Episode Transcript
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Carrie Saunders (00:00):
Quick reminder
before we get started on this
episode.
This podcast is based on mypersonal experiences and isn't
medical advice.
Have you ever had that momentwhere you realized too late that
you forgot to read the label?
Yes, that was me last week.
After years of being so careful, I let my guard down with a
product that looked gluten-freeSpoiler alert.
(00:21):
It wasn't, and in this episode,I'm sharing what happened, what
I wish I'd done differently andwhy it's so important to always
, always, read the label, evenwhen you think you already know
what it says.
Whether you're newly diagnosedor years into this journey of
being gluten free, this episodeis your friendly reminder to
stay diligent and extendyourself grace when things go
(00:43):
sideways.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the Gluten-FreeEngineer Podcast.
I'm your host, Saunders.
In 2011, I was diagnosed withceliac disease, a moment that
changed everything, but I wasdetermined not to let it hold me
back.
With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer
the gluten-free lifestyle,breaking down recipes, safety
(01:06):
tips, travel hacks andeverything in between to rebuild
a life I love.
Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance or simply
choose to live gluten-free, thispodcast is for you.
Join me each week as wesimplify the gluten-free
lifestyle.
Make it fun and prove that youdon't have to miss out on
anything.
Welcome back to the show.
So last week I got gluten.
(01:27):
I got gluten pretty badly.
I would say that the symptoms,as of this recording, are still
affecting me, and it's beenabout three days already so far
and I want to talk about, youknow, what is it really like to
get gluten and how did I makethis mistake?
So long story short, my husbandlikes to try different types of
(01:49):
hard ciders and we, you know,kind of enjoy, you know that,
taste testing and seeing whatthey taste like.
And he picked up what hethought was a hard cider because
the label looked, you know,like it was a hard cider.
It didn't look like a typicalbeer or anything like that, and
while I just gave you the hint,it was actually a beer.
(02:10):
It was a sour beer and wedidn't realize this until after
he'd already had what cost?
You know, several days, one ortwo and I decided to taste it.
I was like, oh well, let's seewhat this tastes like, because
it was some really kind of offweird flavor.
I think it had passion fruits,like fruit punch, passion fruit
(02:30):
or something like that.
So I thought, oh well, let metry it.
And it was green, like itdidn't even look like a beer, it
looked like a cider, it waslike fluorescent green.
And I tried a sip on one nightand then the next night or the
next day I tried he, I triedanother sip of it, not knowing
it was.
It was a wheat ale, it was asour ale, is what it actually
(02:54):
was, which is why, one, itdidn't taste like beer even when
he drank it.
And and two, the the label wasso colorful and it was near the
hard ciders in our store so wethought it was a hard cider.
Well, I start reading the labelafter he's already had one or
two across.
You know these, you knowseveral days, and like, I
(03:16):
realized it said a sour ale onit and I couldn't find the words
gluten-free anywhere and Irealized that it was, you know,
a gluten beer.
And this was like the nextmorning where I'd had one sip
the night before and then wewere out swimming in our pool
and I had another sip that dayand I thought, oh crap, I just
had wheat.
(03:36):
I wonder what's going to happen, because it's been a while
since I've directly had wheatand the thing about, you know,
alcoholic beverages is.
It kind of varies as to howmuch gluten still ends up in
those beverages as well.
So I was kind of crossing myfingers and hoping much of it
got distilled and filtered out,but I didn't know how I was
going to react.
(03:57):
Well, that was a Sundayafternoon.
The next morning I even wentinto the house and took some
digest pills, even though Irealized, you know, it might
have been too late for that.
But I figured, well, it can'thurt, right.
So the next day, my goodnessMonday morning, I woke up and of
course I had digestive issues.
That to me, honestly, isn'tnearly as big a deal as the
(04:19):
other issues I get.
I was, I felt like I'd been runover by a bus.
My whole body hurt, my brainwasn't functioning, my joints
hurt.
I thankfully didn't get amigraine from this one.
Sometimes I'll get migrainesfrom when I get gluten,
especially if it's barley.
So I'm assuming this wasprobably a wheat ale instead of
(04:39):
sour ale.
So I'm not 100% sure it waswheat or barley or rye.
