Gluten-Free

This is a common question, and it’s one I get quite often, especially as going grain-free and gluten-free becomes a more popular lifestyle choice. My answer is straightforward: yes, you can enjoy grains prepared in this fashion. However, you must be absolutely sure the grains you are consuming are gluten-free and that you are keeping a close eye on total carb consumption in your diet, both of these grains and generally.

Remember, a Grain Brain lifestyle is not just about eliminating gluten from the diet, but reducing your carbohydrate load as much as is possible. In fact, this is critical for your health! If we remove gluten but overconsume carbs, we will be doing no favors to our health or our body!

So again, if you want to consume soaked grains, my answer is this: yes, go ahead and do so at your leisure. But monitor yourself! You must always make sure the grains are gluten-free, and that you’re tracking your total carbohydrate consumption. I would suggest keeping a journal of daily carb consumption, or engaging in some sort of practice that presets your carb consumption the day before (like meal planning), or limits carbohydrate consumption to certain scenarios.

No. For those without celiac disease, but who are gluten sensitive nevertheless, throwing out your cookware isn't at all necessary.

While the statistics about celiac disease may be correct, as many as 30% of the population may be sensitive to gluten, without a specific involvement of the small intestine (celiac disease). This sensitivity can relate to any number of problems from dementia to ADHD, skin disorders, joint pain, neuropathy, headaches and even depression as we describe in Grain Brain.

As a matter of fact, I’ve recently published a paper on this topic (which is available here on this site). We often find significant improvement in patients with Crohn’s disease who go gluten free.