Gluten Redux
This morning my Twitter feed was greeted by some more noise from Robb Wolf, a professional promoter of the “paleolithic diet”. Buy his books and follow his advice, and the header of his web site shouts that you will:
Lose fat. Look younger. Feel great. Avoid cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimers.
Based on that, you may judge for yourself his integrity and medical knowledge.
Today his tweet was in reference to my Skeptoid episode about gluten sensitivity. The paleolithic diet, which advises that we eat only what prehistoric people had access to, is founded upon the Argument from Antiquity. If it’s old, it must therefore be good. As the paleolithic diet does not include wheat, rye, or barley, it does not include the protein gluten. Salesmen such as Wolf therefore have latched onto gluten, and other substances, as the cause of disease (in Wolf’s fantasy universe, paleolithic people were magically disease free, despite a lack of access to his books).
In my episode, I surveyed the available research, and conclusively found that the overwhelming evidence shows that the avoidance of the gluten protein carries no plausible benefit for nearly all healthy people, the exceptions being those very few unfortunates who actually have one of the three basic types of gluten sensitivity (celiac disease, wheat allergies, and gluten sensitive idiopathic neuropathy).
He tweeted:
#Lupus = #Gluten Sensitivity 1.usa.gov/pwXNwe Everyone benefits from #gluten free 1.usa.gov/iut0Hb @briandunning time for retraction?
Suggesting that my episode should be retracted suggests that virtually the entire body of nutritional knowledge has been overturned, which would indeed be an exciting development. So I clicked his link to see.
Disappointment.
Although Wolf’s conclusion, according to his tweet, was that “Everyone benefits from (going) gluten free”, it is hard to find much support for that in this article. Here are the problems with that conclusion that I found, just at a cursory glance:
- It is only a press release announcing a study that has been neither peer-reviewed nor published. This doesn’t make it wrong, it simply means it hasn’t been checked or verified. Nobody has seen the study itself yet, and a press release is about the worst way to assess the validity of research.
- There were only 40 subjects in the study, far too small to draw a meaningful conclusion from, but large enough to comprise a pilot study. Pilot studies are used to determine whether an idea is worth following up with a proper study.
- The 40 subjects were not representative of the public at large, they were people who were related to someone with celiac disease (which puts them at high risk of having undiagnosed CD); and moreover, they all tested positive for antibodies associated with gluten sensitivity (which puts them at extremely high risk of having CD). Probably many of the subjects actually have subclinical or undiagnosed gluten sensitivity, possibly all of them; we don’t know since it hasn’t been published.
- The results were that some of them who tried a gluten-free diet (the press release doesn’t say how many or for how long) reported “improved gastrointestinal health as well as an overall improvement in their health-related quality of life”. This is a non-specific metric and was self-reported, with no mention of blinding.
Dr. Katri Kaukinen from Finland, who performed and reported the study, gave her own conclusion, which as you can see, differs from Wolf’s:
…Endomysial-antibody positive patients had an evident gluten-dependent disorder and, therefore, it could be argued that detection of antibody positivity could be sufficient for the diagnosis of celiac disease.
The test subjects had an evident gluten-dependent disorder!!!
The study was to determine whether patients who have this antibody actually have a gluten sensitivity, and whether testing for the antibody is a good way to diagnose the condition. It had nothing whatsoever to do with whether avoiding gluten is good for the public at large. I have to guess that Robb Wolf either didn’t read the press release carefully, lacks sufficient expertise in the subject, or is deliberately disdainful of the facts and simply wants to spin things in such a way as to sell his books.
Time for a retraction? Not today, Robb, but keep trying.
Quick footnote: Wolf replied to me on Twitter a couple more times, and you may find it illuminating. He said:
Oh wait! You have no background in molecular biology. GFY (Clever! if you need to know what GFY means, I suggest Urban Dictionary. I’m thinking he meant “good for you”) And upon reading this post, he said:
Always the straw-man…never tackle the facts when you are a “science writer” out of your league.
