Sweet Potato Awareness Month on November, 2024: are there benefits to eating a gluten-free diet even if you arent gluten intolerant?

November, 2024 is Sweet Potato Awareness Month 2024. November is Sweet Potato Awareness Month November is Sweet Potato

According to some coeliac specialist researchers, everyone has some reaction to gluten, but non-coeliacs recover quickly. Many people report feeling better on a gluten free diet. It's worth consulting a physician & dietician before you start though, as there are some important things you'll need to consider.

The gluten free diet has become a fad, and for many it's completely unnecessary. But it ISN'T bad for you if you're not gluten intolerant. How can it be? It isn't bad for coeliacs, and we're the ones with the malabsorption problems.

All it means is eating fresh fruit, dairy, meat, poultry, fish, vegetables and non gluten grains. How can that be unhealthy? It's true you have to be more careful with high glycaemic loads and fats - but you'd be doing that anyway. Rice, sweet potato, pulses and so on should give you plenty of the right kind of carb & fibre.

The good thing for you, if you do decide to use the GF diet, is that small amounts of contamination won't set your health back months or years, and you'll be able to tolerate the hidden sources quite ok.

The strict GF diet isn't always easy, but it's not as bad as a lot of people think, especially if you like cooking and don't mind preparing your food from fresh ingredients. But if you rely on fast food and supermarket meals you'll be very limited.

I don't mind non-coeliacs going GF, because it increases the awareness of GF food. But please be aware that restaurants and hospitals who have to go out of their way to cater for people they think are just following fashion sometimes don't take genuine coeliacs seriously. That can harm our health big time, if they think 'a little won't hurt' (it does) or 'yeah, I've seen you guys eat gluten and you don't die' (not in front of you, not today...)

how did you start your infant on rice cereal?

Age has nothing to do with readiness for solid foods. Nothing.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and World Health Organization state that babies should receive breastmilk (or formula) exclusively for AT LEAST the first six months of life. After that, a child still should not be fed complimentary foods until they show the signs of solids readiness:

- ability to sit up well on his own without any support from other people or furniture

- no tongue-thrust reflex which causes baby to automatically push food and other objects out of the mouth with the tongue

- evidence of willingness to chew (gum) food

- a pincer grasp, the ability to pick up objects between the thumb and index finger

- an eager awareness and interest in food

These developmental signs need to be in place regardless of the child's age or weight.

After that, it is becoming quite evident that an unnatural, highly processed, factory-made product like rice cereal has little place in the diet of a healthy child. Avocado, banana, sweet potato, cooked apple or pear, mashed with breastmilk (or formula) to a smooth consistency would all be more healthy and flavorful first foods for your solids-ready baby. Any of these foods can also be cut into very small (1/4 inch) pieces that baby can pick up and put into his own mouth and chew (gum) on his own, which not only develops baby's interest and education in food but his hand-eye coordination and understanding of self-care.

Do you feel that collective consciousness is real?

Sometimes a little, such as the material lifestyle and laws we all take for granted, but not completely. Too many reactionaries trying to buck the system, and hence avoid and defy death somehow. look at all the robotic religion heads. They run on automatic pilot. Look at the Q's aimed at xians and nearly all they do is deflect. It screams fraud. That is morally obscene in a way. So yes in some ways but modern man is still very young. Ask me again in 1000 years.