Heidi Strickland-Clark

After 20 years of putting up with incredibly itchy patches on my left buttock and, in the last 18 months, my elbows too, I’ve discovered this week what it is all about.

Coeliac disease.

Really? Shouldn’t I be suffering with diarrhoea, losing weight and malnourished? Apparently not.

These most irritating of outbreaks which make me pretty ratty and leave red scars on my bum cheek (hence the modelling career is over!) are an auto-immune response to me eating gluten, and it not agreeing with me. Why it wasn’t discovered some 20 years ago when I first got it is a mystery, but it would appear it’s pretty unusual and easily mistaken for other skin complaints. Oh! and it’s usually men who get it.

It’s called dermatitis herpetiformis (DH) and has been coined “one of the itchiest skin conditions you can experience”. Yep, I’ll vouch for that. I’ve made my skin bleed from scratching the damn things and walking around literally scratching your arse cheek or your elbows ain’t pretty or ladylike!

I discovered this revelation by chance. I was reading the very wonderful book called ‘Wheat Belly’ by Dr William Davis. I was already wheat free (generally) and was catching up on the new research into the problems linked with gluten intolerance. The section on skin complaints was right at the back, (you know, when you start to skip bits just so you can finish it?!) And I was stopped in my tracks by the description of my problem. So clear and concise that there was no doubt. But a coeliac? I could understand gluten intolerant I had already suspected I was, but coeliac?

It appears that if you have this condition you will have coeliac disease. However you won’t necessarily get this condition if you have coeliac disease. I could get it tested for confirmation, but I need to be eating a gluten full diet for the skin biopsy to be effective and quite frankly after the horrendous outbreak I’ve had since having just half a bottle of beer and some oats last week I am not doing that. It seems pretty clear to me that I have it.

The more I read about dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), the more I see that I have suffered with this since I was a child. Despite the recognisable symptoms of coeliac disease of diarrhoea and weight loss, I’ve had the opposite problem for as long as I can remember. That’s another clue.

Bloating, abdominal discomfort, extreme tiredness and itchiness when eating wheat or gluten foods. Yep, that’ll be me too.

So what does this mean?

Well it means no sneaky Cornish Pasty Co. pasties anymore :-). It also means much more label reading. For me to get rid of this ruddy awful DH condition I need to go gluten free. Maybe for as long as 4 years before it stops reoccurring. And then of course, keep that up for fear of reigniting the flame again. I’ll definitely need to get my gut healthy again and that is going to take some time too.

I now feel so pleased I KNOW WHAT IT IS! I am on a mission for gluten free food freedom! As you know I love to cook and bake and eat well. So this is a foodies dream really. It also ties in beautifully with the eating plan at Fit Camp and my love of all things health through nutrition. So watch this space.

You are about to witness a slow but sure return to a healthy functioning digestive system. A clearing up of itchy elbows and scratchy buttock cheeks and a range of new recipes to keep me happy in the kitchen.

So today…a vehicle for butter or cheese or toasting…a peanut butter and almond bread. It was divine!

Peanut butter, almond bread

If you are interested in my next and new dietary journey, follow me as I undertake to improve my health beyond anything I’ve experienced before. How exciting!

If you are interested in good health and nutrition please come along to my next talk
“Is your food healing or harming you? – The simple guide to feel-good eating.”
on Wednesday 22 May 14.00 at Wokingham Library.

You may have heard the news about processed meat being linked to premature death today?

Lockey Farm Meat Chiller

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21682779

With this is the news I think people always do a quick mental check of their own eating habits to see whether they fit the category referred to by the report.

This research is about processed meats. Foods like bacon, hams, chorizo, salamis, cured meats, some sausages hot dogs and tinned meats.

It isn’t about minced meat, fresh farm made sausages, fresh 100% meat burgers or red meat in general.

It also states that the people who ate more of these processed meats tended  to have other poor lifestyle choices like being smokers, not taking exercise and eating fewer vegetables; and even when this was taken into account it is suggested that there was still some risk for people eating more than two rashers of bacon and a processed sausage each day.

