I miss Cheerios

[garina]

Yes, I really miss Cheerios in the morning. My most loved cereal. I still have 2 boxes, and I'm envious of my husband getting to eat them all. So, I pulled off some Cheerios cookie recipes and made him Cheerios cookies, so I won't be tempted to sneak a bowl. He says the cookies are wonderful...sign...

So, does anyone know of a GF Cheerios type cereal I can substitute?

Much appreciated.

garina

[Sharaine]

Hi Garina,

I loved Cheerios, too. I did find a cereal like it made by Glutino. It's called Honey Nut Cereal. Here's a link: http://www.glutino.com/our-products/oth ... nut-cereal. I found it at a health food market, Sunflower Market.

This cereal is pretty good and satisfied me.

Sharaine

[tex]

Garina,

When I did an oat challenge, (about 4 and a half years ago), I used a product called OATIOS, which can be found in many health food stores, and which looks a lot like Cheerios, and, (at the time, at least), is/was distributed by U. S. Mills, of Needham, Massachusetts. The oats used in the cereal are certified organic by an Oregon organization, known as Oregon Tilth, and it was marked "Wheat Free".

Ingredients are:

Organic Whole Oat Flour
Organic Brown Rice Flour
Organic Evaporated Cane Juice
Organic Oat Bran
Sea Salt
Natural Vitamin E, (To Preserve Freshness)

It is labeled:

Low Fat
Low Sodium
Wheat Free
Good Source Of Fiber

They were good, but unfortunately, after about 6 weeks, I began to react, so I failed the oat challenge. Here's a play-by-play account of the process I went through to determine that I am sensitive to avenin, (the prolamin in oats, that's equavalent to gluten in wheat).

viewtopic.php?t=6013&highlight=oat+challenge

I made one more followup test, just to be absolutely sure that I am indeed avenin-sensitive:

viewtopic.php?t=6036&highlight=oat+challenge

That doesn't mean that you will also be sensitive to avenin, but it appears that quite a few members here, who have tried it, have discovered that they are also sensitive to avenin, (contrary to what the experts claim about pure oats and celiacs). Avenin is a much weaker protein than gluten, so it takes a longer period of exposure to it, and/or more of it, to cause most people to react, but once we build up enough antibodies to it, (provided that we are sensitive to it), as is the case with all allergens, we eventually begin to react to it. Of course, YMMV.

Incidentally, Mike posted an excellent reference in that last thread, proving that even pure oats is not safe for most celiacs.

RESULTS: All the varieties of oats tested were immunogenic, with Lampton and Ava avenins inducing lymphocyte activation similar to that activated by wheat gliadin, while Astra and Nave avenins showed less immunogenicity, but still with a measurable effect.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entre ... med_DocSum

Tex

[garina]

Sharaine,

Thanks for telling me about Glutino Honey Nut Cereal. I will give it a try.


Tex,

Interesting about Oatios cereal, but what about the bran? I thought that bran was on the "no" list for gluten sensitivity????? I will try it since it says wheat free, but it actually doesn't say Gluten Free. I'm confused just a little. I use organic GF oats, but have not used oat bran since going GF. Guess I'm a lot confused.

garina

[tex]

Garina,

Bran is usually a problem, while we are reacting, or healing, but after we've been in remission for a year or so, it shouldn't be a problem. The Oatios label didn't show any wheat, rye, or barley, (or malt), and it was specifically labeled wheat-free, so it had to be gluten-free. The bran shouldn't have been a problem for me, because when I did that challenge, I had already been GF for 4 and a half years, and I had been in remission for almost 3 years. Once our intestines heal, we can usually handle fiber OK. Besides, if the bran had been a problem, it wouldn't have taken 6 weeks to do so - that would have shown up much sooner. The six week lag, was how long it took me to build up a high enough level of anti-avenin antibodies, to trigger a reaction, because I hadn't eaten oats in many years, so I started with a zero antibody level.

If you're looking for a GF cereal, have you tried Rice Chex, or Corn Chex, or one of the other GF Chex cereals. If you like a presweetened cereal that's not too sweet, the Honey Nut Chex is pretty good - just add almond milk. A gluten-free version of Rice Crispies is also available in many parts of the country, but I haven't seen any around here, yet.

Tex

[garina]

Tex,

I can't even imagine what you went through with the avenin challenge. Thanks for the info on bran. I would like to eventually use bran again, but I will wait until healing more takes place. More fiber right now would not be a good thing.

I will stick to Chex cereals. They're pretty good.

garina

[sarkin]

Tex,

I've been pondering your experience with oats... is it reasonable to suppose that if you had eaten oats once a week, instead of daily, it would have taken longer for the antibodies to build up? That would have made it devilishly hard to figure out what food was the problem, and might also explain why some of us suddenly "lose" a food that seemed to be tolerated in the past.

A follow-up sort of question is - does autoimmune damage follow the buildup of antibodies, and depend on it? Or can a food start to cause some reaction, and *then* the antibodies build up? I'm not sure what has suddenly undone my understanding here. Both of those now seem possible to me, but I don't think they can both be right.

