I’ve followed a “Paleo”-ish eating style (hate the word diet!) since July of last year.
Not quite a year later, I still get stark reminders of why this hack “works” for me.
My occasional relapses demonstrate that I am most likely gluten and corn intolerant, based on the extreme intestinal pain I suffer from the smallest amount of these products. Did you know most grocery store bought baking powder has cornstarch in it? I found that out the hard way!
But there are plenty of grain-based but gluten-and-corn-free food options out there. We researched GF beer, and found a one-to-one wheat flour substitute based primarily on rice flour, potato starch, and tapioca flour, all of which seemed OK for me in previous tests.
Yesterday, to celebrate our 12 year anniversary and welcome weather warm enough for eating on the deck, we binged.
The menu for the evening:
“Appetizer” beer tasting
Grilled chicken with Sweet and Spicy Bourbon Barbecue Sauce
Grilled zucchini
Roasted mashed cauliflower
“Buttermilk” biscuits (I actually used kefir because that’s what I had) using the recipe from the Namaste Foods website
Further beer tasting
Guilt Free “Nutella” Cheesecake (which didn’t look anything like the photo, because I think my homemade hazelnut butter didn’t turn out right!)
Mmmmmm. Starches, sugars, and carbohydrates, oh my!
Last night, I couldn’t fall asleep nor stay asleep for long once I finally got there. Every time I rolled over I woke up completely.
This morning, my intestines are blown up like a balloon! Or roadkill!
I would have liked to fast today, but I’m still taking a prescription for an unfortunate encounter with poison ivy – the bottle label commands “TAKE WITH FOOD.” So I’ll be throwing cultured and fermented foods at my digestive tract with most meals, taking prebiotics and forcing fluids. Oh yeah, and avoiding all the starches, sugars and carbohydrates…
…right after I finish this slice of cheesecake!
In Search of the Lean Six Life 
I feel the same way when I eat grain, dairy, or sugar. I notice I feel my pancreas become inflamed with pain and I ball up. Does this happen to you?
I don’t know – how can one tell if it’s the pancreas that hurts as opposed to something else? “Balled up in pain” sure is a good description of how it feels!
When we eat a lot of sugar or even hidden sugars I.e white processed flour, processed corn our pancreas produces insulin. Since I juice (mostly veggies) and eat paleo with no sugar added. My boyfriend also eats this way since he has a very hard time losing weight and had diabetes in his family. We pigged out one night on B&J ice cream just for fun and we ended up writhing in pain all night. I found out the area where the pain was coming from is where the pancreas is located and it was freaking out because of all the sugar, and dairy is also sugar once it breaks down. In “Hungry for Change” a nutritionist giving a presentation to parents at a school dumped a huge wheel barrow for of sugar on the stage and explained that this was the sugar their kids were consuming in a year at school from milk.