The Tummy Whisperer

Ep. 21 - Discovering the Gluten-Health Connection: Unveiling Inflammation Triggers, Clean Eating Strategies, and Personal Success Stories

• Renee Barasch

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Ever wondered how the chemistry of your food influences chronic conditions like arthritis and gout? This episode of the Tummy Whisperer podcast promises to reveal the crucial connection between what you eat and how you feel, especially highlighting the perils of processed foods. Join us as we decode the subtle signals your body sends—like joint pain and digestive issues—that may be linked to inflammatory foods such as gluten. Janine shares her glowing review of Fresh Kitchen in South Florida, making a case for the transformative power of clean eating. Stay tuned for an exciting preview of our next episode featuring the founders of Victus, who will guide us on sourcing organic, allergen-free meals locally.

Could cutting out gluten be the key to unlocking better health? Hear an incredible personal story about a man who saw dramatic improvements in his condition, including reduced colon ulcers and hemorrhoids, after eliminating gluten from his diet. We'll outline the telltale symptoms of gluten sensitivity—brain fog, skin rashes, digestive issues, and more—and offer actionable tips for transitioning to a gluten-free lifestyle. Plus, get practical advice for reducing toxins in your daily life, like using cinnamon sticks to naturally freshen your home. Empower yourself to make healthier food choices and elevate your well-being with our clean eating tips and resources.


Get to the root cause of your Gut Issues!  Watch the Gut Restoration Masterclass at https://learn.digestivehealthsolutions.com/

For a FREE Gut Health consultation, visit us at  https://thetummywhisperer.com/.

Contact Renee:
Email: Nhsolutions@sbcglobal.net

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Tummy Whisperer podcast, everybody. We are at episode number 21. I'm excited to bring you information about the chemistries of food, how it affects your body, what inflammation looks like specifically joint pain, arthritis, gout the different types of arthritis, which gout is a form of arthritis, and how those things can start to manifest in the body and why they actually happen. So, as everybody knows, our food just isn't what it was years and years ago. Now we have to work a lot harder to try to get clean food. Stay tuned for next episode.

Speaker 1:

In two weeks I'm going to bring on a local kitchen called Victus who makes clean, organic, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, corn-free, amazing food and how you guys can get food locally where you live. So that's part of this whole conversation is how can we get clean stuff in our body? What happens when we don't? How does our body starts expressing symptoms? What do those symptoms look like? And before Janine pulled the trigger to go live today we're, of course, catching up and she said I just always feel better when I eat clean. So she's got a local kitchen near her that she can pick up a bowl that's like a protein starch vegetable small bowl fills her up. She feels good, it's. I don't know if it's organic or not, but like you can tell the difference. And, janine, if you want to give the place a plug, what is the name of it? Again?

Speaker 2:

Sure, there are a chain of restaurants in South Florida and they're called Fresh Kitchen and they're just dynamite. You pick your protein, pick your base, and then you pick a vegetable and then they have all these sauces that you can put like a homemade pesto or a vinaigrette or like a sriracha. But they have all these gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free options. They have paleo cookies, which are great, and I always feel good ordering from them because they're prompt, they deliver, it's just great.

Speaker 1:

I can't say enough great things about them.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's good. So Florida people look for that. And then again, in two weeks I'm going to have the chef and her husband on from Victus the owners of Victus and we're going to talk about how to maybe get some clean eats where you guys are all located. If you're not, if you can't throw down in the kitchen, like me, boy, does it taste good when somebody else makes it much better in the kitchen. Like me, boy, does it taste good when somebody else makes it much better, right? Yeah, and I told you about that flatbread I have in my freezer. It's coming out in a couple of days, but I just picked up a bunch of food from her yesterday. So I'm good for a while.

Speaker 1:

Let's get back into our life here and talk about our aches and pains. A lot of people chalk it up to I'm just getting older, right? No, yes, we are aging. We certainly can't do the reverse engineered Benjamin Button, right, go backwards in time. But our body? We don't have to feel our age, right, we don't have to feel it in our joints and in our neck and in our back, right. Hence sweet relief. The cream is so great for that.

