Why Some Gluten-Free Foods Still Don’t Make You Feel Good

Have you ever eaten something that was clearly labeled gluten-free... 

maybe even certified gluten-free... 

and still felt awful afterward? 

Your first thought might be: 

“I got glutened.” 

And sometimes, yes, cross-contact can happen. 

But sometimes the food really was gluten-free. 

Your body just didn’t like something else about it. 

Today we’re talking about why some gluten-free foods can still make you feel terrible, how to tell the difference between a possible gluten exposure and another food issue, and why learning your own patterns matters so much. 

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Transcript

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Disclaimer And The Big Question

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. Have you ever eaten something that was clearly labeled gluten-free, maybe even certified gluten-free, and still felt awful afterwards? Your first thought might be, I got glutened, and sometimes yes, cross-contact can happen and it could be getting in the way. But sometimes the food really was gluten-free. Your body just didn't like something else about it. Today we're talking about why some gluten-free foods can still make you feel terrible, how to tell the difference between a possible gluten exposure and another food issue, and why learning your own pattern matters so much. Let's jump

Why Gluten-Free Can Still Feel Bad

Carrie Saunders 0:43

in. Welcome to the Gluten Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Kiri Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything. But I was determined 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 tips, travel hacks, and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun, and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about why some gluten-free foods still don't make you feel good. So I want to clear one thing up. Gluten-free does not necessarily mean good for me. So a food could be completely gluten-free, could be even certified gluten-free and safe from a celiac standpoint or a gluten-intolerance standpoint, but still not agree with your body. For example, things like gluten-free donuts, gluten-free style Pop-Tart foods, berry sweetened packaged desserts, things that are really high in sugar or fat, things that have a lot of empty calories in them. So you may not be getting gluten at all. You may actually just feel lousy because the food's very processed. So that's very key. So something that is a whole food and naturally gluten-free, if it bothers you, that's a little bit different than something that's processed and gluten-free and still bothers you. So we want to make sure that something's gluten-free specifically, but we also want to make sure that whatever else you're eating also is still making you feel good that may already be naturally gluten-free.

Processed Gluten-Free Foods And Ingredients

Carrie Saunders 2:28

So, first off, let's take a look at those highly processed gluten-free foods. Are you eating those? This is probably the easiest way to get wrapped up into not feeling great, even if you're being gluten-free. And I'm not saying all the highly processed gluten-free foods out there are something you should always avoid. We do sometimes mentally need a treat or want a treat. We don't want to completely deprive ourselves, but I want to encourage you not to be having the highly processed gluten-free foods be your main staple and things that you eat consistently. Now, when you are new to gluten-free, I do recommend if you're used to eating bread, if you're used to eating pasta, if you're used to eating processed foods, then sure, go ahead and replace it with a gluten-free counterpart. But I do want to challenge you, as you get more used to being gluten-free and more comfortable being gluten-free, let's try to find some more natural, more whole foods that can replace it instead. So, for example, let's take gluten-free pasta. There are some gluten-free pastas out there that are a lot cheaper than others, but they have lots of ingredients in it. They have probably like 10 or more ingredients in it. I'm not even sure how many ingredients are in them anymore because I haven't gotten that style of pasta in a while. So, what you want to look for is let's say you still want something processed, which is pasta, is processed. It's you can't go pick pasta out of nature anywhere. It's not a plant that grows in the ground, right? You have to make pasta. So look for something that's five ingredients or less. So I want to encourage you if you do use some processed foods, which I'm not saying is bad to use processed foods, it is convenient, it can help our lives. But let's work on making them more minimally processed. So look for foods that have five or less ingredients whenever possible. I know that you can do this with pasta. We have quite a few pasta options out there that are two to three to four ingredients. Some of my favorite brands since we're on the pasta ones is the Borilla has some great gluten-free pasta. Uh, Ronzoni has great gluten-free pasta, and Jovial is actually my favorite of all of those brands and has uh organic brown rice pasta that is, I believe, just brown rice and water. It's very, very simple and very easy on my stomach. And they also have a Kossava version if you don't tolerate brown rice, which I don't tolerate too much brown rice, but I can do some of it. So look at your processed foods and let's start minimizing how many ingredients are in there that's going to help you feel a bit better. Also, all that sugar, and sometimes they also will put lots of fat and sugar in our gluten-free, highly processed foods to make them taste better and to make the texture a little bit more like we're used to having when we're transitioning off of eating gluten foods and going to gluten-free foods that are processed. So, you know, look for what is actually in your food and let's try to evaluate it and try to make that pattern of figuring out okay, this product upsets my stomach. Okay, maybe I still want to have it, but maybe I'll only have two or three of them instead of like 10 of them. Or, you know, I'm not sure exactly what you might be eating, but let's just say it's um cookies or crackers or something like that. Maybe you need to find something that's a lot less processed to make your stomach feel better.

