I think the unintended consequences of fad diets are probably the biggest problem. For example, nearly 10% of the U.S. population have diabetes. As the percentage has increased, food producers have begun developing "no sugar added" products. These go into an interesting little ghetto in the grocery stores along with other specialty foods. Before the gluten-free kit came out, the gluten free products occupied what you'd expect for a disease affecting .4% of the population. That is to say, the ratio of no-sugar-added products to gluten-free products was about 10-1. Once the kick hit, the manufacturers turned their sights on making gluten-free products to cater to the popular trend. Now the ratios of available food products have inverted - the supply of no-sugar-added products shrank dramatically and the supply of gluten-free products burgeoned so that now the amount of products in the two categories are just about exactly inverted, about one no-sugar-added product to every ten gluten-free products available.

It isn't just the offerings at the supermarkets, either. Manufacturers discontinued many no-sugar-added products to make manufacturing time and space for gluten-free products.

That means that the 10% of diabetics have lost many products to make way for the .4% wheat intolerant people. Now, I don't want to get into one of those "my disease is worse than your disease" thangs but this percentage reversal is pure popular marketing caused by a fad.

Bob

Again, gluten-free was not originally a “fad diet.” It was something that was prescribed by medical professionals to treat a medical condition. For those of us with family members who were prescribed to follow the GFCF diet it used to be very hard to find products that didn’t contain gluten unless we learned to cook gluten free, which required a significant monetary expense for some ingredients like xantham gum and arrowroot flour. In many ways it was healthier because we weren’t eating so much processed foods.

The spike in GF prepared foods was as much the food/pharmaceutical industry trying to lure people back into the fold by marketing to them aggressively. Unfortunately the masses fell prey to the buzzwords and as such what was once an effective course of treatment has been dismissed as a “fad diet.”

Precisely. Fortunately, 'feelings' will never (ever!) trump facts and gluten simply isn't good for us, at all! And no matter how many people continue to insist (feel) that gluten-free is just another 'fad', the facts tell a very different story indeed (see my previous post).

"But we've been eating certain foods for centuries with no problems!"

Really? That all depends on an individuals level of understanding, and to the extent that is limited, so is their perception of the problem, which is seemingly non-existent to the more 'feeling' driven.

Just to say, I became gluten-free to support my daughter when she was diagnosed as coeliac (which is on the rise). And I have never been in better health. Again, see my previous post for a greater understanding of just how this rubbish is affecting people, whether they are aware of it or not (reality NEVER discriminates!), and people who I haven't seen for a while comment, almost without fail, how better I'm looking.

And it amazes me how people can eat the rubbish that passes for food (usually because they've seen it advertised) and then have a problem with gluten free produce being advertised! And yet, when it's stuff that they 'understand' (they usually don't) it's just good old fashioned "marketing/advertising" that's been used to sell it. But when it's something they (also) don't understand, it's "propaganda".

Another shout out to those with the guts (probably healthy!) to produce and make available these very much needed (so-called) 'alternatives'... :up:

I remember my mother going through this 20 years ago when she was first diagnosed. There were virtually no gluten-free options available in stores back then (at least in the UK) and for several years she actually got GF bread on prescription through the NHS. I'd take xanthan gum from here in the US over for her when we visited, because it was so much cheaper here. Nowadays, she has so many more options.

I'm not the most compassionate person when it comes to issues that might possibly be considered trendy, but my dear Wife of 30 years is definitely sensitive to both gluten and sulfates. Took us 2 decades to finally ask why she felt awful after eating certain foods. Gluten leaves her a slave of the restroom and sulfates make her lips and mouth break out in blisters. Took her a long time to have some extensive testing done, but sure enough there are dietary concerns. Celiac runs in her family with an Aunt and Cousin that can't have a shred of gluten without intense pain. She doesn't need to push it so avoids gluten and sulfates when possible. Not too many complaints from me as wheat stuffs are junk fillers in a lot of processed food.

The gluten-free hype is the worst bit of marketing junk I have seen in decades. They did some studies on this with 500 people assigned to each group. One group was told they were getting gluten free bread, but it was loaded with gluten. They said it was wonderful bread and the loved it.