If you are interested in living a longer, healthier life then it makes sense to ask questions about reports like this. For example I am not going to stop eating bacon. However I don’t eat bacon daily but when I do eat it, it will always be from outdoor bred pigs and organic if possible. The same goes for sausages, when I buy them they are from butchers who make them weekly with fresh meat with some herbs, spices and nothing else.

Yes, eating a lot of meat isn’t going to be the best choice for you (eating anything to excess is going to cause a dietary imbalance) however it was also noted in this report that eating some red meat is beneficial to health.

Meat contains the vitamin B12, a vitamin that is only found, in any great quantity, in animal products. A deficiency in B12 can cause nerve problems, so numbness or ‘pins and needles’ feelings. People who complain of a burning in their feet have been shown to be B12 deficient. Given the connection between our nervous system and our brains it is also not surprising that mental problems like depression can be linked to B12 deficiency.

It has been recommended that vegetarians and vegans not eating animal products should consider taking a B12 supplement considering that the vegetarian alternatives for B12 tend to not be as well utilised by our bodies. Vegetarian sources include tempeh, brewer’s yeast and some sea vegetables. This is a subject for another conversation though.

So to remain healthy and carnivorous ensure you keep to good lifestyle choices like not smoking, exercising regularly, having a good healthy work/life balance and eating a lot of varied vegetables. Eating vegetables with all meals but especially your meat meals will create a healthy balance in your body. When you eat animal products the body becomes acidic, too much acidity will lead to disease. When we eat vegetables we become more alkaline. Therefore eating meats and vegetables together provides not only a complete blend of nutrients per meal but the alkalinity of the vegetables will counteract the acidity of the meat.

Makes sense doesn’t it?

So how can you incorporate this into your own home?

• Make your own burgers from fresh minced meat. Add seasoning, finely chopped onion and maybe an egg to bind together.
• Choose sausages from a butchers rather than ‘Walls’. I use Lockey Farm in Arborfield and they make them each week in gluten free flavours too. These are the best as they are all meat and some flavouring. Lovely!
• Rather than buying expensive chicken breasts, buy and cook a whole chicken. Use the cold meat where you may normally use processed ham in salads, sandwiches.
• Mince cold, roasted meats (beef or lamb) for making into a Shepherd’s pie.
• If you relish chorizo or salami, use more sparingly with other ingredients, like a risotto or paella.
• If you really like ham, buy a gammon from the butcher and soak and boil it yourself to remove some of the salting. It’s still processed but you will have prepared it, made yourself a wonderful stock in the process and have the knowledge that it is better for you and your family than ‘Billy Bear’ ham slices.
• Pile your plate high with vegetables at each meal.
• Eat less bacon, but when you do, eat the best you can afford.
• Finally, don’t worry too much about it. Have a sense of perspective too.

🙂

This month, February, is Heart Health month. An awareness campaign to get people to make lifestyle changes to lower their risk of heart disease.

I am all in favour of this, we need to make sure people aren’t ill unneccessarily or dying for the sake of some good information. And that is really where I have a problem with this campaign. The mantra still being touted is to increase wholewheat grains and reduce cholesterol and fats in the diet.

This isn’t really the answer and some refinement of the message and the reason why would be much more useful.

Here are some interesting facts about fat consumption in 1910.

Did you know that the lifetime risk of type II diabetes was 1 in 30? The lifetime risk today is 1 in 3 (according to the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta.

Also that butter consumption in the USA was 18lbs per person per year. In the year 2000 butter consumption went below 4lbs. When butter was consumed liberally, mortality from heart disease was below 10%. Now the mortality from heart disease is 40 to 45%.

Whilst butter was being liberally consumed, pork lard (from outdoor reared pigs) was also the number one choice as a cooking fat. It was the best source of vitamin D and an excellent source of palmitoleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fatty acid that kills bacteria and viruses.

