At 11:51 PM 3/28/98 -0500, you wrote:
>How does one tell if they are gluten intolerant?  Are there symptoms?

Serious intestinal distress is usually involved from my(not personal)
experience living with someone who turned out to be gluten intolerant. He
was dignosed as having ulcerative colitis as a child then more recently as
having crohn's(?). At the time I met him, he had constant diarrhea, mucus
in the stools and occcasionally blood and vivious stomach cramps. He was
very thin, constantly hungry, and showed a difficiency of iron and B12.

One thing I find interesting after reading through these as well as the
paleodiet archives, is that he should have done well on a paleo-type diet.
When Imet him he was using the guidelines povided in "Food for the gut
reaction" I don't recall the authors name. His diet consisted of meat,
vegetables(mostly cooked), some fruits, nuts(ground almonds made into a
bread and milk) and eggs, I'm not certain if it allowed fruit, it's been
about 6 years. I was predominantly vegetarian when I met him and convinced
that grains were manna from heaven, so I convinced him to go back to eating
grains, but to simply avoid gluten containing grains such as wheat, barley,
oats, rye and the "new" Old Wheat grains you were beginning to find in
canadian healthfood stores. After going from the "Food for the gut..." to a
predominantly vegetarian(still had bacon with his eggs, and meat when
dinning out) diet with plently of brown rice and beans, his symptoms
cleared up in a matter of days, only(just diarrhea) recurring if he was
under a lot of stress at work--and then it had to be a great deal of stress.

He is now completly vegetarian and says he's never been healthier--he still
avoids the gluten containing foods. He still eats like a horse and is still
fairly thin though not as emaciated as when I met him.


I realize that this story flies in the face of most everything that has
been posted on this list. Maybe someone out there can explain the anomaly.


Willow