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The “Free” in “Gluten-Free” Actually Means “Costs More”
You could call it gluten mania, but that would imply that we are wild about gluten. In fact, we’re increasingly weirded out by the stuff. So much so, that “gluten free” has become the “no trans fats” of 2012: the hottest trend in food product labeling. There are food items that have never had a molecule of gluten in them that now proclaim themselves free of it, from fish sticks to tomato paste. Hey, it’s a point of pride. Or at least, of profit. Americans spent just over $6 billion on such “gluten-free” products in 2011, and are expected to top that by another billion or so this year.
There’s a lot of room on that big a bandwagon. So what if all you sell is chewing gum; hop aboard. Logic has no bearing on the gluten-free fad. Marketing experts estimate that more than half the people who buy gluten-free don’t need to, and could probably eat the stuff by the spoonful, but want to avoid it because they assume it’s fattening, or full of cholesterol, or… something. Indeed, there are thousands of people who assiduously buy gluten-free foods who don’t in fact know what gluten is, or why being free of it is worth the extra cost. So let’s get the basics out of the way.
Gluten is a protein present in wheat, rye and barley and in most flours made thereof. It is a particular problem for persons with celiac disease, in whom gluten triggers an abnormal immune reaction that produces bloating, abdominal pain, fatigue, rashes and diarrhea, but it’s also an annoyance for persons who are merely gluten sensitive. Celiac disease is diagnosed through blood or genetic testing or biopsy, and we can be reasonably sure whether you have it or not. Gluten sensitivity is a more nebulous term whose definition the medical profession is still tweaking, and refers to persons who test negative for celiac disease but manifest similar symptoms, such as digestive irregularities, bloating and fatigue, when on a gluten-present diet.
Even more nebulous is the number of persons who genuinely are gluten-sensitive; estimates run as high as 6 percent of all Americans, but nobody really has a clue. In fact, cluelessness abounds in the world of gluten concerns. Of the estimated 1.8 million adult Americans who have celiac disease, 78 percent, or 1.4 million, don’t know they have it, but they are balanced off by the estimated 1.6 million Americans who have gone gluten-free for non-celiac reasons or no particular reasons at all.
It would be easy to dismiss the gluten-free fad as just that, the latest craze to come along to fluff up the profit margins of health food stores. But medical science is suspicious of the easy assumption, and the question that researchers are asking is, “Are more people going gluten-free today because more people are actually negatively effected by it today?” The early returns, at least based on studies conducted by the Mayo Clinic comparing blood samples taken in the 1950s and today, suggest that the answer is yes: celiac disease rates in the U.S. today are currently quadruple those of a half-century ago.
If this indication holds up, the next big question will be, why? Why do four times as many of us now have a disease triggered by gluten? Is it something in us, or something in gluten? We don’t yet know, of course, but one obvious suspect is the contemporary American diet, some elements of which, such as processed foods, have also increased enormously since the 1950s. One school of inquiry suspects the culprit is our much greater consumption of processed wheat products, such as baked goods and pasta, which are high in gluten because it enhances product texture and other qualities.
In the absence of a definitive celiac disease test, it’s impossible to know whether such symptoms as irregularity, constipation, fatigue and bloating are signs of gluten intolerance, or brought on by something totally unrelated in the diet. For those for whom such symptoms are an ongoing problem, living gluten-free on a trial basis is probably worth the added cost and inconvenience. For the rest of us, however, adopting a gluten-free diet is just a case of scratching a place that doesn’t itch to begin with.
(By Robert S. Wieder for CalorieLab Calorie Counter News):
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Gluten Avoidance: Prudent Policy, or Waste of Time? is a post from: CalorieLab - Health News & Information Blog
Source: http://calorielab.com/news/2012/08/14/gluten-avoidance-prudent-policy-or-waste-of-time/
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