Wheat vs. Sugar - Experiment Time!
On New Year's Eve, my husband and I decided to do a cheat day for obvious reasons. We had some friends over and we indulged in a variety of foods and it was glorious. The cheat day continued into New Year's Day basically to finish up the leftover food. Two days later I noticed that my knees were hurting. I hadn't changed my exercise routine and yet they were achy. I noticed that the tissue above my knees was swollen also. The pain and swelling lasted a few days and then cleared up.
My husband had to work on my birthday so we celebrated with a keto cake a few days before. My husband loved it, but I wasn't a fan. It was too sweet for my personal preference. Because of that, on my actual date of birth, I decided I wanted a real cake so I made a Texas sheet cake* in it's original goodness including flour, sugar, and butter. It was delicious. The interesting part is that within a day or two I noticed that my knees were hurting again. At this point I had hurt my back so I wasn't exercising at all, so there was absolutely no reason they should be acting this way. I remembered the same thing happened the last time I ate wheat and sugar (New Year's) which I thought was significant.
This past Sunday was a friend's birthday. They invited us over to celebrate and we happily accepted. I decided to make another Texas sheet cake to ensure there would be enough treats for everyone since it was a last minute get together. I was talking with my friend and told her about what I had noticed the last two times I had wheat and sugar and that I was expecting the same thing to happen again. Sure enough, yesterday my knees started aching and swelling up. Clearly either sugar or wheat is causing inflammation in my body.
Now, here's the technical part of this. The intestines are full of little fingers called villi. It's often compared to shag carpet. As food particles pass through your gastrointestinal (GI) tract, the villi absorb the nutrients which is then passed into your blood system. When you eat something that you have an intolerance to, it will grind down the villi until the shag looks more like berber carpet (celiac disease) and/or it will cause small tears in your GI tract until it looks like Swiss cheese (also known as Leaky Gut). When this happens, food particles will get into your blood stream which is a huge problem. Your body recognizes the particles as foreign so it causes inflammation and creates antibodies to attack them as a way to protect itself. Your body's natural response is how autoimmune diseases are created. I first read about this in The Autoimmune Fix. You can also research Leaky Gut. There are many doctors and nutritionists who talk about this affect.
Hashimoto's disease is a great example of this. It is suspected that Hashimoto's is caused by a gluten intolerance because the molecular structure of gliadin (the protein in gluten) resembles the thyroid gland. So if your intestinal wall is full of holes and you're eating gluten, it'll get into your blood stream. Your body creates antibodies to attack the gliadin, but those antibodies don't know the difference between gliadin and your thyroid, so guess what? Your thyroid gets attacked too, causing hypothyroidism which can lead to Hashimoto's or Graves' disease.
In addition to autoimmune diseases, you can also develop food intolerances when, if you had a healthy GI tract, you wouldn't have an issue. We'll use eggs for our example. Lets say that you've enjoyed eggs every day for breakfast for years without any issues. Then one day after eating them, you notice that you don't feel good. You're suffering from bloating, gas, and other GI problems. You figure it was something else and eat eggs again the next day. Again, you're suffering from GI problems. This continues for a while so you decide to stop eating eggs. The symptoms stop so you decide you have an intolerance to eggs. Perhaps the problem didn't lie in the eggs, but with the toast you ate them with. The real intolerance is to gluten which is causing holes in your intestinal wall. The egg particles have gotten through those holes into your blood stream where they've been deemed bad. Your body has created antibodies to attack them so every time you eat eggs, you have a reaction to them. If you were to remove gluten from your diet and focus on healing your gut, you could potentially eat eggs again because they're no longer going where they're not supposed to.
Understanding how our body reacts to certain foods is key for my next experiment. I already know that dairy isn't good for me as I've discussed in previous posts, but just how bad are sugar and wheat? One of them is causing inflammation in my knees and I intend to find out which one. Perhaps I'll find that both do, but one more so than the other. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait a week or so until I know that the inflammation is gone from my knees. Once they're ready, I'm going to make something that is wheat free but has real sugar in it. After another week or so I'm going to eat something that has wheat but no sugar in it. I'm going to keep my diet the same during this time so that it's obvious when the inflammation starts and stops. Although the results won't change how I'm eating (low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) or ketogenic), I would like to know specifics like I know how dairy reacts in my body. I'll share my findings once I have them.
I have another, more restrictive diet experiment planned so maybe I'll do that one first to really cleanse my system. It's related to my skin and is recommended by a dermatologist. I'll write about that in another post.