Whole Foods That Still Trigger Symptoms

Carrie Saunders 5:56

So even if it's a whole food, so it's like a tomato, a red pepper, a potato, a single ingredient food from nature, some of those can also cause stomach issues and just feeling terrible. For example, you probably heard if you've been listening to our podcast for a while now, I have issues with soy. Soy actually causes me, now that I've been off of it a while, causes me brain fog and to get tired. But what I initially first noticed whenever I figured out that soy was giving me trouble is it gives me digestive issues the next day, very similar to gluten. So I actually thought several times, or many times actually, I have no idea how many times, that I was getting cross-contaminated with gluten at our local Chinese restaurants when they were using tamari, which is a gluten-free soy sauce. Now, I'm not going to say I wasn't sometimes cross-contaminated, but I did find the pattern that soy actually caused me an issue. Um, and how I figured this out is I went soy free with my husband because we were trying to figure out some issues with him. I went soy free for about a month or so, and then I decided to try plain edamame beans, which are basically basically baby soybeans, with him whenever we got them to do that intolerance test. And I microwaved them in the microwave, they were absolutely plain and nothing on them. I had a spoonful and I thought, oh, I'm fine. And then the next day I'm like, oh, I'm not fine. And I had absolutely no risk of cross-contamination that previous day. So I knew it was soy, and I was able to um validate this later with repeated tests of that. So, me, for example, I can't do soy. I also have a similar issue with tomatoes. Tomatoes make me really, really tired and give me digestive issues the next day, too. I also have digestive issues if I eat a lot of corn from grain. So let's say, like corn chips. Now that my body's healed a little bit more and I don't eat grains very often, except for rice, I do eat rice. I can tolerate some corn chips from, say, like a Mexican restaurant or something, but I was having major stomach issues when I was eating corn chips all the time. I was have, I guess the best way to describe it was intestinal pain. And many times it would happen in the middle of the night because I had it for dinner, for example, and I couldn't figure out why I did have this awful pain, but really no quote, digestive issues. I wasn't constipated, I didn't have diarrhea the next day. I just had this awful, awful pain. So also look at whole foods that could be bothering your digestive system. The problem is when we have celiac and gluten intolerance, we can mess up inadvertently the digestive enzymes in our stomach and in our small intestine. And this can also happen whenever you go on antibiotics and various different things. So my theory, and I'm still working through this, is I might be missing some of those digestive enzymes to tolerate tomatoes now. I used to be able to tolerate tomatoes if they were cooked. Now I can't even tolerate, you know, spaghetti sauce. It just really drives me crazy. I would love to have some spaghetti sauce, but I can't. So I have reverted to Alfredo sauce or nomato sauce, for example. But our systems will change over time because of the things we're due, things we're exposed to, um, antibiotics were put on. So don't feel like because something you could tolerate before and you can't now, don't feel like that that's too abnormal because it's actually pretty normal to go through these changes in our life. Just like, you know, when you have true allergies, they say that you know your allergies can change as you get older. So it's similar to food intolerance too. Our biomes, our digestive and gut biomes change as we get older, and depending upon the foods we're currently eating.

