Wheat Free, Gluten Free, Grain Free – What’s the Difference?

What’s the difference between wheat-free and gluten-free? If you’re starting a lower-carb diet or choosing less gluten it’s an important distinction.

The Difference Between Grain-Free and Gluten-free 

• Grains include wheat, rice, corn, and oats and are categorized as “cereal grasses”. When we eat these grains, we are eating grass seed, a biological oddity since humans are not grass grazers. We can’t chew or digest grass. The animals we once hunted ate the grass and converted it to protein and fat for us.
• Gluten is a combination of glutenin and gliadin, proteins found in wheat, barley, spelt, and rye, and usually in oats. 

Grains Have Changed in the Last 10,000 Years

Commercial grains have undergone extensive hybridization, and more recently, genetic modification. Plants don’t look or taste the same as they did 10,000 years ago and are no longer the same biologically.

This may be one reason why the autoimmune intestinal disorder, Celiac Disease, has tripled in the last 50 years. One in 100 people now have Celiac Disease, but as many as 80% don’t know it. Check out my article on Celiac’s hidden symptoms.

Going gluten-free is a good start for Celiac patients, but in my experience, Celiacs need to remove all grains and follow a Paleo Diet to heal the gut.

Steps for Reducing Grains and Gluten

• Step One: Eliminate wheat products such as breads, pasta, gravy, pancakes, etc. Eat more proteins, veggies, fats, butter, and eggs to replace those starchy, fattening breads and cookies!

• Step Two: Eliminate other grains including gluten – rye, barley, spelt, and typically oats. Beer, soy sauce, packaged foods, sauces, and mashed potato often include flour or gluten.

Helpful Hint: Avoid commercial gluten-free cookies, cakes, cereals, pasta, and breads made from high-starch ingredients such as potato starch, corn, rice flour, tapioca starch, and/or sugar. These are high in calories and increase glucose levels, body fat, and Triglycerides.

• Step Three: Now eliminate rice and corn to go completely grain-free! Add more butter, ghee, and coconut oil to your diet to stay satisfied, and double (or even triple) your vegetable intake. If you are losing too much weight, add more fats, such as winter squashes, or wild rice. Athletes may require some sweet potatoes but there is controversy about whether even they require starchy foods for performance.

Helpful Hint: There are hundreds of websites, Facebook pages, Podcasts, and books to help you follow a grain-free, gluten-free Paleo Diet. Including my own The Diet For Human Beings.

Nut and Tuber Products are Gluten Free

There are many almond or coconut flour products, cassava root and other starchy tubers, will help you make the jump into a gluten-free or grain-free diet. My podcast and book review with, Amanda Torres, the author of Latin American Paleo Cooking has some delicious recipes that include alternate flours.

Digestion and Bowel Support When Going Grain Free

Here are a few products in my online store that might help while you’re healing:

• D- Digest has support for the intestine, as well as enzymes and HCL (hydrochloric acid).  
• C- Colon will help move the bowels if you’re constipated and has some gut healers as well.
• LGut – Leaky Gut Mastery is a sophisticated formula to help Leaky Gut damaged by years of stress and poor food or medication choices.
• Premier Probiotic contains a nice blend of Probiotics, requiring no refrigeration.

Benefits of a Grain-Free Diet

Going grain-free should bring weight loss, not weight gain. If the improvements in weight or health symptoms haven’t convinced you or seemed obvious to you yet, try eating all your old foods for a week or two. You’ll be shocked how indigestible they are now.

Your gut and entire body will have reduced inflammation and often a big reduction in pain and bloating.