When was the last time I had decent wheat?

I lived in London for 4 years and was constantly eating wheat, pasta in particular. I love pasta and got to a point where I was eating pasta on average twice a day. I realize that it doesn't offer much nutritional value but I love it!

After going about this routine for awhile I realized that every morning I woke up with a dull ache on the lower sides of my back. It never once crossed my mind that maybe it was the pasta. I thought maybe I was sleeping weirdly and I would mention it to my doctor when I went for check-ups. But he didn't seem to think it was anything, so I continued to ignore it.

Fast forward to last year, when I had moved back to New York and eating the same as I had been in London. I quickly began to feel "off." I was experiencing soreness in my stomach that I can only describe as feeling like my stomach had been scratched from the inside. I was seeing a gastroenterologist for my yearly endoscopy (for acid reflux disease) and explained the symptoms I was feeling. The endoscopy and colonoscopy revealed that my stomach was inflamed. That was pretty much all the doctor said and suggested I avoid acidic foods.

At NO point was it suggested that perhaps I had, at the very least, a gluten intolerance. And this doctor had asked me about my diet, so she knew I was eating a fair amount of pasta.

It wasn't until I met with my general practitioner that I explained the symptoms I was having and she immediately told me that I should try going a few weeks without gluten and to see if I felt any better. I was very resistant, as I wasn't even sure at that point what gluten really was, so why should I have to eliminate it from my diet!

After some resistance I tried it, and did not have any gluten for a couple of weeks and my body seemed to be improving overnight. I kept falling off the "gluten" wagon and experiencing the same pain, but now I started to notice other symptoms that I never attributed to eating gluten. When I steered clear of gluten my skin looked noticeably brighter and clearer, I didn't feel lethargic all the time, I stopped being bloated and having painful gas and my body in general felt good. But the second I reintroduced gluten, I started to feel like I was living in a haze.

My body has been telling me in various ways for the past few years that gluten has to go! But without any guidance from my initial doctors, I continued to inflict this pain upon my body. Now I can't even remember a time when I could eat a yummy bowl of wheat pasta and not be in pain.

But I'm curious. When exactly did the food supply change so much that it caused a staple of my diet to turn against me? For a more in-depth analysis, read this great articleby Daisy Luther on Eat Local Grown.

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