“Paleolithic diet” = Stone-age Stupidity.
Yes the gluten thing is weird but in all fairness following the Paleolithic diet is much better for you than sugar and salt-added processed or restaurant food.
If I were a skeptic and improving nutrition was my goal I would start with this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0z5X0i92OZQ&feature=fvst
A recognized problem by the AHA and pediatricians.
Certainly. Any healthy diet is better than any unhealthy diet. No news there.
I feel strange for saying this, but is he dumb or something?
I’m an idiot. My original post in response to Brian’s “thorough” analysis of grain intolerance should make that pretty clear:
http://robbwolf.com/2011/01/12/hey-robb-this-person-said-gluten-free-diets-are-bogus/
Now, Please, actually read through that.
Brian-
You wrote a good piece from July 20, A Consilience of Observations. Why do you feel the concept of evolution is important? Why does it matter that Evolution via Natural Selection is the driver in biology, not creationism? I think education in evolution is vitally important, but why do YOU think it’s worth mentioning?
Prof. Donald Prothero wrote that piece, not Brian.
Brian did a Skeptoid episode discussing the merits of barefoot running.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4185
What was the life expectancy of prehistoric man?
Obviously we have the benefit of vaccination, clean water/sanitation, and modern health care, but adapting diets to climates, and things like cooking meat were also key to our survival.
GFY? That must mean “Gluten Falsehoods, Yes!” Either that or something about fornication. I agree with your assessment of the article. I also have a background in molecular biology, but I didn’t need to use it to challenge the validity of Wolf’s claim. The sample size of 40 test subjects is indeed very small and they appear to have been cherry picked based on an existing genetic predisposition to celiac disease.
Dr.Kaukinen clearly stated that “it could be argued that detection of antibody positivity could be sufficient for the diagnosis of celiac disease.” I don’t see how one could possibly construe this to mean that eating a gluten free diet is a benefit to the general population. The Dr. went on to say “Based on our results, an intensified serological screening of at-risk populations of celiac disease is encouraged”. That would make some sense if the study results end up to be valid.
Wolf’s comments appear to be those of someone who either does not understand basic scientific principles or is trying to mislead the public to make a buck. Perhaps both.
“2. There were only 40 subjects in the study, far too small to draw a meaningful conclusion from…
3. The 40 subjects were not representative of the public at large…”
That’s funny, the study referenced in the Skeptoid episode only said that a gluten-free diet doesn’t treat autism, its subjects were 15 autistic children, and in the authors’ own words it was “preliminary”.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16555138
Stronger studies would have been better; at the time I researched the episode, the pickings were pretty thin. My guess is that the scarcity of studies at the time was because the notion is so implausible that nobody has spent money doing large, high quality studies on it.
So we don’t have much evidence either way, which leaves us with the Argument from Antiquity, only you’re looking back thousands of years, and Wolf is looking even further back to Paleolithic.
You also assumed that gluten can’t be bad because it’s a protein, implying that there are no unhealthy proteins, so I pointed out that the botulinum toxin is a protein.
“in Wolf’s fantasy universe, paleolithic people were magically disease free, despite a lack of access to his books”
Good example of how snide remarks are dumb when examined.
Paleolithic people may have been free of diseases of civilization (“cancer, diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimers”), and they didn’t need a book on a Paleolithic diet to tell them about their own diet.
Then again,they may not have been free of those diseases.No?
I’m sure those diseases existed but were much less prevalent than today, which is why they’re called diseases of civilization.
Those diseases disproportionately affect the elderly. So they could have been much less prevalent in the paleolithic simply because there were fewer elderly people to come down with them.
You could just as easily call them “diseases of longevity” or “diseases of not having died from anything else first” as “diseases of civilization”.
Alzheimer’s yes, but type II “adult onset” diabetes occurs in children now. Just decades ago, that was unheard of, let alone during the Paleolithic.
But see, you can debate the actual argument instead of knocking down the strawman that the modern diet causes all diseases.
