Yes there are religious Paleos out there and I am one of them. Yes I do take communion. Last Sunday I have to admit, for the first time, I thought to myself that this was a piece of bread coming my way on the tray and did I really want to eat it? I quickly reminded myself that Christianity is my religion and Paleo is what I do with food. Not the other way round. The piece of bread is tiny so I took it, ate it, suffered no ill dietary consequences from it, and fully set my mind to the meaning of the communion not the fact I had just eaten a small piece of bread.

My church normally provide gluten free bread for the insensitive/intolerant. Of course I mean GLUTEN insensitive/intolerant - there would never be anyone generally insensitive or intolerant found in MY church :-)

There is a whole other can of worms of questions out there on Paleo and religion though...

I attend church regularly and I do take communion (once a month), which is the ONLY wheat I have had in over a year, but I am not gluten intolerant. I think gluten intolerant people are in a different boat than I am.

Why is it weird, do you mean in terms of eating bread?

Edit: Well there are certain things one could think about.

• The type of bread used for the Jewish Passover. Communion comes from the last Passover meal Jesus had with his disciples and they would have certainly kept the Jewish custom of having unleavend bread (no yeast). It would be interesting to look at traditional unleaved bread composition.

• From a theological point of view, if one is asking how God could prescribe the use of an apparently damaging ingredient, one would have to ask why we get sick, die or even get eaten by animals in the first place if God is sovereign over the entire creation and ongoing process of the natural world. But this would be answered when one looks at the Biblical record, that before the universe existed the plan for the substitutional sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for the world so that he would bring them to God existed; it has always existed. Thus God ordained, planned and allowed the greatest harm so that ultimately we would receive the greatest life.

Not just Paleos are gluten intolerant and some people get very sick from just a small taste. Maybe the Catholic Church should just completely switch to gluten-free to eliminate the issue. After all today's wheat is not the same as ancient wheat.

I know a lot of celiacs who aren't paleo and some have told me that they just discuss it with their local priest. For some types of Christianity they have to just not have the bread (like Orthodoxy), but some Catholic churches now offer gluten-free host. Protestants are particularly lax about this since most don't believe in transubstantiation, so I've heard of people being allowed to use rice crackers.

The church I attend has gluten free wafers available. There is one celiac boy of about 10 or 11, but it is offered to everyone. I tend to eat the wheat bread, though I am considering changing. But then again I still drink beer so what does that say? :-)

But I can't imagine a church that would not offer gluten free communion if asked.

I am religious, but we regard all outward sacraments as unnecessary so the problem never comes up. We do have plenty of gluten-intolerant attenders, so any causal get-togethers are usually mostly gluten-free.

Shouldn't this question read 'Christian paleo' or 'Catholic paleo'? Because there are many religions out there that have absolutely nothing to do with Catholicism or Christianity or Judaism or wheat wafers.

I discussed this with my pastor (Catholic) just last week.

The Catholic church has capability to provide gluten-free hosts for communion. Of course make sure to talk to your pastor if you are Catholic, and gluten free, so that this can be arranged. Also it is usually possible to taking just the wine as that is equally "communion" as the bread.

I won't get into the religious aspect of communion in the church as thats not what this topic is about :)

I will say, since I am not obviously to myself gluten intolerant much less celiac, I do take communion, and that is the only wheat I willingly consume. I do realize that I am lucky, there are people who can't handle so much as a dusting of gluten

Mindlessly adhering to paleo dogma is not cool.

Was Christ grass-fed?

I have not found it to cause a reaction, and now, after a few years of paleo, I do rather easily get reactions from wheat. Some people like to put breadcrumbs in their hamburgers, for instance, and I definitely get a reaction from stuff like that, but not from communion.

I thought you were asking if there is anyone who is religious about Paleo. Woo how long has it been since I thought about religion?! I think it is a personal decision, when I go to church or if I do, I used to take communion but never drink wine (I don't like sharing the cup with all the other peeps). Personally, if I believed I could worship God without eating bread I would not eat it, but if bread wasn't a problem for me (health wise) and I truly believed I needed to consume it as part of communion for religious adherence, I would eat the bread, I would eat the bread!!!! But I could also be up to starting a Paleo religion, sorry if sounding blasphemous. I'm a bit of a Paleo fanatic.

My church offers alcohol free wine and gluten free bread for communion. Can you ask the admin at your church to provide this as well?

At our Presbyterian church, I think a more gluten sensitive member of the congregation approached the elders about going gluten free before I got a chance to approach them about it. The change was made, and we now take what I believe to be a rice flour-based bread.

This is an easy one: the communion wafer becomes the flesh of Christ, the consumption of flesh is completely Paleo. Eat up! God Bless!

If I were celiac or was extremely bothered by any amount of gluten, I might consider opting out or finding another alternative. However, small amounts of gluten do not make me feel immediately terrible, as such I don't even consider it when taking communion. What the act itself represents means far more to me than dietary preferences.

I am solidly Catholic but I find the whole argument from the church on this ridiculous. The argument among the archdiocese papers and commentary center around the gluten content. Some bishops/priests claim that if no gluten is present then the bread does not transubstantiate and remains matter...leading to idolatry by the innocents. (That's us.) There is an order of nuns who makes the low-gluten wafers at our church. In any case, it is impossible to mimic the symbolism anyway since as we know from Wheat Belly, wheat has been altered to the dwarf variety and not traditional wheat from biblical times. Low-gluten bread

And here are nuns who brew beer

I have though of same issue. I do take bread for communion every Sunday as a catholic. Ive accepted myself as a catholic caveman. quite nice really.