And I mean I just I felt awfulfor the first couple hours,
three or four hours or so of myday.
I was having a hard timeworking because I was so off.
My senses were overloaded.
I couldn't take too much inputeither.
(05:02):
Noise wise, you know,information wise, light wise my
senses were just overloaded.
So what I want to encourage youto do is you know, obviously
we're really intelligent labelreaders, but it can even happen
to us.
We just kind of let our guarddown and didn't look at the
label, and so I want to makesure that you know, we don't.
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You know, you guys out therelistening, don't fall into the
trap that we did and getcomfortable and feel like you
know, oh, it looks like it'sgluten-free, so it's probably
gluten-free, like in this case,because the label was totally
not what you would see on atypical beer label and we let
our guard down and got sick.
I mean, he even didn't feelgood either, and he kept
(05:48):
wondering why he wasn't feelinggood randomly.
Well, it was probably becausehe was drinking gluten.
So I want to encourage you tomake sure you read the labels
every time.
You don't know whether it's gotmalt flavoring added to it,
which could be something thatcan happen on even you know
other types of drinks that we'retalking about here.
(06:08):
We want to make sure that youknow when we're talking about
food.
It doesn't have a wheat basedthickener.
Whenever you see labels likenew look same great taste.
This could be anywhere fromalcoholic beverages to normal
food we want to make sure thatit's still the same label.
This is actually.
This episode is making me wantto make sure that I double check
(06:33):
all the labels, no matterwhether it's a trusted brand or
not, one that I've eaten foryears or not, especially if it's
not a dedicated gluten-freebrand.
So I encourage you to take thislesson that I had and still
look at those labels, especially, like I said, it's not a
gluten-free, dedicatedgluten-free brand.
Make sure it's stillgluten-free.
You want to also make sure thatthey haven't added a process in
(06:55):
a facility that also processeswheat when they didn't used to
have it.
Double check those things justin case, and we want to make
sure that we are reading thelabels every time so that you
don't make the same mistake thatI did.
And we want to, you know, keepour bodies safe and not have the
inconvenience.
(07:16):
You know I'm still dealing withthe aftermath Days later.
I don't have, thankfully, thebody aches.
My body's kind of not quiteright, but I don't have those
that flu-like kind of body achesymptoms, but I'm still having
digestive symptoms.
It's been three days and Istill don't have it completely
out of my body.
So we want to look at thatingredients list.
(07:38):
We want to look for the obviousthings like wheat, barley, rye,
malt, brewer's yeast.
Those are the common things.
We want to look for the obviousthings like wheat, barley, rye,
malt, brewer's yeast.
Those are the common things wewant to look at.
And then we want to also lookfor hidden gluten terms like
hydrolyzed wheat, proteins kindof hard to say modified food
starch especially if it's notlabeled gluten-free or natural
flavors If there's no allergendisclosure, natural flavors
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could be anything they want itto be.
And then I encourage you to readAt the bottom of the label, for
it contains weed or maycontained or process in a
facility with.
And I encourage you to look forcertified gluten free labels.
That's what we generally do.
Generally, most of everythingthat I eat is certified gluten
(08:23):
free.
That way I will make sure thatI'm safe being celiac, and you
know, sometimes I'll go and getsomething that doesn't say
certified gluten-free if I'mpretty confident in their
processing methods.
But that's always the safestway to look for it and recheck
anything labeled new or hasupdated packaging.
I know this is something that'striggered me to look at the
(08:45):
labels before, just to be sure,so I encourage you to do that as
well.
So then, what happens when youget gluten?
So what are the thingsencourage you to do that as well
?
So then, what happens when youget gluten?
So what are the things that youcan do?
So, whether you're celiac orgluten intolerant, this
accidental exposure can create,you know, lots of symptoms, and
it varies person to person.
It could be headaches ormigraines.
Luckily, I didn't have one thistime.
(09:06):
You can have fatigue that lastsfor days.
I know I have actually beenhaving a hard time waking up in
the morning.
Once I'm asleep, I, my body,doesn't want to wake up.
Right now.
My gut is definitely inflamed,um, bloating and pain.
I was in so much pain on Monday, just in general.
My gut was just so mad at me.
Uh, I don't know how else todescribe it Other than it just
(09:27):
felt like hot and like a fireinside.