Nope, Ubi. Many people in early civilized societies died of diseases which we vaccinate against today, such as measles, which are largely childhood diseases. If not a childhood disease, smallpox certainly wasn’t a disease of old age.
Indeed, many anthropologists believed the invention of agriculture actually causes a *decline* in average lifespan.
You lost me here, Max. Your usual “I’m smart because Brian’s wrong” strategy normally results in at least coherent replies, but I’m not making heads or tails of this one.
You started with the straw-man that “in Wolf’s fantasy universe, paleolithic people were magically disease free.”
More likely, in Wolf’s universe, paleolithic people had a smaller prevalence of the diseases of civilization, which are listed in the header of his website.
No wonder he responded with, “Always the straw-man…”
Then, your punchline that they were disease free “despite a lack of access to his books” is an echo of your argument against various new fads. For example, about immune system boosting, you said, “Without such products, one wonders how the human race could have survived hundreds of thousands of years,” which by the way is an Argument from Antiquity.
But unlike immune system boosters, the Paleolithic diet fad IS to eat what the human race used to eat for hundreds of thousands of years, so the punchline (that people survived just fine before this fad) is misplaced.
I believe what you’ve got yourself there, Max, is a bit of humourous hyperbole.
I don’t see any suggestion in anything Brian wrote that the Paleolithic diet is unhealthy. He’s taking on the claims put forth by Wolf that gluten sensitivity is common and a major cause of disease.
Given the average life expectancy of paleolithic man was 18 years, it’s unlikely that many of them lived long enough to suffer from most of those afflictions. No civilisation means almost no chance to live long enough for those afflictions to be a problem.
Not true at all. Pre-agriculture, Paleolithic life expectancy was much longer. AT least 40, if not 50 or longer:
http://www.highaltitudecrossfit.com/Life_Expectancy_in_the_Paleolithic.pdf
Many people in early civilized societies died of diseases which we vaccinate against today, such as measles, which are largely childhood diseases. If not a childhood disease, smallpox certainly wasn’t a disease of old age.
Because of that, as we know from hunter-gatherer tribes today, births were spaced out longer, reducing both infant and maternal mortality rates.
Indeed, many anthropologists believed the invention of agriculture actually causes a *decline* in average lifespan.
I want Nyar, Scott and all other who have attacked me in the past for allegedly “attacking” Dunning AND for allegedly being the only person to do this to take note of who made this comment…
Max, not I.
That said, I agree with all of Max’s comments in this thread.
So, Dunningistas, it ain’t just me. Get a clue.
Someone hand Socratic a tissue please.
The reason these people did not have cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, etc… was because they did not live long enough! To draw conclusion that their diet prevented this disease is just as likely as suggesting their diet was responsible for their short life expectancy.
I recall working with a prominent cardiovascular surgeon, who was a strong advocate of the Pritikin diet, believing it prevented cardiovascular disease, cancer, etc… he would demand patients adopt that diet before he would operate. That was until he almost died from malnutrition himself! Pritikin’s diet did include some gluten products, but is not massively different from its claims or its philosophy to this new fad.
Longevity is probably the biggest factor, but not the only one. There’s also obesity, exposure to carcinogens, hygiene that may increase autoimmune disease, etc.
My guess is that these people lived a much more physically active lifestyle,and we all know the great benefits of exercise.
What’s that about hygiene and autoimmune disease? Allergies?
Allergies, asthma, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
Tosh on the “not living long enough.” Hunter-gatherer societies still extant today show that Max is on the right track. Many did live a long time, in fair part because they avoided diseases of civilization.
More detailed tosh:
Not true at all. Pre-agriculture, Paleolithic life expectancy was much longer. AT least 40, if not 50 or longer:
http://www.highaltitudecrossfit.com/Life_Expectancy_in_the_Paleolithic.pdf
Many people in early civilized societies died of diseases which we vaccinate against today, such as measles, which are largely childhood diseases. If not a childhood disease, smallpox certainly wasn’t a disease of old age.
