1:37

Hi , I'm Susie Garden and this

1:39

is the Ageless and Awesome podcast

1:41

. I'm an

1:43

age-defying naturopath and clinical

1:46

nutritionist and I'm here to bust

1:48

myths around women's health and

1:50

aging so that you can be ageless

1:53

and awesome in your 40s

1:55

, 50s and beyond . The

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Ageless and Awesome podcast is dedicated

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to helping women through perimenopause

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and menopause with great health

2:04

, a positive mindset and outrageous

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confidence . Hit , subscribe

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or follow now and let's get

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started . Hello

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, gorgeous one , and welcome to Q&A Thursday

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with me , susie . And today's

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episode is more of

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a general naturopathy

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nutritionist kind of episode

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. It's about gluten

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and why I'm not

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a massive believer in just

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going gluten-free for the hell of it

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. And this comes after

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I had a consult with one of my clients

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today , beautiful Brock , and she asked me

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to remind her of because she knew that I . Today , beautiful Brock , and she asked me to remind her

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of cause she knew that I didn't like it and

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she asked me to remind her why that was

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that , that I didn't kind of think that

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just going gluten-free was a great idea . And

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uh , I do have

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another episode that I recorded back

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in March If you want me to go

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a little bit more in depth . It's about gluten

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and perimenopause , so

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you can go back into

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the archives , as it were

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, if you want to . But

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yeah , today , because today's just more general

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kind of nutrition , naturopathy , and

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so , yeah , let's talk about it . A lot

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of people seem to think that going

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gluten-free is a really

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healthy thing to do

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, and you know what ? It's

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not a bad thing to do . I mean

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, I'm not a believer in excluding foods

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just for the hell of it

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, and gluten is actually a protein

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. It is something

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that , if you don't have a sensitivity

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to it , it's generally

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pretty okay to eat

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. I would always recommend

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, because the thing is with gluten is

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that wheat it comes from wheat , as

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well as a couple of other grains , and those grains

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and wheat are very highly

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modified and processed compared

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to what our grandparents ate and

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so many , many people

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have reactions to

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it . And also there is

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a thought that the use

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of certain pesticides also

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transfer

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through that food that we're eating

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, and that could be one of the reasons that gluten

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sensitivity is just so

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rampant at the moment

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, way more than certainly

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when I was a kid or even a

4:30

young adult , and

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speaking to friends of mine that are celiacs

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, they're saying , oh , it's so much easier now to get

4:36

gluten-free food and to eat out

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because there's a knowledge of

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gluten-free eating and

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, yeah , so there is a

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thought that it's just the farming practices

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, the mass production , is

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one of the reasons why many

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people are reacting to gluten

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, and so what I do

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recommend is that you have good

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quality sources of

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the foods that contain

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gluten . I would always , if

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possible , go for organic . That

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is almost always going to be

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a better option , and

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particularly for things like breads

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and pastas , which are probably the

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big ones that people

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are consuming reasonable amounts

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of gluten in . Going

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that more organic route means that that

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wheat is not going to be as

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highly processed . It's also not

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going to have all of the pesticides on

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it , and that can be really helpful

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. And the thing is , with a lot of the gluten-free breads

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like particularly the ones you buy from the supermarket

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, a lot of the gluten-free breads , like particularly the ones you

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buy from the supermarket they're just pretty much nutritionally devoid of any

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kind of nutrient

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in it and , like any of you that have had the

5:48

gluten-free bread or

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wraps that are in the supermarket

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, it's generally very white bread

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. It's just nothing to it . It's going

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to bounce your blood sugar up like

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you wouldn't believe , make you feel like rubbish . So

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, if you can go something that is more

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of that . There's

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some fantastic paleo breads

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, for example , that are full of nuts and

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seeds and things like that . They're great . It's

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got lots of nutrition in it . I'm

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kind of deviating a little bit , but

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yeah , that's kind of what I would

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recommend . Now , with regard to

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why I don't like just

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blanketing putting people

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on gluten-free eating plans

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, is a couple of reasons actually

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. Probably

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the most important one , though , is

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that there

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are many , many people that are undiagnosed

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celiac . Now

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, celiac disease is

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pretty important , because

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if people have celiac disease and they're eating

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gluten , it really increases

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their risk of certain types of cancer

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. So it's really , really important

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that if you are celiac , you are absolutely

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gluten-free , and I'm talking having

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a separate toaster at home that

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gluten-containing breads never

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go into , that you

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have separate condiments

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like things like I don't know peanut butter

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, vegemite , et cetera . You

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have your own ones of those if you're celiac

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, because you don't want knives going

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in there that have touched bread that has

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gluten in it , because even those traces of

