Give Wheat a Rest

15 March 2007

Everyone I know loves to eat wheat. I find it such an amazing thing that so much can be created from a bit of flour and water, don't you? You just have to look at the array of unusual patisseries from around the world to see works of art made out of dough. Although our mouths may start to water at the thought of a home-baked loaf, our physical bodies would prefer that bread was framed and hung on the wall! The gluten in wheat is one of the reasons for that, because it's a sticky, glue-like substance that sticks and glues itself to our insides. It irritates the liver because it's so hard to digest, and some people can't digest it at all - as in the case of those with coeliac disease, a severe allergy to all types of gluten foods (including rye, oats and barley). On an annual 6-week liver cleanse, the idea is to rest our liver - allowing it to recuperate from a year (or a lifetime!) of struggling to deal with our over-indulgences. Wheat products must be avoided completely during this rest period, and that includes cake, biscuits, pastry, croissants, cous cous, wafers, ice-cream cones, bread, cookies, pasta, spaghetti, and wheat flour - of any colour or type. What else is there to eat? If you need to ask that, it's a testament to how much you rely on wheat - and in many cases white flour, the most mucous-forming and acidic grain of all. The answer is of course, plenty.

Roberta Stimson, m.b.r.c.p., mach.rt

Practitioner of Holistic and Preventative Medicine