Speaker 1:

But again, the foundations of how our bodies get into trouble, how our bodies start expressing arthritis, joint pain, gout tightness, any kind of muscle weakness. How does that happen? Our stomach is our engine that feeds the rest of the body. If you don't have good things going in and everybody knows this is not a newsflash of course you're going to feel better having natural food that's fresh from the earth, right? So how does our body start telling us that it's in trouble? Exactly what I just laid out Joint pain, inflammation, inflammation is any kind of fever, redness, swelling, muscle contraction, aberrant motion, meaning restricted motion. We can feel that locally in our digestive tract all of those things with pain, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea. We can feel that in other parts of our body, in our neck, in our universal stress point, right here, right. We get so locked in into this position, into our phone, into everything that doesn't keep us open and free and unrestricted, and then, on top of that, we're adding food that's inflammatory and that we're not digesting properly. It's the perfect storm. Our body lets us know and by the time symptoms show up, it's already too late. Your body's been in trouble for a while already. This isn't just hey, I ate something yesterday and now I feel horrible, and that could be true, but whatever that thing is, you think you ate, it's been. You've been having trouble with it for a long time. It didn't just show up overnight, but your body said enough already. Here's your symptom have a good day. So these symptoms can show up again in so many different types of ways.

Speaker 1:

But when we're talking about arthritis and we're talking about food, I always connect gluten to arthritis, because it absolutely can attack the joints and gluten can take a long time to get out of the body, especially if somebody's super, super strict. I'm actually working with a client right now who's this young boy. He wants to feel better, but he just can't really fully pull the trigger, and it's a mindset, right, it's all, it's just too hard. What's hard about it? When he's giving me all the excuses and then when I show him how it's, he can do this or he can do that. It is a mindset that you either want to understand how your body's operating the way it is and do something about it to see if it will change, or you keep moving in the trajectory that you're in. So I've been in practice for 20 years here, coming up my 20th year, and then gluten really affects just a whole host of things that I've mentioned times on previous podcasts, but one of the things that gluten for sure affects is the joints. It attacks the joints. It can go. I see it a lot in fingers, elbows, wrists, and I am working with a woman right now who has like full body joint pain, and she has it in almost every joint, and she's been gluten-free for about five weeks now and she's noticing a difference already. But she already ate healthy. She was eating one slice of a whole wheat toast with a coach tag for breakfast and some wilted spinach, then she would have a tuna fish wrap for lunch, and dinner was always a vegetable protein and a starch. Pretty clean small amounts of gluten every day, though, cost her so much inflammation that she had to start taking some arthritis medication.

Speaker 1:

This is about avoiding steroids, guys. We don't want to be on those. Yes, they can help, but your body pays a price for being on them and they're not the fix our bodies. I always laugh, my teachers taught us. You know your patients don't have a steroid deficiency or a PPI deficiency and you can plug in whatever you want there, right, but of course, when the body's in trouble and you can't, you're feeling horrible and you don't even know about food. Yet you got to do something to quiet the storm. How this happens is the undigested food particles in any part of your diet could be protein, could be carbohydrate, could be fat. We just pick on carbs and gluten. Gluten is a protein right, it's in carbs but when the body doesn't digest that molecule of gluten, it actually parts the junctions of the GI tract via something called zonulin. When zonulin is released, the very tight junctions of the GI tract start to pry apart. In goes the spillage from the undigested foods gluten and everything else into the bloodstream, and then we've got this horrible storm.

