Devil In Disguise

Wheat and gluten seem to be in everything!  So, I thought I had it all figured out.  Buy only produce, meats, cheese and things that are all around NOT processed to much.  This was surely the best way to avoid ingesting hidden wheat or gluten.  Yeah... it was a good plan, but some wheat got in under the radar.

For the past week and a half I have had "the munchies".   I would see desserts and goodies and could almost taste them!  I didn't have a problem with this before.  I wasn't hungry, I just wanted to eat and nibble.

Monday I broke down and made my hubby get us a bottle of Coke out of the machine at Kroger.  I just wanted carbonation and the taste of a Coke.  Well then came the question of Diet or Regular ( Aspertame or High Fructose Corn Syrup ).  We went with regular.  It was syrupy and not at all the taste I was craving, although the carbonation thing was satisfied.

So what the heck was going on?
Why was I craving and nibbling and eating all the time????
Oh yeah, I was also having slight headaches off and on, waking up in the middle of the night with my arms "asleep", my nose was stopped up and I have had some digestion issues to name a few other things along with a drop in my mood.

Last night while nibbling on my jar of Natural Peanut Butter, that I piked up saturday, I looked at the label.  WHEAT GERM!  Seriously?  Mystery solved.  I can say for sure that was the cause from Saturday on, but what about the week before?  I didn't have that jar of peanut butter then?

Last week I did have the chocolate/peanut butter fudge to nibble on that my mother-in-law and I made together.  I didn't look on the label to see what was in it and didn't think I needed to.  Last week I figured ok, it is the chocolate making me go back for more because I LOVE chocolate.  Right now, I'm thinking there was some hidden gluten or wheat in that peanut butter somewhere.

Lesson learned.  Be on the lookout for that devil in disguise.  It is lurking everywhere.

So you might be wondering WHY wheat and gluten makes you want to eat more.  It is because it is addictive and is also a hunger stimulant.  

When you digest common wheat it yields morphine-like compounds that bind to the brain's opiate receptors and gives you a form of mild euphoria.  This triggers your need for more and increases your appetite, cravings and calorie intake.  The ONLY way to stop the process after you have digested wheat is to to be injected with an opiate blocking drug!  Yep, the same drugs they give people to come down off heroin.  If you don't have anything like that lying around the house to shoot up with, well then you just get to ride it out.

So that is me today, riding out the addiction and trying not to go for the Cheerios I still have that I can't seem to give away.  I'm eating MonterayJack cheese and brown mustard and it's just not doing it for me.  But I'm tough, I may eat while I'm not hungry for a while... but I'll just eat something healthy as I ride this thing out.

Damn that Devil in disauise!