<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

    I had to stop eating many foods because I have intolerances to almost 
everything I used to eat.  I've had symptoms of nutrient deficiencies recently,
so I checked my diet for nutrient deficiencies, using the USDA nutrients 
database, at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search
    I'm sure there's software that works with this database but I wrote a 
little C program to analyze my diet.  It's not hard, I have a good food 
scale to weigh things, and especially if you make everything from scratch 
like I do, all the information on vitamins is there in the database.  I'm not
worried about mineral deficiencies because there's a multimineral 
supplement I can take - Total Mins from Country Life.
    The most important thing I found is that I'm low on vitamin D.  I can't eat
any foods that have vit. D and I don't get much of the ultraviolet-B that 
causes the body to make it.  And - this is important for a lot of us - 
vitamin D deficiency can cause a lot of problems including immune system 
problems!  I went looking on Medline and I saw it mentioned as preventing 
cancer, like colon cancer and lymphoma; preventing infections, helping with 
autoimmune problems, and being anti-inflammatory.  Gluten intolerance is less 
common in the middle east, more common in northern Europe.  I've seen this 
explained as evolution, since wheat has been common for longer in the middle 
east.  But I wonder if people in the north are more likely to have autoimmune 
diseases since they don't get as much vitamin D.
    Most people get vitamin D from milk - all the liquid milk would be 
fortified with vitamin D in the USA - or from cereals that are fortified 
with vitamin D.  Cod liver oil has a lot of vit. D.  So if you are on a 
dairy-free diet like a lot of us are, if you aren't taking vitamin D in a 
supplement, you live in the north, you avoid processed foods which are 
fortified with D - this is something to be concerned about!  Vitamin D 
deficiency is pretty common in the north.
    You can get vitamin D from sunlight, but it takes about 15 minutes/day of
sun without sunscreen to get your vitamin D, more for people of color.  In 
the north, I think it was above about latitude 50, the UVB radiation that 
gives you vit. D isn't in the sunlight during winter, so in the winter, 
people have to get their vit. D from food.  I live in the north.  Vit. D
deficiency in the winter is a big reason why women lose bone after 
menopause.  Using even low-SPF sunscreen blocks the body making vitamin D.
    UVB also causes skin cancer and ages skin. Probably the amount of UVB you 
need to get vit. D is an insignificant cancer risk, but it probably does cause
a little photo-aging. There are vitamin D lights, see 
http://www.sperti.com/duv.htm
    It takes months for vitamin D supplements to work (the lights too).
    vitamin D deficiency causes rickets in children and osteomalacia in adults.
    I have inhalant allergies to almost every allergen.  I had 53 allergies when
they tested.  I have food intolerances to almost all common foods, including 
gluten.  I get sick for several days after eating a huge variety of foods. 
Cardamom, a spice, was my latest such sickness.  I've been testing out spices 
to see if I can spice up my diet - but cardamom was not OK.  I looked and a lot
of the herb teas I used to drink have cardamom.  I've been gluten free about 
4 years.  Eventually I hope I'll stop having these reactions to so many foods.
They have gotten a lot less severe, in that some parts of the food reactions 
have stopped happening.  I don't seem to have developed any new food 
intolerances, at least since I found all of them a couple of years ago.  It 
could be that going around eating a lot of foods you're intolerant to, even 
if you're being gluten-free, can cause "leaky gut" so you get more food 
intolerances.  There are a couple of foods that I turned out to have reactions
to that I don't remember eating before being gf, though I might have. 
Something for people who develop new food intolerances after going gluten-free 
to think about :) perhaps you have hidden food intolerances.

I'd love it if a lot of this turned out to be from vitamin D deficiency, but I
don't have any reason to believe that.  I have been getting vitamin D from a 
supplement or from my diet, up until 2 years ago, when I found out 
that what had been making me chronically ill - I was very sick after i went
gluten-free - was a vast number of hidden food intolerances.  I've had
a lot of food intolerances since I was a child.  I'm sure of that because I had
problems after eating some foods since I was a child - like soy, carrots, 
beans and apples - mostly, feeling hungry and driven to eat - and agitated or 
anxious sometimes.  I recognize those reactions now as subtle symptoms of food 
intolerances.  After I did an elimination diet, I got sick for days after 
eating any one of those foods.

still I'll certainly tell the list if getting vitamin D helps.  I'll be very 
pissed off at doctors if it does, since none of them have ever mentioned lack of
vitamin D as possibly contributing to my almost disabling problems. I've had a 
hellish time trying to get allergy shots.  They make me sick at a 1/10 million
concentration.  The normal starting concentration for the shot is 1 in 100,000.
It would be lovely if I were able to get allergy shots, after taking 
vitamin D.  Or if vitamin D helped me fight off the bladder infections I 
keep on getting.

I found a vitamin D supplement that I probably will be able to take - it's 
sold by http://organicpharmacy.org , it's vitamin D3 made by 
Pure Encapsulations.  I do NOT want recommendations for "hypoallergenic" 
vitamins emailed to me.  I got sick from almost all the supplements I'd 
been taking up to 2005.

    This vit D thing is very important.  All the vitamins are important, that's 
why they're vitamins.  But people are conditioned by the media, and tend to 
think more about C and E vitamins, which are talked about a lot because they're
antioxidants.  Vit. D was the last vitamin I looked at - and I found
out it was the most serious situation of all!

   And nutrient deficiencies are not a trendy topic, so
the possibility of developing deficiencies is something people tend to forget 
while trying to improve their diets.  Many people on this list are on some
kind of special diet other than just being gluten free.  Going to the USDA 
database and finding out if your new diet is giving you enough vitamins and
minerals is an excellent idea.  I think it's best to get as much as possible
from one's diet, too.  Whole foods have a lot in them that's good for the 
body that research hasn't found yet.  I looked at vitamin E and I found 
that the other tocopherols besides vitamin E have also been found to be 
important.  You can run out and buy a pill with all the tocopherols, or you 
can eat whole foods that are rich in vitamin E and you'd have been getting 
them all along.  This might be true of vitamin D too, that it's better to get
a small amount of ultraviolet, like a lizard :), than to take a pill.  UVB
might be doing things for the body that people don't know about yet.

    Something that _is_ trendy is the "good fats" EPA and DHA - the fats in 
fish oil.  I also don't have any sources of those fats in my diet - I get very
sick after eating fish or seafood, and those are basically the dietary sources
of EPA/DHA.  Your body only makes a little DHA on its own.  Your body can make 
EPA if you eat a lot of the other omega-3 fats.  I found an 
EPA/DHA supplement I can take, from http://www.water4.net .  It's vegan, it's
made from algae.  It's been very nice, the EPA makes you feel good and it's
mood stabilizing, and the DHA is good for the brain.  So you don't have to be 
eating a high-fat diet to get the "good fats" - I take 3 capsules per day of 
this supplement, to get about 500 mg of EPA/DHA per day, which is the amount 
that's recommended for adults.  One reason my diet turned out to be 
pretty good for most of the vitamins is that the lowfat diet is like an anti-
restriction - I don't use much refined sweetener either, so very little of my 
calories are empty calories.  So I get a lot of vitamins from all the fruits 
and vegetables and starches I eat (like, taro root and spinach are very good 
sources of vitamin E).

Laura

* Please include your location in all posts about products *
*******
To unsubscribe, email: mailto:[log in to unmask]
*******