Melinda Arcara

Being gluten-free doesn’t have to hold you back from tailgate fun, you just need to take charge and plan ahead, so you are ready to enjoy the festivities without the worry of what to eat. I’ve put together a gluten-free tailgate party checklist to help you easily plan the food everyone can enjoy, so the day of the event you can sit back and enjoy the fun. Perhaps you could ask friends to bring themed decorations, tablecloths, small tables and chairs, cups and napkins, beverages (non-alcoholic or alcoholic), coolers, prepackaged snacks, garbage bags, zip lock bags or saran wrap for leftovers. A little planning and preparation goes a long way to ensure a fun and satiating tailgate party that everyone can enjoy.

Once it reaches the large intestine, it becomes fermented by our gut microbiome where it turns in to short chain fatty acids (SCFA) that travel through our body, through our blood stream, for energy, or used by intestinal cells. When there is an imbalance in the gut and more bacteria starts to grow in the small intestine, it can create a multitude of symptoms from abdominal pain, bloating and food intolerances to physical pain, fatigue and unexplained vitamin and mineral deficiencies or leaky gut. You will also want to drink plenty of water to turn that soluble fiber into the gel consistency that your body needs it to be in to aid digestion and push that insoluble through your digestive tract and through your colon. Fiber can’t do its job without water, and you don’t want to create and imbalance in the gut, which could lead to other problems like SIBO.

Avoiding gluten containing grains is stressful enough, but my feeling is that they should not only avoid gluten, but try and stay away from foods that don’t support a healthy immune system (i.e. sugar, food dyes, processed foods, etc.). My recommendation is to choose naturally gluten-free foods to support the immune system. One way to support a healthy immune system is to eat foods that are whole, clean, local, seasonal and organic. Winter squashes, like pumpkin, butternut and delicatta, as well as ginger, onions, peppers, apples, pears and honey help to make our immune system strong for the coming cold winter.

Now that the fad is dying out, and people are moving on to a more Paleo way of eating (a diet based on the types of foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans, consisting chiefly of meat, fish, vegetables, and fruit, and excluding dairy or grain products and processed food[1]), articles are now being written that say gluten-free foods are not healthy. My goal as a Gluten-Free Healthy Food Advocate is to take back the name gluten-free as a term only used for people who medically require it and educate people that gluten-free eating is not an unhealthy fad, but rather a way for people to safely consume naturally gluten-free foods to heal their damaged digestive system. By choosing whole, clean, local, seasonal and organic foods (fruits, vegetables, dairy and meats), and combining them with convenient pre-packaged products, anyone required to eat gluten-free can find balance and enjoy a healthy gluten-free diet. My Gluten-Free Food Advocacy has taken me all over to do food demonstrations and talks about how to adapt a healthy gluten-free diet.