Interview With Gluten-Free Olympian Nathan Brannen
By Zach
Hope you all are embracing Celiac Disease Awareness Month to the fullest. In our Tuesday post, we shared a bunch of ideas and activities you can do to promote gluten-free efforts. For today’s post, we’d like to mix things up a bit and have Olympian Nathan Brannen shed some light about his experience with a gluten-free lifestyle as an Olympic Games middle distance runner.
1. Can you briefly share your personal story of being gluten-free?
The reason I decided to become gluten-free was a result of my coach. Besides being a world-renowned coach, he is also a world-renowned physiotherapist and suggested that I try a gluten-free diet. This gluten-free practice was something he had been doing for years as an injury prevention strategy.
Gluten is a binder and he found that people that had high-level gluten diets tended to be more injury prone than those who were gluten-free. Physiologically, he found gluten also acted as a binder in the body as well, causing muscle and tissue to get stuck and not move or reacted properly. I figured it couldn’t hurt to try since I had been very injury prone over the last few years. I have found my body to feel much healthier and my injuries have been at a minimum since I switched to a gluten-free lifestyle. I have been gluten-free for just over a year, I feel fit and my running is now stronger than ever.
2. Please tell us a little about yourself and your career.
At the University of Michigan, my freshman roommate, Alan Webb, and I were the first two sub-4 high school milers to run for the same program in history. By the time I ended my Michigan career, I had won four NCAA titles and ran the second-fastest collegiate indoor mile in history.
After earning a silver medal and winning the Canadian 1500m title in 2006, my 2007 season came to an early halt when I sustained a herniated disc near the base of my spine. After missing five months of training, I opted to have surgery in November. Then began the long comeback to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
Hello everyone, Lea here. I’m glad to be back for my second blog post, this time to discuss some fabulous desserts. Shabtai Gourmet Gluten-Free Bakery kindly sent us some samples of their 
As most of you may know, May is National Celiac Disease Awareness Month. In honor of this close-to-home celebration, we’d like to share a few tidbits about what’s going on in America regarding this exciting movement and also some great ways you can show your support for this cause. Also, to pay tribute to our faithful followers, we are dishing out some great offers and giveaways throughout this month, so make sure you stay tuned.