An interesting article on the gluten-free diets of recent years. Hubskiers: Are you gluten free? Are you considering it? What other diets have you tried and do you feel you gained anything from them, even if you eventually stopped them?
So check it: my wife doesn't have celiac disease. She is not lactose intolerant. HOWEVER, when she eats too much wheat or dairy she gets massive flare-ups of eczema. This was determined by (1) Eating a normal diet most of her life and dealing with pretty bad eczema (2) Taking a $400 allergy blood panel that determined she was pretty well allergic to wheat and dairy (3) Completely eliminating wheat and dairy from her diet and having her eczema disappear (4) Eating pizza once every six months because that was about all her skin could handle That's been since about 2006. Her tolerance of gluten and dairy went up over time; by the time she was pregnant in 2012 she could eat gluten once or twice a month without issue. Pregnancy suppressed her autoimmune reactions, as it often does, and she ended up being able to eat wheat and dairy without problems. Important to note: she still avoids it most of the time so she's not really testing things but it's safe to say that post-pregnancy her sensitivity has gone down (but not disappeared). My daughter, on the other hand, is very sensitive to gluten (but not dairy). One wheat pancake and she's scratching at her hands for two days. In this house, only daddy eats "itchy bread." I figure as a two-year-old there isn't a whole lot of psychosomatic placebo effect stuff going on, especially since her reaction to wheat is about as speedy as her reaction to peanuts, and nobody gives us shit for saying our daughter is sensitive to peanuts. But articles like this? yeah, this is pretty much our experience. "Oh, you don't eat gluten? You must be some fad-centric follower of Gwennyth or some such bullshit, you dirty hippy. Oh, and you're a naturopath, too? here, have some death threats courtesy /r/skeptic." Something that isn't mentioned much is that wheat has experienced radical amounts of selective breeding over the past 50 years in order to maximize the amount of gluten in grains. More gluten, more shelf-stable bread products. The more gluten you have, the more durable your bread and the less flour you have to use. The Chinese in particular have been growing robustly high-gluten wheat, which a lot of mainstream bakeries are using. We had an interesting experience back in 2008 or so when my wife made cookies using some crazy-high-end single-batch $7/lb local flour. It didn't do anything to exacerbate her allergies. n of 1 and all that, but it was an interesting data point. Part of the problem, I think, is that much of the demonization of gluten is just an extension of the demonization of carbs, which is accurate when you're dealing with sedentary people that don't need the energy burst carbs give you. Unfortunately people don't really cotton to the whole "calories in = energy available" equation and they make it up on sugar and fat, as the article indicates. But there is a real problem where if you aren't celiac you're a poseur and worthy of scorn.But although I rarely get blank stares, I do sometimes catch sardonic looks exchanged between staff. When my wife explained his condition to one chef, he replied: "Oh so he actually can't eat gluten then. Most people, when I show them the allergy menu, change their minds and ask for something off the normal one."
My youngest son has pretty bad eczema, though it seems to have settled down a bit more now. We found that dairy can be hit or miss with him, he's fine having butter and lactose free milk, but too much yoghurt can start a flare up. He had a reaction to peanut butter (but had peanuts before okay) and we recently found out my Grandad is exactly the same, can have peanuts but not PB; we're just avoiding all nuts to be safe though. Perhaps we should try gluten-free and see whether that helps.
I am. I got a blood screen done for something else, and the doctor ticked that box because it's common for someone with the conditions they were investigating to also have Celiac. Despite never having a reaction, I have antibodies in my blood that say I have Celiac. I could let it develop into the problems my Aunt has, or I can preempt the symptoms and stop now. I have to explain what I cannot eat. My mother in law considers taking me and my husband to sandwich shops for lunch because she hasn't bothered to learn what it means. She sees a thing on shelves in the supermarket labelled gluten free, and gets it and expects me to be thrilled about this discovery she made for me. I've been on this restriction while living in 3 countries now. And as hopeful as I was that the US would be better about it, it's not. I didn't want it as an identity, but just by having to navigate the world with the intolerance, it became one.
It doesn't have to be an identity. There are people who are loud'n'proud vegetarians and there are people who don't eat meat. It's a lot easier now to eat gluten-free than it ever has been before and a whole lot of clever people have put a whole lot of effort into making gluten-free baking less of a laughable contradiction in terms than it once was. And while your aunt may be an idiot, at least her heart is in the right place, right?
I have given up processed flour and sugar for the most part (not religiously). In other words, I avoid them most days, choose other foods (vegtables, meats, fruit) in regular meals and have greatly reduced my intake of them. Same for grains and legumes. I say, 'not religiously', because every once in a while I will eat some of these for fun or variety, or because someone is serving it to me who I want to please by eating what they provide me. My energy is so much better. Pounds have come off, which is good because I was about 20# over what I should be. Now I am only about 10# over - I have been up to this since early May.
Side note: I think this scientist maaay have missed the boat on the Pluto thing."If you tell someone, 'Hey, scientists have just found out that Pluto's not a planet' no-one cares. They just say, 'Oh wow - it's a meteor? That's great.'" But, he says, telling people about food myths is like attacking their identity.