My Gluten-Free Rant

"Gluten-free" seems to be the nutritional buzz-phrase of the day.  Have you noticed the explosion of gluten-free foods that are advertised in your local grocery store or the store sale flyers?  What's up with that?

I'm no nutritionist or dietician, but I think I know a little bit about food.  (Don't believe me?  Just look at me!!)  I've also done some research on the whole gluten-free thing, and what I have found is that a gluten-free diet is only advantageous to people who have Celiac Disease.  To those who don't, it can actually be dangerous, for a number of reasons.

Celiac Disease is an auto-immune disorder in which the sufferer's system cannot process gluten--a protein in wheat and other grains--that will cause major digestive problems and will cause damage to the intestinal lining.  It's a serious problem.  In my lifetime, I have known only two people who were true "celiacs".  Apparently only 1% of the population has Celiac Disease...and only half of them have been officially diagnosed by medical tests.  In short, it isn't rare, but it isn't common, either. There might be a half-million sufferers in the US.  Only celiacs need to eliminate gluten from their diets.  I've read article after article on the Internet about gluten-free diets, and the only one I have found (so far) that indicates that a gluten-free diet will be beneficial to anyone who is not a celiac is one that was selling a gluten-free diet!

I don't even want to get into the details of what is wrong with a gluten-free diet for non-celiacs.  What I want to deal with is the hysteria that the proponents of "green" and "organic" are creating.  First of all, gluten-free foods are at least twice as expensive as regular foods, and foods that are advertised as organic are also more expensive.  There is a reason for that.  If you plant a garden and don't do anything to prevent insects or disease from invading it, some of the crop will be lost to both.
Multiply that by hundreds of acres that farmers cultivate, and you are faced with the reasons that the produce is so high priced.  If you buy into the notion that organic is better, you are turning your back on the history of food production in this country.

Many folks politically disavow meat products, for example, that have been given hormones or antibiotics, claiming that both of those contribute to human problems, by way of the food chain. Antibiotics produce mutated strains of bacteria that are immune to treatment, and animal hormones surely must affect human consumers.  I'm not saying that either one of those claims are false, but let's look at the history.  One of the reasons that the food supply in the US has been safer than in any other country in the world is that our meat livestock is given antibiotics, when needed, to assure that the meat produced is healthy.  (When was the last time you heard of someone getting trichinosis from pork?)  Hormones assure that the animal is the best it can be.  The animal wins, the farmer wins, and the consumer wins.  (No farmer in his right mind is going to risk his entire family's income for a year by doing things to his crop or livestock that would harm the consumer.  Think about it!)

I've written before about the fact that grass-fed beef seems to be the "green" consumer's choice--but grass-fed beef is tough.  That's why livestock is sent to a feeder lot before slaughter in order to be fattened up on corn/grain.  Grain-fed cattle produce much tenderer meat.  The cows don't care!  They will eat grass or corn or whatever yummy stuff is provided them, as long as it's enough!  And what's the deal about free-range chickens?  If the chickens are free to roam around, does it make them healthier to eat?

When I lived in Japan as a kid (in the late 1950s), military personnel were warned not to drink Japanese milk because the dairy cattle were not tested for tuberculosis.  American dairy cows are. We were also warned not to eat local produce without first washing it with bleach because it was fertilized with human excrement.  (Not sure why human excrement is considered worse than manure, but what do I know??)  One of the reasons that TB in this country was all but eradicated is because we have been vigilant in giving our animals the antibiotics that makes our food chain safer, and our milk is "pasteurized and homogenized".  There is even a "green" movement afloat to drink milk that hasn't been subjected to that kind of processing.  Back to nature, I guess...but guess what? I've seen raw milk.  I've milked a cow by hand, and I've witnessed cows being milked in a dairy barn, and I would NOT drink milk that hasn't been pasteurized and homogenized.  You can, if you think it's better for you as a human, but a century of research and results says otherwise.  Good luck with that!

High fructose syrup has also gotten a bad rap recently.  A number of products advertise "no high fructose syrup".  So??  High fructose syrup is sugar.  And sugar is in fructose.  The fanatics will have you eat all kinds of antioxidant fruits, all of which are high in fructose.   Many of the foods that you eat every day are turned into sugar in your body for the production of energy.  How you get it is up to you, but it's all the same...

So, you are welcome to reduce the number of toxins in your food by going for things you think are healthier, but consider this:  every time you take a drink of alcohol or swallow a pill, you are introducing a toxin into your body.  I could never be a vegetarian because I love meat too much.  I take pills because I have to and drink wine because I want to...and I think I am like 95% of the American population in that.  Consider this as well:  the recent issue of Reader's Digest had an article that said, among other things, that rice contains arsenic, and we should all be cautious.  Seriously?  If rice consumption causes arsenic poisoning, a huge part of the world would be affected--all Asian countries, and then some.  And fish, which is touted as the healthiest meat for us all, is contaminated with mercury.  Why aren't Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and Koreans dying like a pack of poisoned rats??

I think Americans are subject to silly trends.  If you think you feel better eating gluten-free, and you are not a celiac, go for it. Just don't discount current research by trying to make it seem good for everyone!