Because of that, as we know from hunter-gatherer tribes today, births were spaced out longer, reducing both infant and maternal mortality rates.
Indeed, many anthropologists believed the invention of agriculture actually causes a *decline* in average lifespan.
100% of the carbs you eat are converted to sugar and burned as energy by your body. So how is sugar bad? It’s what your body runs on.
A small minority of people cannot tolerate too much salt. For most everyone else you flush out excess salt in your urine. Which is worse, too much salt or too little? Recent studies are showing cutting back salt can be bad for you.
How does a restaurant convert basic food into something “bad for you”?? I worked in a restaurant and the kitchen was clean, the cook knew what she was doing and the steaks, lobsters, prime rib, baked potatoes and crab louies were awesome. Nothing added (except what you would expect in a crab louie). SO how is restaurant food bad food??
Processed! You mean boxed with all ingredients in the mix. Kind of what your mother did when she prepared a meal. Oh! I’m sure there are some boxed foods that don’t tickle your taste buds or mine but again how does that equate to “bad food” or unhealthy?? Is an apple healthy? Mostly water, sugar and carbs that your body turns into sugar.
Face it. Almost all you know or think you know about food comes from the loudest mouth so you learn their bias. In the not so recent past virtually every food and every class of food has been declared bad by food fadists. My favorite fad diet is oreos and milk.
Um, er … it’s like this, ah … oh nevermind.
Wise move,grasshopper.
Unfortunately, she was determined to make an ass of herself.
As I recall, your body has multiple hormones (glucagon, cortisol) to convert fat into sugar, but only insulin to take up sugar. When cells stop responding to insulin, you get type 2 diabetes.
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/healthy-drinks/sugary-vs-diet-drinks/index.html
You don’t catch diabetes from sugar, you catch it from your parents. It is primarily a genetic disease. If eating carbohydrates and sugar caused it we would all be diabetic. Most people who are diabetic don’t know it and only discover it when the symptoms become obvious. Thanks to a major program of testing and education we are finding diabetes earlier where most of the worst symptoms of the disease can be prevented or ameliorated. If you have diabetes then a specific diet will help in treating the disease but if you don’t have diabetes your diet won’t give it to you.
CountryGirl, your ignorance astounds. Look up the difference between type I and type II diabetes before you type anything that makes you look even worse…
DUH! We are talking about type II.
CountryGirl, while I tend to agree that diabetes type II is not simply a matter of excess sugar intake (though, it is undoubtedly a major factor, the glucose spike cell exhaustion theory makes sense), I think it is a bit much to say that if carbohydrate/sugar intake was the cause we’d ALL have it – that obviously ignores individual variation in diet, individual genetics, exercise levels, etc etc..
And here is an interesting development:
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/vitamin-d-may-reduce-risk-type-2-diabetes
“…43 percent lower risk of type 2 diabetes was associated with levels greater than 25 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL) compared with the lowest blood levels, defined as less than 14 ng/mL….”
“…meta-analysis included data from eight observational cohort studies and 11 randomized controlled trials that involved diabetes and measuring vitamin D …”
Mitri J et al. European Journal of Clinical Nutrition 2011; doi: 10.1038/ejcn.2011.118
“Recent studies are showing cutting back salt can be bad for you.”
If you’re referring to the JAMA study, here’s why it’s flawed:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/salt/jama-sodium-study-flawed/index.html
“The bottom line is that the researchers were trying to ask questions that their data are incapable of answering, and the study’s many methodological problems make its results unreliable. So the study’s findings do little to refute the strong evidence that cutting back on sodium would save lives…
75% of Americans’ sodium intake comes from processed foods. That’s why the Institute of Medicine has called on the FDA to regulate the amount of salt and sodium allowed in processed foods.”
A minority of people have a problem with excess salt. Most people are able to tolerate excess salt without a problem and simply excrete it in their urine. There is ample evidence that too little salt is harmful and has caused deaths. If you are one of those who cannot tolerate excess salt then by all means limit it.
