How Gluten Wreaks Havoc On Your Gut

By Dr. Amy Myers
May 30, 2013 12:00 PM EDT

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard the terms gluten intolerance or gluten sensitivity and celiac disease tossed around a few dozen times in the past few years. If you spend a lot of time on MindBodyGreen, you already know that consuming gluten can negatively impact your health. What you might be a little hazy on are the specifics; why exactly is gluten harmful and what’s happening inside your body when you eat that bagel?

First things first: What is gluten?

Gluten is a two-part “sticky” protein found in grains, most notably wheat, as well as rye, barley, and others. It’s considered sticky because it holds together the nutrient stores of the plant it’s in. This stickiness is why it’s so commonly used in processed foods as a binder and filler. It’s a two-part protein because it’s made up of the peptides gliadin and glutenin.

Why is gluten such a problem now?

We’re no longer eating the wheat that our parents ate. In order to have the drought-resistant, bug-resistant, and faster-growing wheat that we have today, we’ve hybridized the grain. It’s estimated that 5% of the proteins found in hybridized wheat are new proteins that were not found in either of the original wheat plants. These “new proteins” are part of the problem that has lead to increased system inflammation and intolerance of gluten.

Today’s wheat has also been deamidated, which allows it to be water soluble and capable of being mixed into virtually every kind of packaged food. This deamidation has been shown to produce a large immune response in many people. Lastly, in our modern fast-paced world with fast food at our fingertips, we’re eating much more wheat than our ancestors ever did.

So, what happens when we eat gluten?

Hospitals Love To Serve Overcooked GMO Slop To Sick Patients

Natasha Longo, Prevent DiseaseWaking Times

Unless you’ve experienced a very acute injury requiring life-saving emergency medical attention, most hospital stays are not conducive environments for healing, especially relating to nutritional support. Hospital food is almost unpalatable and from the perspective of nutrient density and optimal nourishment of which patients require the highest levels, the food in these care facilities could be considered equivalent to, if not worse than soup kitchens for the needy. Take a look at some of these pictures of overcooked slop filled with genetically modified ingredients which typically fill the menus of hospitals worldwide.

Food, far beyond any type of medicine, is the most relevant and effective way to nurture strong and healthy bodies. Frozen, unappetizing, nutritionally deficient, toxin-loaded, and GMO containing platters are not the path to healing. So why do hospitals insist on serving their patients these types of foods?

For starters, hospital food services are centralized in many cities that partner with specific companies that cater to these services. That means the cheapest most effective way to get the food from its unprepared state to its prepared state is the rule of thumb.

While most hospitals do consider the multitude of factors involved in dietary specifics relating to a patient’s condition such as if a patient is on solid, minced, pureed food, or if the patient lactose intolerant or on a low-sodium or gluten-free diet, they don’t however, consider food quality at all. The choices are extremely limited.