Then they took a second group and gave the real gluten free bread but said it was high gluten. That group gasped and flummoxed and had symptoms like headaches and so forth.

The point being, that its all nonsense. Unless you have celiac disease, which almost no one has.

Its insane what you pay for gluten free. One local baker sells 6 butter tarts for $15 because they are....wait for it..."gluten free".

Sigh.

'Almost no-one', right now, is 1 in 133. 2 of my immediate relatives are celiac, and another is, while not being celiac, is decidedly, medically confirmed, intolerant, and effectively has to live as if she is celiac.

That's not nonsense.

“Gluten Free”: Overblown?
 

Some would say that glyphosate is the real culprit with the so-called (mainstreaming) of “gluten intolerance“.

People with celiac disease of course have a real problem, as I believe has been noted...

The data shows the incidence rate in the US as;

2–13/100,000.

So about 5 people out of 100,000 have the gene. That is no epidemic.

https://www.gastrojournal.org/articl...199-X/fulltext

I'd like to see a scientific study which supports this. For celiac patients, of course we all understand the issue. For the rest of us I mean. I understand there is an equally small population of people who suffer from non celiac wheat sensitivity, but this hasn't been linked to gluten. For the rest of us, whole wheat can be a great source of protein carbohydrate (what your brain runs on) and other important phytonutrients, playing a role in staving off cancers, diabetes, and more.

Most people who make changes to their diets feel better, no matter what the change. Watching what you eat generally makes for better health.

Maybe the science is out there, I just haven't seen it yet. Genuinely curious.

I'll copy and paste my original post below (the one I did before the one you referred to), which may pique your interest to find out more etc. What people choose to believe (and eat) is entirely up to them, but both the (rising) instance of coeliac disease and the actual/potential dangers of eating 'modern' wheat are things we ignore at our peril...

Gluten is a large protein which is difficult for the human digestive tract to handle, and the main problem with it is that it stimulates the production of zonulin. Zonulin is a protein which causes the protective cells lining the gut to open up (so-called "leaky gut syndrome"), which allows toxins that should be flushed through the digestive system, into the bloodstream instead. This can lead to a range of unpleasant symptoms (including cognitive and mood disorders), and ultimately to disease. People with autoimmune and gastrointestinal problems, including coeliac disease and IBS, are more sensitive to zonulin than others.

The other problem with wheat, and other gluten-containing crops, is that they are heavily sprayed with glyphosate, a highly toxic weedkiller. Glyphosate behaves very similarly in the body to zonulin, contributing to increased gut permeability and leaky gut syndrome, so every time we consume gluten, we're giving the gut a double-whammy attack (even organic wheat crops have been found to have some traces of glyphosate, although less than conventional products).

There is no benefit to any human to consuming gluten, and we would all do better without it in our diets. More info here:

https://www.marioninstitute.org/zonu...ght-junctions/

And here:

https://www.fxmedicine.com.au/conten...n-role-zonulin

Big shout out to all those manufacturers with wisdom to produce gluten-free food...

Tried both links and neither could be accessed .
Just thought that I would add that gluten free means no beer .

Try these...

https://www.marioninstitute.org/zonu...ght-junctions/

https://www.fxmedicine.com.au/conten...n-role-zonulin

My partner sells something completely unrelated that has enormous health benefits and has collosal backing by science - and yet it is constantly ridiculed by, no less, those with a penchant for a crazy little thing called confirmation bias (coupled with arrogance, which is always rooted in ignorance).

And fear not, you can get GF beer! :up::guitar:

It might be worth while to cite more recent studies than one from 14 years ago.
More recent studies have found a higher incidence rates.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850429

or

https://celiac.org/main/wp-content/u...e_GGH_2018.pdf

We have been shopping and purchasing sugar free products for nearly twenty years, and have only observed an increase in the number of products being offered. Perhaps the stores in your region of the country have discontinued stocking sugar free products. Here, the number and variety of items have only increased and that has made shopping for them much easier.

Thank you but the links didn’t work. Are those studies showing negative effects of gluten or hypotheses about why it’s bad?