You can add salt, but you cannot take it out.
If they want more salt in the finished product, then put in the preparation instructions ‘add tsp of salt’ or whatever. Same with sugar. If it isn’t needed, and is a condiment on the table, why is it in the box or on the plate?
Max tackled sugar pretty well, there. Causing large fluctuations in your blood sugar level can, over time, cause insulin resistance in your cells. Complex carbs break down more slowly and thereby avoid such fluctuations.
It all comes down to moderation and variety. It’s not the case that a single restaurant meal is bad for you. But because they tend to be larger and richer than home-cooked meals, eating in restaurants too frequently can have a cumulative negative impact. If you have no choice but to eat often in restaurants, you can spend some time to modulate your eating habits so that overall you’re still not consuming too many calories or causing blood sugar spikes.
Your blood sugar spikes after every meal. Three meals a day, 365 days a year for your entire life. It is rather obvious that spikes in blood sugar are not what causes diabetes or everyone would have diabetes. If you DO have diabetes these blood sugar spikes should be avoided and you should indeed eat a diet that will help you control your blood sugar. If you do NOT have diabetes the blood sugar spikes won’t harm you.
Couldn’t have said it better myself; moderation and variety. But I disagree that a restaurant meal is necessarily larger or richer then a home cooked meal. If you are hooked on a food fad then you cannot usually satisfy your particular bias in a restaurant. In that case it may well appear that restaurant food is richer or larger then what you would make at home. But if you are a meat and potatoes eater then your home cooked meals are probably pretty rich and large. Either way you don’t have to eat more then you want.
Geez – a meal without carbohydrate does not cause a blood sugar spike. Test it for yourself. Eat a steak and some brussel sprouts, test blood sugar after….
A smaller spike but still a spike.
Consider that by spike I don’t just mean an increase. I mean a large increase over a short period of time. Of course blood sugar increases after any meal. It’s how much and how rapidly that seems important in the development of insulin resistance.
Google “glycemic load” and “glycemic index” and don’t post here again until you do.
What a twit.
An incredible comment from someone who appears to believe diabetes is caused by eating sugar. You have a lot to learn and don’t post here again until you have learned it.
“… a press release is about the worst way to assess the validity of research”
Hmm – some recent things come to mind including “Ida” (what a beautiful specimen of a fossil though) and “Bacteria substitute As for P in their cell chemistry”.
And not so recent:’Cold Fusion’. Enough said.
Does the Paleo diet include carrion? How about parasites? Yummy, yummy parasites. They keep you slim and prevent allergies.
Not to be a stickler, but I would take issue with the description that only “very few unfortunates” have to actually worry about gluten. Celiac disease is believed to affect 1% of all Americans. The prevalence is higher in certain groups (European descent). That is only one of the three categories you described.
To all people who claim, **WITHOUT EVIDENCE** that Paleolithic life was short, as well as possibly nasty and brutish …
First, I think you’ve read way too much Pop Ev Psych with its claims about the Paleolithic and its era of evolutionary adaptationism. (Note on that: Paleolithic man was a scavenger for meat, not a noble hunter. At the same time, given from what we know of modern hunter-gatherers, Paleolithic life probably wasn’t hugely nasty or brutish, and had less of a workload than today’s life.)
Second, to the point:
Not true at all. Pre-agriculture, Paleolithic life expectancy was much longer. Some people say at least 40, if not 50 or longer:
http://www.highaltitudecrossfit.com/Life_Expectancy_in_the_Paleolithic.pdf
Many people in early civilized societies died of diseases which we vaccinate against today, such as measles, which are largely childhood diseases. If not a childhood disease, smallpox certainly wasn’t a disease of old age.
Because of that, as we know from hunter-gatherer tribes today, births were spaced out longer, reducing both infant and maternal mortality rates.
