial approach for your gut. But the clinical reality is actually much simpler than that.
Trading wheat for ultra-processed gluten-free food isn't really a good choice. right? You're just trading one inflammatory hazard for another.
Today we break down why commercial gluten-free products may not be safe for you, what voluntary manufacturing warning labels actually mean, how cross-contamination with gluten can happen, and which non-gluten grains can be mistaken for gluten by your immune system. Let's start with the first category as always too simple, often overlooked. We're going to talk about naturally gluten-free foods versus grain substitutes.
So before we look at manufacturing supply chains, let's just address a foundational rock that gets glossed over on a frequent basis. Real food is naturally gluten-free. Fresh meats, wild-caught fish, pastured eggs, vegetables, fruits, root vegetables, healthy fats, don't contain gluten. They never have.
When we talk about the gluten-free problem, we aren't talking about real food. We're talking strictly about grains and processed grain substitutes. And if your version of going gluten-free means eating processed food out of a box with a green GF or gluten-free stamp on it, you really probably haven't removed any inflammatory hazards. All you've done is you've swapped wheat flour for high glycemic or blood sugar blowing starches like tapioca, potato starch, and cornstarch.
And all of these can drive blood sugar crashes, insulin resistance, and as we talked about in the last several episodes, cause microglial priming, which is basically brain inflammation. So that's the obvious thing. Like real food doesn't contain gluten. Let's move on to core concept number one, and that is cross-contamination in the food supply chain. So, why do supposedly safe grains like oats or millet or buckwheat
quite often cause massive flares in people who are gluten sensitive. Well, one major cause is industrial contamination, which comes from three main causes. And the first is the actual agricultural field and harvesting equipment. Farmers use the same combines, transport trucks, and even storage silos for wheat, barley, and rye, as they do for oats, corn, and soy. And it's not like when they switch to harvesting non-gluten crops,
That they actually go around and hose down and sterilize their tractors. So as they move from harvesting wheat to harvesting corn, for example, gluten particles get transferred to the non-gluten containing crops. And you and I have no control over that. The second cause is the milling equipment, because the same is true for that in processing plants. Unless a facility is 100% dedicated to being gluten-free.
Equipment that is shared among different crops, both gluten and non-gluten grains, pulverize the wheat into airborne dust that settles on the machinery and the packaging lines. And that contaminates the non-gluten grains. Unless you think that this is not a big deal, let me tell you a quick story about a client of mine from about probably 15 years ago. Let's just call her Deb to keep her anonymous.
Deb came to me with a classic list of functional health complaints: fatigue, brain fog, some weight gain, poor sleep, and so on. And in the course of her discovery process, we found that she had Hashimoto's disease. And when I recommended that she go gluten-free, she wanted proof. And so we ran a test. It's called the Cyrex Array number three, which is the right test to run. And sure enough, she was reacting to gluten in multiple different ways. And so she went gluten-free. And then bless her heart.
Bless his heart, I should say. So did her husband, who, by the way, lost 15 pounds in the two months just being supportive of his wife. So yeah, you can probably say that he's a keeper. And the first few months, we did some diet changes. And of course, she had a personalized supplement protocol and was really doing well. Her mind was sharp. It was crisp at work. She was productive at home. She wasn't napping anymore. She was starting to lose weight. But after a few months, she started to notice things creeping back.
And over time, she ended up back to the same state as she was when she first came to me. So we tried this and that and a few other things to get her system to kickstart again, and nothing changed. And one day I asked her to confirm that she was still gluten-free, and she confirmed that she was. But as she thought about this, she she got a look of puzzlement on her face. And she explained to me that around the time that she started losing progress.
was on when her husband asked her to start baking for him again. She was a great hobby baker. She loved it. And he loved the food that she made. And in his words, she made the most amazing cookies and pies and cakes and he really missed them. So she started baking again for him. Now understand she did make it for her husband. She didn't eat them herself and I had no reason to doubt her. And after we talked it through we came to the conclusion that she was being contaminated in a sense
By touching the wheat and breathing it in. So we ran an experiment. She stopped baking for a month and things really settled down and started getting better for her. And then when she started did start to bake again, she wore gloves and a mask, and she was able to make the wheat products for her husband and maintain her own progress. And so that brings me to the third source of industrial cross-contamination, and that's tied to food labeling loopholes.
That allow products to be labeled gluten-free when it contains very small amounts of gluten. FDA guidelines allow products to be labeled gluten-free to contain up to 20 parts per million of gluten. That's a small amount, but for some people it's enough to flare their immune system. So while 20 parts per million might sound tiny for someone like Deb, who was very sensitive to gluten, even tiny amounts could be triggering for her. Now that doesn't mean everyone.