I'm planning not to eat *anything* on a daily basis at this point - it's going to take (even) more forethought, but I think it will eliminate some risk among the "other" foods Enterolab tested for, and of course among other foods that aren't on that list.

Thanks for thoughts...

Love,
Sara

[tex]

I've been pondering your experience with oats... is it reasonable to suppose that if you had eaten oats once a week, instead of daily, it would have taken longer for the antibodies to build up?

The short answer is, (at least I believe this is the correct answer), "yes". However, I didn't eat oats daily, and I'm pretty sure that's why it took my immune system so long to develop a reaction. When I set out to pursue that project, I thought that I would be real smart about it, and eat oats on a 3-day or better rotation, because some experts claim that if we eat foods on a 3-day or longer rotation, we will never develop an elevated antibody level sufficient to trigger a display of clinical symptoms, (a flare). IOW, the theory goes that after eating the food, the antibodies will build up for a few hours, or a day, or whatever, and then they will decline, and if we space out the meals at least 3 days, the antibodies will fall far enough between meals, that a reaction will never be triggered. At least that's the theory. Based on that theory, I really thought that I might be able to eat oats indefinitely, without worrying about triggering a symptomatic reaction, and after I proved that, I was going to shorten the dosage interval, to see if I am actually avenin-sensitive. After seeing what happened, though, I have a problem accepting the rotation theory as valid. It certainly didn't work for me, in this case. For 6 weeks, everything seemed to be OK, and then suddenly it wasn't OK.

I ate oats for breakfast every Tuesday and every Saturday morning. Now if I had eaten a "normal" serving size, (as defined on the label), it's possible that the rotation plan might have worked. Unfortunately, I consider breakfast to be one of the more important meals of the day, and I find the recommended "normal" serving sizes to be rather pathetic for someone who is likely to be burning a substantial amount of calories before the noon meal. Therefore, I ate roughly triple the recommended size, (If I'm gonna eat breakfast, I'm gonna eat breakfast, while I'm at it). For one thing, if I eat the recommended serving size of cereal, I will be noticing symptoms of hypoglycemia by mid-morning, (if I'm working), whereas, if I eat a couple of eggs, and a couple of slices of bacon, (and nothing else), I am fine until long after noon. Anyway, the bottom line is, I've found that if I'm going to be doing a fair amount of physical work, it takes roughly 3 "servings" of grain, to do what a couple of eggs and bacon will do, and of course the calorie content of all that cereal is huge, compared with the eggs and bacon.

Be that as it may, obviously, if you eat enough, the 3-day rotation does not work - apparently it is dose-dependent. I'm just guessing, of course, but I'll bet a GF cookie that if I had eaten the oats every day, at the label recommended serving size, I might have started reacting slightly sooner, but it would probably have still taken several weeks to happen. I'm pretty confident that if I had eaten the triple serving size every day, (rather than twice a week), I would have begun to react much, much sooner, maybe in as little as a week, (but that's obviously just a guess).

There is another important consideration here. First off, the avenin in oats, has a much lower potential to cause a reaction, than the gluten in wheat.

There are four major classes of seed storage proteins: albumins, globulins, prolamins and glutelins. In wheat, for example, the prolamins are called gliadins, and the glutelins are called glutenins, and these two proteins comprise what is commonly referred to as simply gluten. During digestion, the gluten proteins break down into peptides, (or polypeptides, or peptide chains), that are made up of strings of amino acids, and these peptides actually trigger the immune system responses in gluten-sensitive individuals.

Additionally, the percentage of potential peptides in any given protein sample, should presumably have an effect. For example, consider the list below, which specifies the type of prolamin protein that each grain contains, and the percentage of protein that the prolamin fraction contains, in comparison with the total protein content of the entire grain. Note that this list does not include any glutelins that may be present.

* Wheat - Gliadin - 69%
* Rye - Secalinin - 30-50%
* Oats - avenin - 16%
* Barley - hordein - 46-52%
* Millet - Panicin - 40%
* Corn - Zien - 55%
* Rice - Orzenin- 5%
* Sorghum - Kafirin - 52%

From this comparison, it's fairly easy to speculate why wheat is such a potent offender, (69% gliadin), while rice is only rarely a problem, (only 5% orzenin), without even considering the possibility of the similarity of any amino acid sequences. So, based on prolamin percentages alone, Wheat, (at 69%), is 4.3 times as potent as oats, (at 16%), as a trigger for someone who is gluten-sensitive. Theoretically, that implies that a gluten-sensitive individual might be able to eat 4.3 times as much oats, is it takes to trigger an equivalent reaction from wheat.

Of course, these protein percentages are all approximate, because actual protein content varies not only by individual varieties, (cultivars), but also by environmental characteristics, during the growing process, (conditions that lead to higher yields, tend to cause lower protein content, and vice versa, which is counterintuitive, but correct).

