Laura Schoenfeld: Again, you kind of have to weigh what the client is looking for and what they’re willing to do if you’re going to make suggestions that they remove gluten forever. I don’t subscribe to the belief that every single person needs to avoid gluten forever, all the time. I think that’s really restrictive, and I think a lot of people don’t need to go to that level. I would say that if you’re trying to convince someone to try a Paleo diet and do gluten free for a period of time, you can just tell them that it’s just an experiment to see how they feel.
Like I said earlier, for me, gluten doesn’t cause any major issues, and I don’t have a Cyrex Array 3 test that shows gluten being a problem, but I do have symptoms of eating too much gluten that I have established over the years, figuring out, OK, if I go out with friends and I have some bread or if I have pizza or something, I know I’m going to feel terrible the next day. And you may mention that to the client, that even if they don’t have a food sensitivity to something, it doesn’t necessarily mean that that food is appropriate for them or that it’s making them feel their best to eat it on a regular basis. For that type of patient, I would take the approach that it’s just an experiment. Just do it for 30 days. I love something that Robb Wolf says. He says, try something for 30 days and see how you look, feel, and perform. Worst-case scenario, nothing happens and you feel exactly the same, and you’re like, you know what? I don’t think this gluten thing is that big of a deal for me. That person may feel fine eating gluten.
But if they go on a Paleo reset for 30 days where they give up gluten, they may realize that, oh, this weird symptom that I had seems to have gone away, and when I reintroduce gluten, it comes back. You’re just empowering them with information. At the end of the day, it’s their life, so if they want to eat gluten because they don’t think it’s a problem and they have no evidence that it’s a problem from Cyrex, honestly, I think they should have the right to eat it. Trying to force them or trying to pressure them into giving something up that they don’t really see the benefit of, I don’t really see how that’s helping them. Give them the option. Tell them, hey, listen, you might see some benefits, and I think it’s always worth experimenting to see if gluten is something that you should take out, but if you feel OK eating it and you’re feeling good and you’re looking the way you want to look and your health is really good, then maybe there isn’t a reason to give it up. That’s kind of my approach. I try to make sure that people don’t feel pressured into doing something that they don’t feel fits with their goals or their lifestyle. Even if it was something that made them feel not so good, they still have the right to eat it if they choose to, just keeping that in mind and not being too aggressive with the food restrictions when it comes to Paleo.