Our main consumption of cooking fat today comes from the highly processed soybean oil. It has 70% of the market and no vitamin D. The importance of vitamin D to our health cannot be overstated. There is a rising incidence of children with rickets as their bones are too soft and weak to support their growing bodies. Don’t even get me started on sun exposure…that’s another story for another time! 🙂

In 1911 Proctor & Gamble introduced ‘vegetable shortening’ to the American housewives. This trans-fat was declared as the answer to all their problems from cost, taste and health. Crisco adverts were deliberately anti-animal fats. This hydrogenation process was new and had been developed by an English company trying to make candles out of artificially hardened fats. Proctor & Gamble bought the patent and transferred it to the food industry ultimately pushing harmful trans-fats on the unassuming public for many years.

So why is this so bad? Well until this time heart disease didn’t really exist, there was no name for it, obesity was rare and diabetes as I’ve shown was not the common disease it it today. What then has caused this unstoppable increase in girth, blood sugar and heart attacks? The answer? An introduction of vegetable and seed oils and over use and over processing of them. Isn’t is strange how when we were consuming animal fats our weight and blood sugar was manageable and now we are encouraged to eat ‘heart healthy sunflower oil’ cooked foods we are the sickest we have ever been?

In 1948 for example vegetable fat consumption was 28lbs per person, per year. By 1976 it was 55lbs. As obesity and diabetes became greater public health problems,  consumption of highly processed vegetable fat, including trans-fatty acids were climbing steadily and our intake of animal fats declining.

Despite the declarations from the British Heart Foundation website, eating natural saturated fats and cholesterol rich foods will not raise your cholesterol levels and having a high cholesterol level will not increase your risk of heart attack.

So what are the risk factors?

• Eating too many processed foods containing vegetable oils.
• Having too many refined grain and sugar based carbohydrate rich foods (cereal, bread, pasta, bagels, fizzy drinks, chocolate, sweets, crisps, snacks, crackers etc) will make you fat and increase your risk of diabetes and heart disease.
• Smoking will increase your risk.
• Chronic stress will increase your risk.
• Don’t take drugs. Cocaine has been shown to seriously impact the heart.
• Feeling out of control of your life (no support, poor career, bullying partner or boss, dissatisfaction with one’s life – all increase stress levels and lead to heart disease)

So how can you avoid it?

• Don’t smoke.
• Use high quality animal fats or coconut oil to cook with.
• Avoid heat treated vegetable and seed oils in processed foods, crisps, fast food, takeaways etc.
• Don’t fall for the marketing rubbish about ‘heart healthy’ or ‘cholesterol lowering’ margarines, spreads, cooking oils. It’s marketing. That is all.
• Use cold pressed olive oil on your salads.
• Reduce your consumption of sugar and processed grain based foods like bread, pasta, pizza, sweets etc.
• Eat more vegetables.
• Do exercise that you enjoy.
• Have a support network of friends or family, church/club or group members that you can be part of.
• A little alcohol regularly is not a problem. If you are overweight, drink ½ a bottle of wine each night, drink to get drunk or save your drinking for the weekend binge. That is a problem.
• Choose to be happy despite whatever other other crap is going on.

One final story…

In 1955 President Eisenhower suffered with a heart attack at the age 64. His cholesterol was 165 ml/dl at this time. He was put on a very highly publicised low fat, low cholesterol diet. This poor man was told to lower his cholesterol and eat dry toast and drink decaffeinated instant coffee for breakfast and eat only one egg per week. However, guess what? His cholesterol continued to climb on this regime until it reached 259 ml/dl the day he left office. He had several more heart attacks and eventually died of heart disease.

This is one of many hundreds of stories of people who when told to follow a ‘heart healthy’ diet, end up getting more ill and more at risk of what they are trying to avoid.

I use a lot of eggs, grass fed butter, duck and goose fats, coconut oil, lard in my roasting and cooking. You know what? It tastes good! It doesn’t make you fat and it’s healthy. Enjoy!