Anyway, I really believe that this is why we sometimes suddenly "lose" a food that seemed to be tolerated in the past, or we "discover" a "new" food sensitivity. I am pretty certain that we were always sensitive to that food, but the dose required to trigger a reaction is so much lower than the trigger dose for various other problematic foods, (particularly wheat, dairy, and soy), that by comparison, the sensitivity is easy to overlook, until we begin to eat more of it, because we have eliminated so many other foods from our diet. Do you see what I'm saying?

A follow-up sort of question is - does autoimmune damage follow the buildup of antibodies, and depend on it? Or can a food start to cause some reaction, and *then* the antibodies build up? I'm not sure what has suddenly undone my understanding here. Both of those now seem possible to me, but I don't think they can both be right.

To try to minimize additional verbosity, in an already long post, let's just recognize that once the antibody numbers begin to build up, then the immune system also generates killer T-cells, and cytokines, (and a few other inflammation-promoting agents), and these are the source of the cellular-level inflammation in our intestinal mucosa, (rather than the antibodies - the antibodies just tell the system that something undesirable is happening - they're messengers, they're not the infantry). The T-cells do most of the dirty work, and these are the lymphocytes that do the "lymphocytic infiltration" into the mucosa, and they're the primary source of most of the inflammation.

Remember that according to my theory, (and it is just a theory, because I'm not aware of any scientific research that has been done to verify this), rotation and/or limited dosage tends to slow down, (or postpone), a full flare, but it does not eliminate the reactions that lead up to a flare. Some degree of reaction will occur, (proportional to the dosage rate), at any exposure rate, and once we reach our dosage threshold, then we experience a "complete" reaction, (or flare, of clinical symptoms). This is why the MRT testing works - the inflammatory reaction is always there, even if it's not proceeding at a high enough level to cause a flare of clinical symptoms.

At least that's how I see it.

Love,
Tex

[sarkin]

Tex,

This makes sense to me, thanks - and it's a useful way of thinking about how to plan a rotation diet, whether or not the immune components behave exactly as analogously to infantry & messengers as it's now helpful for me to consider them.

It has always made sense to me that one reason why rice is well tolerated might be because the amount of the offending prolamin protein is so low, compared to the more reaction-provoking grains. That strikes me as a very good reason to continue eating it rarely and sparingly. In general, not eating a whole lot of any one thing seems like a prudent approach.

I think it's possible that some of our "extra" food reactions were not there all along - that if we had had the astounding foresight to eat a GF/DF diet all our lives, we might have hung onto an ability to eat certain other foods. But that ship has sailed, in any case. Once the antibodies form, the immune system knows all about it. Maybe those antibodies would not have formed if the 'hypervigilance' hadn't been kicked into gear by the immune response to gluten - maybe.

BTW I *totally* agree about breakfast - both that the 'portions' are hilarious (and likely to make America chubbier, if followed, because anyone who ate that serving size will probably kill for a donut by 11am), and also that a real meal, with protein and fat, makes a huge difference in satisfaction, and one's ability to concentrate (on anything other than "where's lunch?").

And of course - I should absolutely have thought of this - most of us ate gluten for years, without *obvious* symptoms, and during all that time, all sorts of immune footsoldiers were doing their best to 'attack' the problem. And then one day, we literally could not eat one single bite more of gluten without a serious reaction.

That's why we're so baffled that foods we've relied on for years seem to have turned on us overnight. They didn't. (They were never on our side to begin with, and it just takes a long time for the messengers to get the message through.)

Maybe there turn out to be some "once a month" foods, once full healing takes place, and clearly some foods would be better candidates for that sort of rare rotation than others.

Thanks so much. I've been holding off on corn, hoping that the local harvest will be tempting this year. I'm going to make that a small dose - maybe a single small dose - and see how it goes. (And I'm going to cook and puree it, just to remove the gross mechanical effects of corn kernels in the gut - really, maybe I should just freeze the whole thing and wait.) I am curious about how cravings play into these reactions. It's a complicated interplay, no doubt, between physical, psychological and social/cultural factors. But my recent foods that went over to the dark side, eggs and almonds, were much closer to my heart - because, as you suggest, I had already been feeling weird enough to move away from dairy and wheat on my own, and those foods definitely were filling some dietary gaps. I've also had a pretty intense relationship with corn, at times, enough to crave it (nothing like a trip to Mexico to put corn front-and-center on the tastebuds), so I suspect that's an indicator to proceed with caution, even though my Enterolab results did not indicate I need to avoid it absolutely. I would guess I could get a reaction like yours to oats to happen with corn (maybe it would take longer than with oats), and would prefer not to.

Can't wait for the MRT test. As I recall, some people have reported surprise at some of their reactive foods, because they did not seem to be causing a reaction - or none that they were aware of. But eliminating that food made a real difference. I'm on my second full day of no almonds at all. I didn't eat almond milk or butter every day, but did eat them often. I absolutely notice a difference. As I seem to have moved my monthly updates to every other month - I'll say more about that among overall thoughts in that context... and I would be very surprised if almonds are the last educational experience I'll be having.

Again, thanks - I think this is going to help me look at my food/symptom logs with a sharper eye for what might be simmering.

Love,
Sara