Mood changes for sure.
You know.
I warn people, if I've gottengluten, to just take whatever I
say with a grain of salt,because I never know what's
going to come out of my mouth.
It really can cause me somemood issues.
Luckily, this time I recognizedit pretty quickly because I
knew I had accidentally gotgluten and I was kind of waiting
(09:48):
for whatever symptoms mightshow up would show up.
But you know, know that youcould cause mood swings with you
.
You could be really sad, youcould be really angry, you could
be I've been really jumpy thisweek.
It's been easy to scare me andI'm not a jumpy person.
It can also cause skin flareups or rashes.
So just know that these thingscould be happening, could happen
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to you when you're gluten.
Even just a small, tiny crumbcan be just enough.
I literally had two tiny, smallsips across between like you
know what, two days and it wasenough to just really set off my
system.
So there's some things that youcan do to recover and this is
like when I got, you know,gluten accidentally, you know, a
(10:34):
few days ago, and so I tookdigest pills as soon as I
realized it, so that I couldhelp my body digest whatever
might still be left in my system.
Hydrating, you know, reallyhydrating can really help.
I've been super thirsty thepast few days, so even my body
has been having the instinct ofdrinking a lot more.
You can also add someelectrolytes if you'd like, some
(10:56):
herbal teas that are gentle toyour body and then also
nourishing yourself.
I tend to find that I do betterwhen I flush the food out with
food behind it.
So I tend to try to really, youknow, eat a decent amount after
I've been glutened, to trying tohelp just kind of push the
stuff out of my system and justget it out.
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So I eat things that I know area hundred percent safe, that
are generally comforting to mefrom a mental standpoint too,
because I don't feel good, right, I don't feel good because I
got gluten.
So I tend to try to cater tosome things that are more
emotionally comforting to mewhen I'm trying to flush out
gluten and then resting, I'vebeen, you know, letting myself
(11:42):
have some grace when I get up inthe morning, letting myself lay
in bed a little bit longer andjust giving myself some time to
wake up.
You can also support your gutwith prebiotics and digestive
enzymes, like I mentionedearlier.
Also, anti-inflammatory foodsare really great for you, like
ginger and turmeric, and giveyourself grace.
(12:04):
I mean I, you know I made amistake.
I haven't made that big of amistake in years.
I can't remember the last timethat I did that, but it can
still happen.
You know to me who's been knownI've been celiac for 12-ish
years or so.
No, it can happen to the bestof us.
Give yourself grace, learn fromit.
We're definitely looking at allthe labels from now on, no
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matter what we're buying,because it was just something I
don't want to go through againIf I can avoid it.
It's just not a comfortablesituation to be in.
So give yourself some grace,learn from it.
And you know, look towards.
You know how can we, you know,take the next steps here?
What will we do differently?
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How do we prevent this fromhappening?
Don't, you know, beat yourselfup for being silly or stupid or
whatever you want to call it,cause it was kind of not a smart
move to not look at the labelsin some new brand that we were
trying.
You know why.
We could have been down onourself for doing that, but
instead we're looking at it as alearning opportunity and how
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can we do better, and notbeating ourself up for making a
mistake, because mistakes canhappen, but we've got to just
try to be as diligent as we can.
So hopefully that helps you onyour next journey out to the
store when you're wanting to trysome new products and even some
old trusted standbys.
Make sure you're justdouble-checking those labels
(13:29):
just in case something haschanged or you're making an
assumption, like we did.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of the Gluten-Free
Engineer.
If you found value in thisstory, please share it with
someone who might needencouragement on their own
gluten-free journey.
For more tips, recipes,resources and even links to my
YouTube channel, head on over totheglutenfreeengineercom.
(13:51):
It's your one-stop hub to makegluten-free living simple, fun
and full of flavor.
And don't forget to subscribeso you never miss out on an
episode.
And we will see you next week.
The Gluten-Free Engineerpodcast is for informational and
entertainment purposes only.
I share my personal experiencesand stories about living with
(14:11):
celiac disease and navigating agluten-free lifestyle.
This podcast does not providemedical advice.
Always consult with a qualifiedhealthcare professional for
medical questions, concerns oradvice specific to your health.