Cross Contact Or Another Intolerance

Carrie Saunders 9:39

So then how do I figure out if it was cross contact or something else? So if I feel bad after eating, I start asking myself a few questions. Was this a restaurant or a packaged food? Is it certified gluten-free? Was there an obvious cross-contact risk? Does the reaction feel like my normal gluten reaction, or does it feel a little bit different? So with my soy and my tomato ones, it was a little bit different of a digestive reaction. It was similar-ish in the beginning that I didn't see the difference. But if I really looked at it, there was a little bit slight difference there. Did the food contain another ingredient that I know bothers me? Was it unusually rich, sweet, or greasy or processed? So if the answer is yes to any of those, then that could be the culprit. It could be maybe not cross-contact. And have I had a reaction to the same food more than once? So this is when creating a food log again. If you start finding yourself regularly not feeling well, start that food log again for like a week or two and see if you can start noticing those patterns so that you can figure out what else might be bothering you. And then I also want you to start mapping out what your gluten reaction actually feels like and acts like. So for me, I will get digestive issues usually the next morning. And usually those digestive issues will run through me, no pun intended, there in like an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and then they're gone. Now I might also get then later that day or the next day a migraine. I might have joint pain. So whenever I get a food that's not a truly celiac reaction, I might only have just the digestive issue, but then I don't get some of the other symptoms. So really look at what your gluten reaction symptoms are so that you can compare them to you know what something else might be bothering you

Learn Your Pattern And Set Limits

Carrie Saunders 11:35

with. So then what have I done over the past many years, particularly really the past probably six or seven years, when I figured out I've had other food issues, as I like to call it, is I built what works for me less. So, for example, I absolutely never eat gluten, of course, on purpose because I'm celiac. I also now never eat soy on purpose, and I never eat tomatoes on purpose. Those are all definitely a no-go. Now, corn is in a different category. I can tolerate some grain corn. Um, and some people are like, Carrie, what's the difference between grain corn and vegetable corn? Well, grain corn is the one that's dried and can be made into corn chips. You can't take corn on the cob and make really very easily, as far as I'm aware, corn chips out of it. It's a different variety of corn that usually is made into a grain, and also the kernels are stay on there longer and that turns them more into a grain-like substance, if that makes sense. So for corn, I can tolerate a little bit, but I know my limits. So if I go to a Mexican restaurant, I might maybe eat 10 corn chips, but I'm not gonna sit there and eat 30 or 40 corn chips. It's really easy to do when you go to a Mexican restaurant. Also, apples, for example, I can't eat very much apples raw. I might have a bite or two if my husband's having an apple. Sure, I I love the taste of apples, but I do much better if they're heated up or cooked. It breaks down something in the apple and makes my stomach feel better. So look at what you can and can't eat and know your limits for each of those food items so that you don't feel um restricted and like you know you're being deprived. So we want to make sure our food is still enjoyable. We need to enjoy our food, we need to appreciate our food, we need to not feel so much stress over our food.

Recap And Next Steps

Carrie Saunders 13:20

So, to recap, if a gluten-free food makes you feel bad, first don't automatically assume gluten. It could or could not be. Let's do some detective work here. I want you to consider the cross contact. I want you to consider other food intolerances, I want you to look at how processed this food really is, look at how much sugar and fat load is in the product, overloading our digestive system, especially when we're have damaged systems like celiac or gluten intolerance. Heavy sugar and heavy fat can cause some distress in our gut. Um, I want you to also compare the reaction to your normal gluten reaction to see whether you think this is something else. And then look for those repeated patterns. Keep that food log when you need to do it. So I want you to remember the gluten-free label can tell you something really important. It can help tell you whether a food is safe from gluten. It can help you from knowing whether a food is safe from a gluten standpoint, but it can't tell you whether the individual body's going to love that food, whether your individual body is going to love that food or not. So for me, I know I don't do well with a lot of highly processed foods. I don't do well with foods with lots of grains in them. I also know that soy, tomatoes, and foods high in corn can be problems for me, but that doesn't make these foods unsafe for everybody out there and everybody listening. It just means I've learned my patterns, I've listened to my body, and I've respected what my body's trying to tell me. Our body doesn't have joint aches, stomach aches, migraines, headaches for no reason. There's something in there that's bothering it, something you've either been exposed to, either in your environment or digested that is causing alarms to go off in your body. So listen to them and see if you can figure out what else you might need to look at that might be causing you a little bit of trouble. And once you eliminate or reduce how much you're exposed to that food, you're going to feel so much better.

Share Subscribe And Resources

Carrie Saunders 15:10

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources, and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreengineer.com. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun, and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten Free Engineer Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns, or advice specific to your health.