But there's certainly enough of you out there that you have to be very, very careful. So, yes, some people who are gluten-sensitive can get away eating gluten-free foods that have traces of gluten in them. But the question for you is: do you want to take that risk? The lesson is that the words gluten-free do not automatically mean free of gluten because of the labeling laws. They can contain traces of gluten that when combined with the sensitivity of the person.
can be a real problem. But this is not the only labeling problem that we have in this arena, which brings me to core concept number two is understanding the labeling mysteries. Like what does it mean to say on a package, processed in a facility that also processes wheat? So if you are reading labels on the food products that you buy, and you should, you'll notice that sometimes the package label contains a statement that again says processed in a facility
That also processes wheat. This is the manufacturer TELLING you that there is wheat and gluten in their products. Well, there are a few things to know about these warnings. First,
Food manufacturers are not legally required to include them, which means there's a lot of products out there that contain gluten that do not have that warning. But when the warning is there, you need to pay attention. So clever labeling can give you a false sense of security. A package without an advisory statement might be manufactured on the same shared equipment as a package with one. So you can't rely on the absence of a warning label to guarantee safety. When something says gluten free, it net
May not be free of gluten. And being processed in the same facility as wheat means it's definitely not gluten-free. And finally, independent proteomic testing shows that voluntary advisory labeled products frequently test over 20
parts per million, while unlabeled commercial products can still carry trace immunogenic fragments, meaning they can stimulate your immune system.
If you have an active autoimmune condition and you're relying on uncertified packaged goods, this is a gamble with your immune tolerance. So maybe you're thinking to yourself right now, like I'm I'll just start using other grains that we know don't contain gluten and I'm confident are not processed in a wheat facility. But what happens when a product is 100% certified gluten free, and maybe it tests under five parts per million instead of 20, and it's made in a pristine.
Facility, but you still flare up when you eat it. Well, this brings me to core concept number three for today's episode, and that is cross-reactivity and reactions to non-gluten containing grains. We've talked about cross-reactivity or molecular mimicry before, and this is where cross reactivity and grain storage proteins come in. And grain storage proteins is just a fancy way of saying proteins that are contained in wheat, or in grains, I should say.
So again, you've heard me talk about cross-reactivity before. That's where at a molecular level two things look enough alike that your immune system reacts to both as if they are the same thing. And a fair amount of data is available on this topic such that I can give you a confident list of grains and other non-grain foods that you should be careful of if you are gluten-sensitive. And these are millet, yeast, and that includes baker's and nutritional yeast, corn.
Oats, even gluten-free certified oats, rice, that means white rice specifically, dairy, particularly the casein portion, not the whey portion, and sesame, and and actually let me give you a bonus one, instant coffees. Instant coffee and studies quite often test to be contaminated with gluten. So we can incorporate all of this together into a fourth core concept, and that is a simple strategy.
A three-step strategy,
maybe four steps, for true gluten-free safety. Now, if you want real answers about if and how you're reacting to gluten or gluten-free grains, you should stop guessing and just experimenting with products and think about implementing this three or four-step framework, which might include testing. So, step number one is to prioritize the naturally gluten-free whole foods. Build 80 to 90% of your diet.
Around fresh meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, and healthy fats. Forego the grains. Don't automatically trust labels that read gluten-free without some kind of verified or verifiable third-party certification. And absolutely stay away from anything that says processed in a facility that also processes wheat. Step number three: eliminate processed.
Gluten-free substitutes and those cross-reactive grains that we just went through, and remove commercial gluten-free packaged breads, cookies, and high glycemic or blood sugar-affecting starches, along with the common cross-reactive grains. In essence, what I'm saying is you should probably think about following a true grain-free paleo diet for maybe 60 to 90 days. And if you want to test for gluten sensitivity, and this would be the fourth step.
Or your reactions to grains that are commonly used in most gluten-free products, know that you need to do the testing before you give those things up, not after. Why? Because you have to be eating the foods that you're testing to get reliable results. And for gluten sensitivity testing, I like Cyrex Lab's Array 3X, also known as their Wheat Burden test. And for foods or grains that cross-react with gluten and other non-gluten-containing grains.
I like their Array # 4 test. And on the topic of testing, I've partnered with FullScript, who is the leading provider of functional medicine testing and nutritional supplements in the industry. And I've collaborated with them to offer my listeners the same diagnostic tests that I use in my practice with my one-on-one coaching clients. And if you want to see if and how you're reacting to gluten and these other grains with high-quality testing, you can use the link in the episode description to my Lab
Shop. You'll find that again in the episode description.
So stop blindly swapping out wheat for commercial gluten-free foods and expecting your body to get better. True recovery and control of things like inflammation requires a systematic evaluation of your foundational chemistry, your gut barrier integrity, your cross-reactive triggers, and so on. And if you want to work with me in my one-on-one clinical practice, you can use the link in the description to connect with me.
And we can talk about setting up your discovery consult. Guys, I know that this was a short one today. Part of that is because I'm on the road heading back to the United States from Canada after being up there for the summer with my dad. but thanks for listening to The Inflammation Nation. Remember to put in your big rocks first, stay rooted and grounded in the fundamentals, and I'll see you on the next episode.