Speaker 1:

If you go on the internet and say what foods are good for inflammation, for arthritis, say foods that are high in vitamin C. Citrus is supposed to be great for arthritis. However, there's also studies and data that prove that citrus can be very inflammatory for joints. How do you know what to believe? You have to really test on your own body, and this is what I invite everybody to do Be your own doctor in terms of what you're eating, how you're feeling, what your body's showing you, and see for yourself. I have clients that are gluten-free and they put a little bit of citrus in them, they feel it in their fingers. Some clients doesn't bother them at all. Remember, there's no one size fits all, so you've got to kind of experiment for yourself. So, just because you Google something on the internet, vitamin C might be citrus bioplavonoids good for joint pain and yes, because they're high in polyphenols, they're an antioxidant. However, if there's already a bunch of inflammation and there's sensitivities to some of these acidic citric acid, citric citrus, right the body's gonna respond in the way that it has been, which is this feedback loop of pain.

Speaker 1:

Another form of arthritis is rheumatoid arthritis. That's probably the most common one. You have a genetic predisposition. A rheumatoid arthritis is diet and lifestyle, right. Yes, we all have genetic predispositions for these things. But what you eat, what you think, how you feel, what you digest, affects all of that. So, again, making these choices to not only change the diet if needed, but really working on the digestive piece. The digestive component is a huge, huge player in your nutrition, in your health. Right, you can choose to eat the healthy stuff, and that's already a good thing. But if you're not digesting it, guess what? You're back in that camp of inflammation with the leaky gut and the undigested food particles spilling into the bloodstream. Another form of arthritis is gout. People who have it know it Painful right in the lower leg. They feel it right in their shins and their instep. They're told to avoid red meat and organ meat and sugar and alcohol and refined carbs.

Speaker 2:

It's the buildup of uric acid, isn't it Correct, correct and there is medication for it.

Speaker 1:

But again, what am I going to say? Right, you don't have a gout medication deficiency, it's the body's not able to process all the purines. So when we start digesting these things, better guess what it starts to really help lift off some of that inflammation.

Speaker 2:

Interesting, Renee, not to jump in, but so many family members of mine have gout and so they automatically stay away from high protein diet or whatnot, or they take allopurinol, which is commonly prescribed for gout. They were able to manage it with just diet. No, I've never heard anyone that manage it with just diet. How does someone do that? I'll open the diet a bit.

Speaker 1:

It's not so much completely avoiding all the lists that I read off, but if lowering the amount adding in some antioxidants people use the tart cherry, digesting these proteins better are a huge player for sure, making sure you're digesting the purines and the protein. So when you don't digest those they cause inflammation. And again, everybody's got their genetic Achilles heel, genetic weakness. For people that have the gout, that's where theirs is, most people who have gout. They that's where theirs is Most people who have gout they will avoid the red meat and the organ meats and all that and they it does help them. And then they're also taking the allopurinol, which is the medication to help with that, or the tart cherry juice or both, and with a change of diet they are able to lower the inflammation and help themselves feel better. But sometimes it's not enough. That's when we're back to looking at digestion, right. Another type of arthritis is psoriatic arthritis. Again, I know I sound like a broken record. This is genetic predisposition, diet and lifestyle. It's always those three things. You're born with the genes, you're born with period. But why do some of these genetic predisposed conditions start to show up in our body as inflammation, diet and lifestyle that's it right, and, of course, not to leave out the emotional component as well. More and more people are on board with realizing or honoring their past and trauma and all that leads into too poor digestion. And when you have poor digestion, then I can sit here and name 10,000 symptoms that come from poor digestion. Right, and all the arthritis are one of them.

Speaker 1:

So while I've been picking on gluten and I pick on every single episode I feel like, sorry, let's talk about gluten sensitivity. I just want to dial it back, for people have heard my episodes and I want to connect the dots. I just want to dial it back for people who have heard my episodes and I want to connect the dots. I want to just trace things back to. We're already in this cascade of our body's got issue, some kind of inflammatory issue. What's happening? The first place to look always is what's being eaten.

Speaker 1:

So I'm working with this gentleman right now. He has heard the word gluten before but of course I have to help him roll out gluten free breads and tortilla and things like that. He's really trying to do the best he can and I don't know if he'll ever be able to fully pull the trigger, but the first week he did really well and he sends me this text message. He says I'm noticing a difference. And I said that's great. He says, oh, I haven't been able to fully do it. I'm having some gluten every day and I don't feel good. And I said exactly. I said so.