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gluten are a problem . If

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you have wooden cooking utensils

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, they must be thrown out if

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they've ever been used with gluten-containing

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pasta , for example , or

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sauces . So it's really

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really full on the

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level of gluten avoidance

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that a celiac needs to deal with

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, and that includes putting gluten

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containing products on your skin

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or using , you know , hair shampoos

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that have gluten in them

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. And I remember years

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ago , before I did any of this training , seeing

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gluten-free shampoo and thinking what a load of crap

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, why are you getting gluten-free shampoo ? But

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if you're celiac , you

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don't want to be putting anything that's got gluten

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in it on your body . So

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, as well as in your body , it's super

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important . Whereas if you have

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some of the other forms

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of gluten intolerance , such as non-celiac

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gluten sensitivity , such

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as wheat allergy , gluten allergy

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, things like that unless

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you're anaphylactic it's not going to

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be a life-threatening thing . You might get symptoms

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and some of those symptoms you might experience

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that may be telling you you have an intolerance

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to gluten . Most

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people think of bloating and diarrhea , but actually

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it can be also be constipation , it can be skin

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itching or skin rashes , it

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can be brain fog , it can

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be sleep disturbances , so

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it can be abdominal pain . So it can be quite

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a few different things that

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you may not necessarily think gluten

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intolerance would cause . So

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, and the reason why I don't

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even if someone comes to me as a client

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and says oh , I can't tolerate gluten

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, my first question will always be

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one have you been tested

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for celiac ? If they say yes , I

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will say were you eating gluten

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at the time you were tested for celiac

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disease ? And if they say no because

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a lot of people take themselves off gluten

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, and this is my whole thing you take themselves

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off gluten prior to

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being diagnosed and then they don't

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want to go back on it because the gluten makes them feel

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so horrible and so they

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don't have a diagnosis . But what research

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has told us is that these people that

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don't have a diagnosis of celiac disease

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tend to be more likely to bring

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gluten back in . And I see

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this all of the time in my clients . Like if I

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say to them look , let's do gluten-free for two weeks

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and see how you feel , and

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then if people improve , then

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I would always say them go and see your GP

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and get celiac tested . I

10:02

can also do a level of celiac testing . I can do blood testing

10:04

, but the gold standard

10:07

is actually to have a gastroscopy . But you must

10:09

have been having a significant amount of gluten

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so that the testing

10:14

comes up positive , because if you're

10:16

not having gluten , you're not going to have the inflammation

10:18

in your body and it's not going to show up on a test

10:20

. The thing that will show up is the genetic

10:23

test . If you have the

10:26

gene for celiac and there's a couple of different

10:29

genes that they test for , then that doesn't

10:31

mean that you have celiac disease , but it means

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you may have a predisposition to it

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and therefore you need to probably

10:37

get further tested , and that would

10:39

include the gastroscopy

10:42

, with the biopsies of your duodenum

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, which is the first part of your small intestine . So

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anyway , going back to , yeah , if I have someone that

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does a two week gluten

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free period , um

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, I would always ask them to get tested . And if

10:58

, sometimes , if we

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do it for a little bit longer because

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we , because we know there are certain things going

11:06

on their gut and often with gut healing , we can

11:08

get lots of improvements in

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our um

11:12

, uh , food and ability

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to tolerate foods , then

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, uh , what I find happens

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if I have people that are maybe going on an extended

11:23

, like six or eight weeks , of no gluten

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and if I say to them , so , have you been absolutely

11:27

strict ? They'll say pretty much and

11:30

that says to me no , you haven't

11:32

been absolutely strict , and this is what

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the research tells us that people that do

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not have a diagnosis of celiac are

11:39

not as strict . If people know they're

11:41

celiac , they are absolutely

11:43

all over it , and that

11:45

is the reason why I don't blanket put

11:47

people on gluten-free eating plans

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unless they've been tested for celiac

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disease , because you can't test for it

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if you are already

11:57

gluten-free . So

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that's probably the gist

12:02

of what I wanted to cover today

12:05

. If anyone has any questions

12:07

further about this , I'm

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more than happy more than happy to

12:11

elaborate and do a whole podcast episode on

12:13

it . I don't know if it needs it , but please let me know

12:16

. You can email me hello

12:18

at suzygardencom or

12:20

you can message me on Instagram

12:23

at suzygardenwellness . I

12:25

hope that's been helpful

12:27

for you . Enjoy the rest

12:29

of your week , have an awesome weekend and

12:31

I will see you next Tuesday with my usual

12:34

long form podcast ep

12:37

. Thanks so much for joining me

12:39

today on the Ageless and Awesome podcast

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. If you liked today's episode , please

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