If that PDF is too high an estimate, Wikipedia’s article on “life expectancy” (not linking, as multiple links put a post on “moderation”) estimate 33 years of age for Paleolithic life expectancy. I’d take that as a minimum, not absurd claims that cavemen only lived to the age of 18.
And, all of this is independent of questions about a gluten-free diet in particular or a “Paleolithic” diet in general.
Finally, we have little hard-and-fast evidence as to what a “Paleolithic” diet even was. In the Middle East, people ate fair amounts of wild ancestors of domestic wheat, for example. Obviously, South American peoples ate wild potato ancestrals. Etc., etc.
A broader and more legitimate Skepticblog post would examine issues of Paleolithic diet, and related to that, of Paleolithic lifespan.
Indeed, many anthropologists believed the invention of agriculture actually causes a *decline* in average lifespan.
Beyond that,
The reason that the Paleolithic average lifespan was 33 is because so many infants & young children died. It is not because that was the average age at death for an adult. Infants & children are included in population mortality figures. The average life span has increased over time primarily because infants & children are surviving/not contracting diseases, infections, malnutrition and accidents.
Some people are seeing a decline in US life expectancy, this has more to do with low-income populations’ access to healthcare (in terms of infant & child mortality) than how old grampa is when he finally croaks.
Even there, tho, infant mortality rates were lower than for early agricultural societies, again refuting the idea that the Paleolithic was “nasty, brutish and short.”
Add in that, with societal divisions driving things like theft, and the need to possess personal property and state control of it driving wars, and the Paleolithic life was longer and more peaceful than the Neolithic, or even early Bronze Age, agricultural life.
I’ve really enjoyed reading this article and all the comments. I know little or nothing about gluten free diets, but I do know that this kind of discussion is what the internet is for. People are wailing on each other, but they are using evidence to do it. This can only be a good thing.
As for Paleolithic life expectancy, I feel it’s impossible to isolate the effect of diet from other much more debilitating factors. Lack of medical care is an obvious one. Apart from basic first aid if you were lucky, the only health care you could expect was whatever placebo the local shaman would come up with. Not much chance of living past 40 there.
In general, if someone made it past 15 likely they would have lived into their 50s or 60s. The low life expectancy includes the infants & young children who did not make it into adulthood.
Brian-
I have a long reply, with many references. The spam filter keeps kicking it out…any suggestions?
I believe their system considers an undue number of links to be probable spam. Trying posting without so many links.
Ok, It’s links to a number of papers…I’ll see about whittling it down.
“100% of the carbs you eat are converted to sugar and burned as energy by your body. So how is sugar bad? It’s what your body runs on.”
If that is the whole story why can’t we just eat sugar alone as our only carbohydrate?
Also fat also has a lot to do with causing diabetes. These things tend to be a tad more complex than your posts imply.
What makes you think you couldn’t just eat sugar in place of carbs? You would have to balance your diet needs but carbohydrates are simply converted to glucose by your body and used to power it. I wouldn’t care for it because I enjoy too many foods to replace them with one thing.
Fat as in eating fat or getting fat? fat is a necessary component of your diet. Like anything you can eat too much of it but it is required. As for getting fat that is indeed a symptom of diabetes. Some people get fat then discover they are diabetic. So they naturally jump to the conclusion getting fat caused their diabetes.
Some subsistence peoples had no carbohydrate sources in their diets (Inuit, for instance); some peoples ate no animal proteins.
Speaking of weird and gluten free, one site I have “liked” on Facebook is Hatch Green Chile, as in the real, true, authentic New Mexico green chile. This year’s harvest is starting to come in.
Then, I see them post a recipe for gluten-free chile, which also, horrendously, included tomatoes!
OK, diet worries have gone WAY too far when I read about “gluten-free green chile.” When did you put pasta in green chile in the first place? And touting “gluten-free” tomatoes? Beyond that, WTF is Hatch Green Chile, a New Mexico company, doing putting tomatoes in New Mexico green chile and deauthenticating it?