*I'm from Utah and my husband is from Ohio. Both of us grew up eating "Texas" sheet cakes. Now we live in Texas and no one here is familiar with them. Maybe they're just called sheet cakes, but I find it strange that my recipe is unknown since it's actually called a Texas sheet cake.
My husband had to work on my birthday so we celebrated with a keto cake a few days before. My husband loved it, but I wasn't a fan. It was too sweet for my personal preference. Because of that, on my actual date of birth, I decided I wanted a real cake so I made a Texas sheet cake* in it's original goodness including flour, sugar, and butter. It was delicious. The interesting part is that within a day or two I noticed that my knees were hurting again. At this point I had hurt my back so I wasn't exercising at all, so there was absolutely no reason they should be acting this way. I remembered the same thing happened the last time I ate wheat and sugar (New Year's) which I thought was significant.
This past Sunday was a friend's birthday. They invited us over to celebrate and we happily accepted. I decided to make another Texas sheet cake to ensure there would be enough treats for everyone since it was a last minute get together. I was talking with my friend and told her about what I had noticed the last two times I had wheat and sugar and that I was expecting the same thing to happen again. Sure enough, yesterday my knees started aching and swelling up. Clearly either sugar or wheat is causing inflammation in my body.
Now, here's the technical part of this. The intestines are full of little fingers called villi. It's often compared to shag carpet. As food particles pass through your gastrointestinal (GI) tract, the villi absorb the nutrients which is then passed into your blood system. When you eat something that you have an intolerance to, it will grind down the villi until the shag looks more like berber carpet (celiac disease) and/or it will cause small tears in your GI tract until it looks like Swiss cheese (also known as Leaky Gut). When this happens, food particles will get into your blood stream which is a huge problem. Your body recognizes the particles as foreign so it causes inflammation and creates antibodies to attack them as a way to protect itself. Your body's natural response is how autoimmune diseases are created. I first read about this in The Autoimmune Fix. You can also research Leaky Gut. There are many doctors and nutritionists who talk about this affect.
Hashimoto's disease is a great example of this. It is suspected that Hashimoto's is caused by a gluten intolerance because the molecular structure of gliadin (the protein in gluten) resembles the thyroid gland. So if your intestinal wall is full of holes and you're eating gluten, it'll get into your blood stream. Your body creates antibodies to attack the gliadin, but those antibodies don't know the difference between gliadin and your thyroid, so guess what? Your thyroid gets attacked too, causing hypothyroidism which can lead to Hashimoto's or Graves' disease.
In addition to autoimmune diseases, you can also develop food intolerances when, if you had a healthy GI tract, you wouldn't have an issue. We'll use eggs for our example. Lets say that you've enjoyed eggs every day for breakfast for years without any issues. Then one day after eating them, you notice that you don't feel good. You're suffering from bloating, gas, and other GI problems. You figure it was something else and eat eggs again the next day. Again, you're suffering from GI problems. This continues for a while so you decide to stop eating eggs. The symptoms stop so you decide you have an intolerance to eggs. Perhaps the problem didn't lie in the eggs, but with the toast you ate them with. The real intolerance is to gluten which is causing holes in your intestinal wall. The egg particles have gotten through those holes into your blood stream where they've been deemed bad. Your body has created antibodies to attack them so every time you eat eggs, you have a reaction to them. If you were to remove gluten from your diet and focus on healing your gut, you could potentially eat eggs again because they're no longer going where they're not supposed to.
Understanding how our body reacts to certain foods is key for my next experiment. I already know that dairy isn't good for me as I've discussed in previous posts, but just how bad are sugar and wheat? One of them is causing inflammation in my knees and I intend to find out which one. Perhaps I'll find that both do, but one more so than the other. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to wait a week or so until I know that the inflammation is gone from my knees. Once they're ready, I'm going to make something that is wheat free but has real sugar in it. After another week or so I'm going to eat something that has wheat but no sugar in it. I'm going to keep my diet the same during this time so that it's obvious when the inflammation starts and stops. Although the results won't change how I'm eating (low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) or ketogenic), I would like to know specifics like I know how dairy reacts in my body. I'll share my findings once I have them.
I have another, more restrictive diet experiment planned so maybe I'll do that one first to really cleanse my system. It's related to my skin and is recommended by a dermatologist. I'll write about that in another post.
*I'm from Utah and my husband is from Ohio. Both of us grew up eating "Texas" sheet cakes. Now we live in Texas and no one here is familiar with them. Maybe they're just called sheet cakes, but I find it strange that my recipe is unknown since it's actually called a Texas sheet cake.
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