Speaker 1:

My job is to help you replace some of the items so we can see if we can get back to you noticing that you were feeling better. He's got ulcers in his colon and hemorrhoids and he's gotten a lot of pain taking out the gluten. He noticed that he was feeling more comfortable. So again, it'll be up to him, but it is just so interesting how this gluten can cause so much inflammation. So let's run down a list of five things that are really enough and I can list 10,000, but we'll start with.

Speaker 1:

The first item is brain fog. I've had many clients come to me with brain fog. That is one sign of gluten sensitivity. Joint pain We've been talking about that for the past 20 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Skin rashes that is something that my husband came to me four years ago when, before he was my husband, he was just my client and he was having some hives and rashing on his legs and his arms and he would just all of a sudden go into this hive attack, took him off gluten, lowered the histamines and he rarely has. If he has one, it's maybe I don't know a couple of times a year and it's short-lived, it's a little. Oh, I got a little hive right there from something and he's super sensitive to gluten and he knows if he eats it he's gonna be in trouble. So skin guys check out. You know, having skin changes, start looking at what's going in. Is it inflammatory, how the body's processing it, actually utilizing it and getting rid of the waste. Of course I'm gonna go down the road of digestive issues, right. So those are your constipation, gas, bloating, diarrhea, stomach cramps, stomach pain, stomach bleeding all those things that are related to gluten.

Speaker 1:

For people who have either celiac disease which most of my clients do not they have what's called non-celiac gluten sensitivity. So the sensitivity is the same damn thing, because when they eat it they're in trouble and non-celiac gluten sensitivity folks were to continue to eat it, guess what Down the road, they'd probably end up with a celiac disease, because it just takes enough of it to smash down that bloodline, the hairs in the stomach that are still working, but then the gluten kind of slowly kills them. So if you don't have the disease, you certainly could end up with it Doesn't mean if you don't have it now that you couldn't down the road. And this is just to say, hey, be mindful, you're already having some issues, right.

Speaker 1:

Nasal congestion is another big one it's the last one on my list because I don't want to spend five hours. But nasal congestion when you eat something and you notice you get a clear, runny booger. That's either and sometimes both gluten and or dairy. A lot of people get it with dairy and they don't realize they're getting it with their piece of organic whole wheat toast in the morning with their poached egg, right. But it's amazing what I've seen over the years, janine, with having my clients reduce, modify and remove the gluten, how so many times their health just starts to come back up. You're a perfect example, right.

Speaker 2:

You're thriving. Do I slip up every now and then? Sure, but I will not willingly put it in because I don't know how I feel when I consume it.

Speaker 1:

Right and that's just it. You know how you feel like and you can feel it in your body and sometimes it's easy to go. I'll pay the price and believe me, I don't. I'm not sitting here on some kind of throne. It took me three months to get to pull the trigger. I started to do it and I was getting things in my house and I'm like, oh, this is pretty good, and eventually till I rolled my kitchen out into gluten free. It took, took a while and it's a lot easier now than when I first did it 15 years ago.

Speaker 1:

So basically, again, just a recap of your health, of your digestive tract. When you're feeling something, obviously if you've true fall and that's we know where that pain's coming from. But if you have non-traumatic pain in your shoulder, in your wrists, in your knees, in your neck, in your back, in your joints, start paying attention to gluten and how much you're eating. It's a fingernail full of gluten to launch an immune response in the body. It's not like a whole you need a whole pizza to launch an immune response in the body. It's not like you need a whole pizza to have an issue. It takes just a very little bit. Start paying attention to the symptoms in your body and start to think to yourself could this be related to gluten?

