I got my diagnosis for wheat allergy at an interesting point in food industry history.
Gluten had been a buzzword for years by the time I had to concern myself with it, it had actually become something of a joke by the late date of 2012 (at least in Southern California where people are raving about raw, vegan, macrobiotic, superfood, gluten-free, low GI diets years before the rest of the country catches up with our super-fly soy based economy.) The hip California kiddies were joking and eye-rolling about Gluten-free foods in 2012 because by then they had made the great leap out of the health food stores and into big box stores. When your world-changing, life-improving, paradigm-shifting diet has made its way to the shelves at WalMart, the magic is gone and it's just another prosaic buzzword that cynical food manufacturers use on packaging to move a few more units a month. The diet hipsters were just like, so over it, dude. Like sodium, fat, trans-fat, and sugar, "gluten" became a word that had "no" tacked in front of it or "free" stuck behind it before being shoved in front of consumer eyeballs on every shelf of the grocery store.
One of the reasons behind the recent, extra heavy influx of g-free (a moniker so trendy and buzzworthy that I avoid saying it aloud) food onto supermarket shelves is a book. A popular book. A New York Times Bestselling book. In 2011 Dr. William Davis published Wheat Belly, a diet book furiously crusading against the evils of wheat; detailing its sinister, addictive properties; informing the common man that there is a cure for insomnia, schizophrenia, acid reflux, migraines, hay fever, PMS, arthritis, asthma, and an extensive list of other ailments - removing the wheat! Dr. Davis also promises that readers will lose a bunch of weight and stops just short of promising super powers or age reversal.
But, while wheat is evil according to Davis, you can't lose the weight or shed your chronic, debilitating disease just by cutting wheat out of your diet - you have to cut lots of things out of your diet and follow his meal plan to succeed (success is debatable: in large part the meal plan does not restrict calories enough to efficiently lose weight and many of the "cures" can be attributed to minor weight loss or the placebo effect) at Davis' "scientifically proven," "clinically shown," "well studied" wonder diet. The bigger problem is that most of Davis' "science" is based in half-truths, shoddy research, or is just plain wrong.
One of my favorite examples of false claims made in the book is Davis' claim that people who are wheat-free actually get more fiber than wheat-eaters: the average American eats 12-15g of fiber per day (25g is the recommended amount), the average wheat-restricted Celiac patient gets 3-6g; one cup of Post Shredded Wheat has 6g of fiber, whereas one cup of carrots (Davis wants you to cut rice (4g fiber per cup), oats (5g fiber per cup), and other grains) has 4g of fiber. I will let you know right now, as someone who is struggling to get enough fiber to make my gut happy, that it is a hell of a lot easier to eat two bowls of cereal than it is to eat three cups of carrots.
But in spite of all the questionable science and provably false statements, Wheat Belly has a die-hard core of fans and followers. And even before Dr. Davis and his sloppy science came along the gluten-free movement was gathering steam in a headlong rush of celebrity dieters and everyday fad-chasers, people always looking for the secret key, the magic bullet that would grant them health and slimness and long life.
The food industry is paying attention - in 2012 consumer in the US $7 billion dollars spent on gluten-free foods, a price tag that has made food manufacturers sit up, take notice, develop and market foods to soak up some of that market share. Some of this spending is attributed to an increasing number of Celiac and gluten intolerance diagnoses but at least 50% of gluten-free food is purchased by people who have no medical reason to cut gluten out of their diets.
And this is where I start getting angry.
I have to eat gluten-free food. It is not a choice for me. Even with the mad dash to put g-free foods onto store shelves there aren't a lot of options available, and that number is already shrinking. A year ago I was able to eat 4 types of Chex, Cocoa Pebbles, and 3 different kinds of rice cakes. In the last year sales dropped on Chex's gluten free line and so distribution has been reduced: I can still eat those 4 kinds of Chex, but finding them in stores has become difficult. Cocoa Pebbles has had its ingredients changed; it was never marketed as gluten free though scrutinizing the label showed that for a few months it didn't have the Malt Flavoring that is back in its ingredients list. Two of the companies that made my rice crackers went out of business, though I can still depend on Quaker Oats for my 35 calorie, 0g fiber, brown rice snack. It's disheartening to realize that I've only been dealing with this issue for a year and already my choices and options are disappearing.
Why? Why are these foods disappearing? Because $3.5 billion of the g-free market is realizing that cutting gluten out of a diet doesn't help you to lose weight if you're just replacing Cocoa Puffs with Cocoa Pebbles. Plain rice cakes are unappealing unless you have no other choices. Cinnamon and Chocolate Chex don't taste good in a party mix and are less appealing to kids than the wheat-based alternative cereals. Non-Celiac, Non-Sensitive, and Non-Allergic people are jumping off the g-free, wheat-free bandwagon and hopping onto another trend. GMO free is already overtaking us and we're still spitting out the Local and Organic bandwagon's dust. And all of this is happening because gluten is NOT A MAGIC BULLET. There are no magic bullets - weight loss fads and fantasy schemes come in and for a while foods that benefit people with medical conditions (low sodium and low fat benefited heart patients, low carb and low sugar helped diabetics) are widely available, but eventually dieters (who always make up a larger portion of the population than patients) realize that low fat yogurt hasn't helped them shed 70 pounds, that Atkins bars haven't halved their love handles, and that gluten-free biscuits haven't gotten them bikini-ready. When those fads fade the grocery stores eventually stock fewer and fewer of the diet specific food and people with medically necessary diets have to wander back to the limited options and higher prices of the local health-food store.
A gluten-free or wheat-free diet is not for everyone. It won't guarantee weight loss, it won't help you build muscle, and it won't cure the ridiculous list of ailments that Dr. Davis wants you to believe it will. Cutting gluten or wheat out of your diet will reduce your symptoms if you have Celiac disease, a gluten sensitivity, or a wheat allergy. It will also increase instances of constipation, cost more than "regular" food, and be a regular source of frustration.
Don't cut the wheat unless you have a medical reason to do so (and if you're not sure about an allergy or Celiac disease see a doctor). Don't go g-free if a friend told you about this diet and it sounded like a great idea. If you don't have a medical reason to cut ANY food out of your diet then don't cut it - non-allergics get sick of the rigor, sick of the deprivation, allow themselves cheat-days and "just-this-once"s at birthday parties or when faced with a nice bottle of scotch. And then the food industry notices the lack of sales, scale back their production of "special interest" foods, and the foods we hoped we'd be able to have again are gone. And I'm left standing in the cereal aisle, crying over a box of Cocoa Pebbles and the realizing once again that I'm on my own.
Eat what you can, and be merry.
- Alli
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