Why is gluten-free a huge craze???
I have been trying to find a sugar free recipe for macarons, as I like the idea of them but don't want to be eating any more sugar. It was incredibly hard to find one that was sugar free that wasn't gluten free.
This seems to happen all the time - I'm interested in health foods, and in a LOT of supposedly healthy targeted foods and ingredients, there is "gluten free" plastered all over everything.
I can understand that celiac disease exists and celiacs who eat gluten products can end up legitimately sick, but the majority of people I have spoken to on a gluten-free diet are not celiacs. When I ask them why they're doing it, they don't seem to have a good answer. They say things like "it just makes me feel sluggish," or "I'm just sensitive," but they act as though they're allergic, and cannot have any gluten products at all, even the obligatory "may contain" on a lot of packaged goods.
When I pointed out that some studies have indicated that if you are not allergic, restricting yourself to a strict gluten-free diet can actually be bad for you, or that many gluten-free "healthy" products are actually higher in fats, sugars and preservatives than gluten products, they bat it off.
Why is this such a huge craze? Why are gluten free products everywhere? I don't get why this is so huge.
_________________
Alexithymia - 147 points.
Low-Verbal.
Because companies earn alot of money selling gluten free products. As they do selling fat free products, low carb products and sugar free products. And people swallow it, because they have a hard time accepting the simple truth, that the reason they are gaining weight or are have other health problems, is in most cases due to the fact that they are taking in way too many calories.
fad diets are a funny phenomenon.
my mom is a registered dietitian and keeps an expanding library of fad diet books in her office--not to encourage her patients to try them, but as a kind of curiosity and a display of the money grabbing ridiculousness of the diet industry.
i would consider gluten-free along the same line as fad diets, since people are buying into it without understanding why.
many people crave that easy/quick fix to health and weight loss, and follow the crowd, and that is what is being capitalized on.
lmao at that woman who said her friend is reading a book about it
This seems to happen all the time - I'm interested in health foods, and in a LOT of supposedly healthy targeted foods and ingredients, there is "gluten free" plastered all over everything.
I can understand that celiac disease exists and celiacs who eat gluten products can end up legitimately sick, but the majority of people I have spoken to on a gluten-free diet are not celiacs. When I ask them why they're doing it, they don't seem to have a good answer. They say things like "it just makes me feel sluggish," or "I'm just sensitive," but they act as though they're allergic, and cannot have any gluten products at all, even the obligatory "may contain" on a lot of packaged goods.
When I pointed out that some studies have indicated that if you are not allergic, restricting yourself to a strict gluten-free diet can actually be bad for you, or that many gluten-free "healthy" products are actually higher in fats, sugars and preservatives than gluten products, they bat it off.
Why is this such a huge craze? Why are gluten free products everywhere? I don't get why this is so huge.
1) Macarons are made from egg whites, sugar and almond meal, and then filled with some kind of butter cream. If it contains wheat flour, it's by definition not a macaron, which is why macarons have become the celiac's go-to cake. So companies have two good reasons to mark them as gluten free; to share useful info about their product, and to sell at a higher price.
2) The media loves to blow stuff like that out of proportion and scare people. Then later they blame people for being hysterical. All of this creates huge debates which sells newspapers and such. Also, there are a lot of people who have digestive issues and can't get help from doctors, so they experiment. It's funny when people tell others to get tested for IBS, because no such test exists. I went gluten free out of pure desperation after a lot of illness, but it ended up fixing my nutritional deficiencies as well. A lot of people who eat gluten free products actually have IBS, which means they are probably reacting to sugars in wheat, not gluten, but they are embarrassed to tell you about their bowel movements, so they brush it off.
3) A healthy gluten free diet is perfectly possible, but it requires a lot of effort. That said, a lot of the stuff that contains gluten is also really bad for you, because of fast carbs. In general, people today eat an awful lot of wheat in proportion to vegetables and pulses.
4) If I were to speculate, I'd say that a lot of the stomach issues people have today are due to a combination of stress, use of antibiotics, lack of exposure to healthy bacteria, limited diets and a lot of fast carbs, and not the least, too little exercise.
_________________
I sometimes leave conversations and return after a long time. I am sorry about it, but I need a lot of time to think about it when I am not sure how I feel.
nick007
Veteran
Joined: 4 May 2010
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,059
Location: was Louisiana but now Vermont in the police state called USA
There was a South Park episode where eating pure gluten killed people & TV influences people more than they realize.
_________________
"I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem!"
"Hear all, trust nothing"
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ru ... cquisition
Some of us are not celiac's, but we are allergic to gluten. If I eat gluten I get a classic allergic reaction; hives, rashes, urtacaria, trouble breathing, etc.. One can be allergic and not have celiac disease.
Then there are also the diet fad people.
When I pointed out that some studies have indicated that if you are not allergic, restricting yourself to a strict gluten-free diet can actually be bad for you, or that many gluten-free "healthy" products are actually higher in fats, sugars and preservatives than gluten products, they bat it off.
as someone who eats GF due to an allergy I agree with that statement. The pre-packaged processed GF meals are basically cardboard with some flavoring added. Not much nutritional value in those. I avoid them.
I eat/buy gluten free things because they often don't having milk in them, and I have a severe dairy allergy. It seems impossible to find dairy-free waffles that are not also gluten-free.
I'm okay with that but I don't go out of my way to eat GF. Especially since not everything that's GF is also dairy-free.
I didn't know that sugar had any gluten in it, OP. That's news to me, and I have coeliac disease.
The percentage of people who have CD is about the same as the percentage of people who have AS. Both groups were unrecognised/under-recognised/under-diagnosed until relatively recently. (Though people are still falling through the cracks because of poor understanding of both conditions and diagnostic challenges).
If you had coeliac disease - which I hope you never do - you would rapidly understand how important it is to avoid gluten exposure. People can also be allergic to wheat alone, without having CD, and you would be surprised how many foods wheat is in, not just cereal foods. CD is not an allergy though, it's an auto-immune disease.
My guess is that a lot of people are sensitive to WHEAT (look it up to find out why!) but think they are sensitive to GLUTEN. That was me a while ago, but then I experimented with spelt/kamut/fife and had no issues.
_________________
Leading a double life and loving it (but exhausted).
Likely ADHD instead of what I've been diagnosed with before.