… Continued …
If eating bread or other wheat-based ones gives you bloating, constipation, or other digestive symptoms – cutting out bread may help. Changing the type you eat may help, too.
Allergic reaction related to bread is pretty common. The problem is unlikely to be the culprit, but it’s real and wheat may be the main reason.
There are some conditions that can lead to wheat-related gut symptoms. These include:
- A sudden allergic reaction to wheat (wheat allergy). If you have this disorder, your body can ‘over react’ after eating wheat – within a few minutes, you may experience allergic symptoms such as sneezing, wheezing, or itching.
- Wheat sensitivity. Unlike wheat allergy, wheat-sensitivity symptoms usually develop slowly. These include cramps, bloating, and diarrhea.
- Celiac disease, allergic reaction to gluten. It is also familiar called ‘gluten-intolerance’. Gluten itself is a kind of protein that can be found in wheat, rye, barley, and oats.
Bread is not the only one. In fact, there are lots of wheat-based products, these include: cereals, biscuits, pasta, doughnuts, pastries, cakes, beer, and even soy sauce.
Tips for coping
If you have unusual symptoms such as constipation or bloating after eating bread, it’s not bad idea to try an elimination diet. In this option, you will completely remove bread or wheat-based foods in your diet for about 2-4 weeks, and then eat it back in gradually to see if your symptoms recur!
When you return to your previous diet, it’s recommended to try pasta or Weetabix first for a few days before eventually you go with bread. Bread itself has lots of other ingredients. So to analyze whether or not you are sensitive to wheat, it’s better to start with wheat-based foods in a more pure form.
And if you experience severe symptoms that last longer than you expect (such as painful stomach cramps vomiting, or even blood in the stools), see a doctor promptly to rule out a medical health condition of these unusual symptoms!
As noted before, nowadays wheat-based products are overwhelming. But if you do have sensitivity to bread, cutting it or other wheat-based products should not harm your health – especially if you do the change properly!
However, it seems diet with wheat elimination is not easy. There is nothing wrong with this opinion, but in fact there are also plenty of alternative choices to substitute wheat in your diet. These include quinoa, buckwheat pasta, gluten-free bread, corn, red rice, and porridge.
