The GFCF Diet: What the ELLE...

My dear friend Katherine aka the GFCF Mommy sent me a link to an article recently posted online by ELLE magazine concerning the GFCF diet. Here is a link to the article (be warned: you will have to click through some ads as you read this).The article focuses on Dr. Mark Hyman, who has written several books on the leaky gut syndrome and is an advocate for the GFCF diet. He claims that our lifestyles and environment are most to blame for illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and mental health. The key to healing these things, according to Dr. Hyman, is to heal the gut. And the best way to heal the gut is through the GFCF diet.The counterpoint is provided by Dr. Mark Gershon, pathology professor at Columbia University an expert on irritable bowel syndrome, and whose research has indicated that the gut has its own independent nervous system, making it impossible for the peptides created by gluten and casein in the gut to reach the brain. Dr. Gershon's opinion is that going GFCF is worthless unless you are celiac or lactose-intolerant.A third opinion is provided by Dr. Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, professor of pediatrics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who claims that most often, when food makes us feel bad, it is due to food poisoning and indigestion, and not leaky guts or food allergies. Both Dr. Gershon and Dr. Nowak-Wegrzyn claim that people experiencing benefits from the GFCF diet are likey experiencing a placebo effect.As I have stated here on many occasions, the GFCF diet is one of the main "treatments" that helped Helena after she was diagnosed with autism. When she was diagnosed, she was, for lack of a better word, addicted to milk - she would drink nothing else. Shortly after we removed the gluten and casein from her diet, we noticed marked improvements in her speech and interactions. As time has gone on, there have been occasions where she has accidentally ingested gluten and casein, and the change in her behavior for the next few days afterward was noticeable. It's obvious to us that the diet helped Helena, and continues to do so.But I think the real problem here lies in one word - diet.Diet is a trendy word. It is a word that represents what we eat on a daily basis, but often it is primarily associated with losing weight. How many times have we made a New Year's resolution to go on a diet? And then you have fad diets, like South Beach, or Atkins, or our personal family favorite, the Six Week Diet Makeover. And diets, when thought about in this way, are made to be broken. Which is why so many people who try these diets and lose weight often regain that weight and then some.So maybe the GFCF diet shouldn't be thought of as a diet, but as what it really is - a lifestyle. I know why eating GFCF is controversial; it's the old glass is half empty syndrome. Too often, we focus on the foods we can't have, instead of focusing on what we can. So we lament about having to give up milk, yogurt, cheese, whole wheat bread, etc. But when you focus on what you can have, you see that the GFCF lifestyle offers plenty of options:fruits and vegetablesbeef, pork, chicken, turkey, or other meatsrice, beans and potatoesherbs and most spicesother great grains, like sorghum or quinoafisholive oil and other oilseggsfruit juicescoffee and teacocoaand more...When you look at it like this, you realize that there are a lot of foods you CAN have!Living the GFCF lifestyle forces other changes as well. Going to a restaurant isn't much of an option - most fast food places are out, and GFCF choices at most sit down restaurants are limited. Reading labels becomes the #1 priority at the grocery store, and foods are bought that do not contain a lot of preservatives or "natural flavors." Cooking becomes an art, and not a chore, and a great bonding time with your children. Even the author of the article, when she had practiced the GFCF lifestyle herself, noticed improvements in how she felt. Of course she did!There is no placebo effect here. It doesn't matter if there is such a thing as leaky guts or independent gut nervous systems - let the folks who earned their medical degrees argue about that if they want. The fact is, adopting the GFCF lifestyle forces you to to make better food choices. And there are plenty of food choices to make.What is so wrong about that?