Wheat Belly/Liking Luke

Wednesday - Thanksgiving countdown! So far I've made the cranberry nut bread, pumpkin bread, jello salad, cranberry relish, prepped the add-ins for the stuffing, made the streusel topping for the sweet potatoes - oh and the soup is made. Today more trips to the grocery and an expensive trip to the liquor store. Making a signature Thanksgiving cocktail - Calvados (apple liquor), Matthilde (pear liquor), cognac, Grand Marnier, lime juice and a dash of bitters - shaken with ice and strained into a martini glass. Garnish is a sprig of rosemary with a few cranberries threaded on it. I plan on having two of them and being very very silly!

Last night, Petterino's with friend Adrienne and then to Serbian Village to take in old flame, Tommy's pro jazz jam session. I hadn't seen him in about six months and he noticed right away that I've lost a bunch of weight. Fun to flirt with him again - he played me my favorite tune, "Someday My Prince Will Come" - astounding the way he and the other jazz musicians play that melody. Adrienne love it too. And today a seductive rambly voice mail from Luke (we still don't know what his secret is). My message back to him, "I'm waiting for you to sweep me off my feet....I'm really in the mood to be swept!"  The guy is adorable - not for everyone - he has a tendency to bounce off walls and forget getting a word in edgewise - but I like him nevertheless! He is smart, smart, smart with a sweet and generous way of being.  Oh, and I think I never told you the ending to the story about when we went on a date. I asked him despite my concerns that he was a ne'er do well - knew he didn't have a job. When he picked me up (with really beautiful flowers) I thought to take my car, thinking he probably drove a jalopy with a sign for pizza on his roof. I was surprised to be ushered into his spotless BMW - reason he doesn't work is because he doesn't have to, having sold his investment banking firm about ten years ago.  So, mysterious, smart, handsome, funny, well-to-do, did I mention smart, well-read, generous and hilarious - a possibility, yes?

Wheat is on my mind today after having had tea with Mark the other day (downstairs tenant). He just finished a book called Wheat Belly. At first I thought, "Oh no....Mark is one of those gluten-free nuts. I'm SOO not interested in the whole gluten thing!"  To me it's smacked of psudo-illnesses like fibromyalgia  Seems like a fad - the whole wheat anxiety thing and I find it hard to believe that all of a sudden all these people have discovered they're allergic to gluten. Think back to your parents generation - did they even know what gluten was?

But I listened politely and now I'm starting to give serious thought to the discussion. Will start by reading the book. These are a few of the things that I'm thinking of:

• We are, as a culture, addicted to wheat. Think of it! It's not uncommon for a typical American eating day to include wheat at every meal with a few wheat snacks thrown in - a huge and steady diet of wheat is the norm.  Common sense tells us that anything eaten in such quantity over swaths of time might not be good for us. There is little else that we eat with such passion and regularity - maybe coffee, sugar certainly, cheese, liquor.
• When I've gone on low carb diets in the past, my joints feel instantly better. It's something I've observed - didn't know what to attribute it to.  Now I'm thinking that wheat may have an inflammatory effect on my body. 
• If I go low-carb (almost no wheat) my mood plummets and I feel irritable and depressed - nothing is good.  I've observed the mood-altering affects of carbs and now I'm thinking that it's specifically wheat.
• Mark described how wheat was, once upon a time, really compatible and good for us - reason why it's been called the "staff of life."  But in recent history wheat has undergone a dramatic change - engineered for larger yields and hardiness. Even before GMO they were monekying with wheat. The book says these "improvements" were accompanied by other inadvertent changes that caused wheat to have unusual characteristics. It now causes spikes in blood sugar that exceed even table sugar, and because of the insulin effect it is converted instantly into fat. What's more the genetic modifications have enabled wheat to be broken down into poly-something chains that can actually cross the blood-brain barrier. Once inside our brains the chains attach themselves to pleasure receptors (like drugs). That explains why I can feel suicidal without carbs!!!  Me, with no substance abuse problems - wrong - I'm a wheat-a-holic!!!!!
• Just last night asked Becky Menzie the great pianist and perform about her diet (WW is just not working well for me anymore). She has lost a significant amount of weight. "Simple!" she says. 'Just eliminate gluten and dairy and exercise a lot." She follows an anti-inflammatory diet in which wheat has no place.

This is a work in progress - need more research to bolster this anti-wheat discussion. I'll start by reading the book. I'll pick up information about anti-inflammatory ways of eating, get on line to read the latest thinking about wheat. 

Here's a thought for you. Can you think of any food (OK, maybe chocolate) where, if you told someone they had to give it up, would put them in a tizzy? Tell someone they have to give up wheat and I'm thinking those are fighting words. Shouldn't that be the tip-off right there that something is amiss? If I told you, you had to give up rice or potatoes or tortillas you might be chagrined but I doubt it would send you to an anxious place. But tell someone, "No wheat," and I'll bet there are those among us for whom just the thought is deeply disturbing. That, my friends, is how drug abusers feel when told they have to go straight!

Challenge today is doing your own research into this. Maybe those anti-gluten people aren't nuts after all. I also conjecture that we might ALL be allergic to wheat even if we don't exhibit typical symptoms. Mark said the doctor who wrote the book noted that a whole host of conditions his patients came to him with disappeared when they gave up wheat.

Gotta run - my toast just popped up.

Peace,

Sarah