Speaker 1:

And I would say, majority of the time, the answer is probably yes, and for those of you that are definitely having digestive issues, that's definitely a good place to start. So, joint pain, digestive issues they go hand in hand, as well as the rest of the list that's connected to poor digestion, which is poor sleep, poor modal imbalance, low energy, chronic cravings for whatever, and the list goes on. Chronic cravings for whatever, and the list goes on. But I want people to really understand that there could be something that they're not knowing, that they're eating, that they're not digesting, causing this sort of war in their system that's causing them to have pain, and we don't need to be living in pain. These days, we're far more advanced in our knowledge and our awareness of our food and our environment, diet, lifestyle and our emotions. We're at a time now where I feel people are really taking action with their emotional health, which is wonderful. It's part of the triad, as Dr Carey would say.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's pretty amazing, renee. It, as Dr Carey would say yeah, it's pretty amazing, renee. It's so interesting that when we talk, it reminds me of conversations I've had with people throughout the week. Last night I was talking to my neighbor who has gout and he was talking about how he takes allopurinol and how he doesn't eat shellfish and doesn't eat red meat and like really watches all this and it's so fascinating to me that certain foods can really cause that amount of pain. A lot of people don't realize how painful a gout attack actually is, but it is debilitating. It is absolutely. You're not getting up, you can't move a sheet of paper or a sheet touching your knee or your leg or your toe. It's that sensitive. People don't understand how painful that is and how just by changing your diet maybe you can really alleviate a lot of that.

Speaker 1:

I've worked with several gout clients over my course of two decades and it's always the same problem Again the genetic predisposition, but the what you're eating, how much you're eating of it, and then, of course, how's your body managing and processing and digesting, and not in that order, right, digesting first, processing, managing is your body managing what you're putting in? I've heard and I hope to never have it that a gout attack could be like as painful as a kidney stone. Which is it like, those two together, the top two of of pain, not to take away giving birth to anybody out there? So that's probably number one.

Speaker 2:

I don't know, haven't done that yet we give birth to our children, our children and chimichangas. They're the best way, better than people. I've got two of them at my feet right now. Hi babies.

Speaker 1:

I'm running around at Auntie Paige's today, pro canine, pro canine. It was cute, I dropped him off in page 10. He'll give you a howl when you leave. He usually mom ow. So I'm getting in the car. I'm like bye Rook. And he looks at me and then his buddy, the big, huge German shepherd that like towers over me, 10 times the size of him, comes out and he gives Rook this play bow and Rook's like it's on. And then they left and they're running around her yard. He didn't even think about me. I'm like, have fun, buddy.

Speaker 2:

Little Rook. He's such a superstar.

Speaker 1:

My superstar, my little frisbee boy, be swimming fast, cat boy. But anyway, guys, I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to give you some information, things that you're thinking about. Hopefully I connected some dots for you and, of course, if you have any questions, you can find me at thetummywhisperercom, you can send me an email and you can download and stream wherever you stream your podcast Apple, Spotify, what else, janine, I always forget the last one.

Speaker 2:

I heart, she's everywhere.

Speaker 1:

I'm everywhere, but please don't be shy, guys. I love talking about this stuff. I love getting your questions answered. I had a woman that was listening to the podcast and she said to me it was so cute. She sent me an email a couple of weeks ago and she said I remember you talking about plugins and what I do is I take cinnamon sticks and I boil them on the stove and the house smells so nice and that's a clean way to really have a nice smell in the house without using plugins.

Speaker 1:

People are listening and there's a lot of ways to really keep the toxic load at bay in your life. I'm definitely all about that for sure. So I hope you guys stay well, remember to stay hydrated, chew your food, avoid the gluten like the plague and let me know if you have any questions and we'll see you in two weeks. I'll be talking about how you can roll out some healthy food in your kitchen locally, wherever state you're in, because I'm going to have the Victus folks on and they're going to have the Victus folks on and they're going to talk about how they get started just making little sheet pan stuff for themselves and people try and go.

Speaker 1:

That's really good. Can you make extra. And then they have this commercial kitchen about 20 minutes from me and they make all this really yummy stuff that feels so good and you can just tell like my body thrives on it because it's so clean and they get all their meat is like from Amish farmers and they do a really good job. So I want to help you guys get really good, clean food so that you can be healthy for a long time. All right, guys, have a good one, take care, and we'll see you in two.