If you are following a strict gluten-free lifestyle, yet you still suffer from symptoms seemingly related to gluten, you could be eating foods that do not contain gluten but your body reacts to them as if they do. This process is called cross-reactivity.

Unfortunately, some gluten-free foods such as cheese, chocolate, non-GMO corn, nuts, grains, and coffee contain proteins so similar to gluten that the immune system may confuse these proteins with gluten and react as if you just ate a bowl of whole-wheat pasta!

It's estimated at least half of those who are gluten-intolerant are also sensitive to cross-reactive foods.

Below is a list of common foods that cross-react with gluten:

• Amaranth
• Barley
• Buckwheat
• White and milk chocolate (not dark chocolate)
• Coffee, except air-roasted coffee (offered by Optimal Health Network)
• Non-GMO corn
• Milk, cheese, and other dairy (alpha-casein, beta-casein, casomorphin, butyrophilin, whey protein)
• Eggs, except soy-free eggs
• Hemp
• Millet
• Oats
• Polish wheat
• Potato, except sweet potato
• Rye
• Rice, except black rice and wild rice
• Sesame
• Spelt
• Sorghum
• Soy
• Tapioca
• Teff
• Yeast
• Lentils, except black
• Beans, except black
• Nuts, especially almonds, but not coconut, pecan, chestnut, walnut, pine, pistachio, and Brazilian

If you are gluten-intolerant and still having health issues even after removing gluten from your diet, eliminate the above foods for at least two months and see if your symptoms improve. Make sure you've healed your gut as well. Then, after two months you may reintroduce the above foods one at a time to determine which ones are causing cross-reactions.

If you determine that there are foods that are cross-reactive for you, the treatment is to permanently remove these foods from your diet in addition to eliminating gluten.

Even though the cross-reactive foods do not actually contain gluten, your body thinks they do and therefore the inflammation and damage to your body can ultimately be equal to gluten. If you need support, consider a health consultation with me.

Labels: celiac disease, cross-reactivity, gluten sensitivity