Have you looked at the ingredients for some mayos? Ugh. Why is there wheat and corn syrup in my egg and oil mayo? It doesn’t help anyone when simple foods are screwed up with strange recipes.
A couple of things strike me.
First, what the hell is a paleolithic diet? No one knows exactly what one particular set of prehistoric peoples ate for certain. We can speculate but we won’t be exact. Moreover I bet every group had a completely different diet based on whatever foods they could obtain from their immediate vicinity. Birds, snakes, eggs, fungi, berries, nuts, seeds (including wild grasses), tubers, insects, seaweed, fish, shellfish, snails, rodents, foxes, game, snakes, bark, leaves etc. Whatever they could lay their hands on. In some cases that may even have included gluten from grasses and dairy products from captive animals. I’m also sure that many modern people would consider their diets to be bland, seasonal and occasionally revolting and standing on the knife edge of malnutrition and starvation.
Secondly, while I welcome more gluten free products, (my two kids are diagnosed coeliacs) I despise the quackery that often comes with it. If Monsanto produced a GM wheat that did not trigger a reaction in coeliacs, I expect the majority of sufferers would rejoice at the prospect. Screw hippy food, screw quacks and gluten “sensitive” people. If people think they’re intolerant to gluten they should get a blood test and a biopsy to confirm it. Otherwise they are part of the problem, not the solution.
Perhaps there is merit to a GF diet even for non coeliacs but it must be confirmed through proper scientific study. Snakeoil salesmen and quacks are causing enormous harm to the public’s understanding of a genuine medical condition. There are serious consequences to coeliacs if restaurants and food manufacturers think it’s no big deal if they play fast and loose with how GF food should be prepared. If people perceive GF as some lifestyle thing and I believe many do, then it could pose a huge danger to those very actually need their food to be gluten free.
Next diabetics will be up in arms about non-diabetics drinking diet sodas, Orthodox Jews will be up in arms about gentiles eating Kosher food, and gays will be up in arms about metrosexuals stealing their culture (see South Park).
I think I made my points quite clearly. Gluten free foods are basically medicine for coeliacs. They must be prepared in a way which avoids even the slightest contamination. What sufferers do not need is the perception that it’s a lifestyle choice promoted by quacks because producers and restaurants will get sloppy. By all means eat GF but at least do so for a valid reason, not some concocted dietary regime.
There has already been one prominent trial & conviction of a baker palming off contaminated bread as gluten free and it seems likely to me that he didn’t think there were any consequences of his actions, that GF was just a fad. Well there are and that my fear is that if people think it’s just a lifestyle thing that more cases will follow. At least the guy was prosecuted and jailed for battery which might eventually allow the penny to drop.
Purchasing these items, however, increases the market penetration and therefore lowers the cost for those who do need these things.
I’m aware of that and have no objection to greater choice. I do object strongly to the wave of quackery, snakeoil selling that is coming with it. If preparers incorrectly believe it’s just some stupid fad they will not treat it with the seriousness it requires. It doesn’t hurt a vegetarian if some beef fat got in their food so what difference would it make if a few breadcrumbs got in GF food…
nice job mate :)
I note from Wikipedia – the fount of all knowledge – that the wheel was invented in the late-Neolithic period (4500-3300 BCE). Thus proving conclusively that the absence of traffic-related fatalities also contributed to the increased life-expectancy of our paleolithic ancestors.
I would think the best reason for everyone to limit glutens in their diets is that the more diverse crops we eat, the more resistant our society is to malnutrition, allergies, famine, crop loss, etc.
That and there’s lots of nummy things that don’t have wheat in them.
Lastly, wouldn’t paleolithic people still have eaten wild grains? O-o
Gluten in wheat is not the problem, the dioxins are. Sheesh, do some real scientific research.
What a great article, i just loved it and i loved to read it. Excellent thought author,i have bookmarked it.
You may as well have said quantum physics is not real. You clearly have zero understanding of this topic. You’re like a child who has wandered into the middle of movie..