
A growing desire to avoid gluten is changing the food industry - mparramon
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21627720-growing-desire-avoid-gluten-changing-food-industry-against-grain?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/againstthegrain
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VLM
I hope the bubble bursts, the sooner the better. And I have a son with
medically diagnosed coeliac disease. The substitutes are overpriced and I
assure you from experience they are usually fairly disgusting in either taste,
texture, odor, or the ingredient list. The best part of his diagnosis was the
whole family basically stopped eating junk food. Awesome health benefits from
that. So.. no empty calories, no problem!

Stores are already full of gluten free products. I made a tasty homemade beef
vegetable stew yesterday in the slow cooker with beef and carrots and potatoes
and celery and thats about it (well, some spices, some salt, water, etc). This
is what real gluten free substitutes look like. It tasted awesome. This is the
kind of GF substitute I've come to expect, not a GF hot pocket or a GF package
of oreos.

There's a big business around convincing people they have to buy substitutes
so they can keep stuffing their faces with (now gluten free!) twinkies until
they die of diabetes at 500 pounds. I'm totally not interested in that kind of
substitute. If their processed food business model loses money or wastes
executive bonus money on R+D or even better, outright dies out, I'm not going
to shed any crocodile tears in my homemade beef stew.

You can see the propaganda way of steering thought by careful word choice:

"Sales of alternatives to meat have flattened"

They've flattened because they're disgusting soy based hyper processed plastic
weirdness pumped out of a chemical plant that isn't really fit for human
consumption. Not because nobody eats salads anymore.

The whole article is like describing modern online music stores as selling
"vinyl free product, even though most buyers don't medically need vinyl free
music". Its people complaining the world has passed their business model by.
If people aren't buying your toxic cellophane wrapped people-fattener products
anymore, instead of trying even weirder chemical plant processing or stealth
marketing with complimentary copy, just sell me some cheap lettuce and stop
complaining.

~~~
srj
Presumably your son would like to eat out occasionally? Or not be relegated to
just the healthy options you want him to eat?

Just because there are GF Oreo's doesn't mean you have to eat them. And to
counter your observation, in my experience GF food generally tastes alright.
My partner is allergic. It's "overpriced" (market priced, really) because it's
lower volume and depending on the GF substitute it may be more difficult to
produce.

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Pxtl
I, on the other hand, want more gluten. Seitan makes for vegetarian food so
tasty you don't miss a thing.

~~~
cheepin
I just want to eat wheat products without nutty people trying to convince me
that it is 'poison'. The evidence vastly supports wheat being awesome for your
health, not detrimental.

~~~
mirsadm
What evidence is that?

~~~
SwellJoe
Thousands of years of human consumption without negative effect might be a
useful starting point.

~~~
pyre
Lack of negative effects are not proof of a positive effect.

~~~
SwellJoe
Survival is a positive effect, I guess.

~~~
pyre
"It will help you to survive" is a far cry from, "The evidence vastly supports
wheat being awesome for your health," though. Based on that logic, all food is
"awesome for your health." :P

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wyager
I'm not sure how to say this without sounding extremely disparaging, but I
wonder if the reason these stupid, essentially baseless food fads catch on is
because the primary food-purchasing demographics are not well-educated.

Anyone with basic reasoning skills, understanding of elementary biology, and
the Wikipedia article on gluten could tell you that this gluten-free fad is
completely fatuous.

~~~
brc
Most diet crazes are completely fatuous. It's not a lack of education (because
we can't know everything about everything) - to me it's a chronic lack of self
awareness and self responsibility that manifests in most people sincerely
believing that everything that happens to them is the result of other actors,
and not their own actions. So if you're feeling fat and bloated, it's not
because you can't stop stuffing crap into your mouth and are too lazy to
exercise, it's because some evil conspiracy is feeding you, the helpless
victim, foods which you are not designed to eat.

Maybe it is the decline in religion - without a seemingly senseless deity to
blame - the search goes on for other reasons. When the answer is always in the
one who asks.

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rch
I'm actually allergic to buckwheat, and it's becoming increasingly more
difficult to avoid as people get carried away with gluten free options (pizza,
crackers, etc). It's fine as long as resturant employees know what I'm asking
about, but I've been caught off guard a couple of times now.

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chetanahuja
Well I. for one, am fully convinced of the ill effects of gluten because of
this documentary I saw the other day:

[http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e02-gluten-free-
ebo...](http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s18e02-gluten-free-ebola)

------
bane
The best part is when your friends complain about being on a gluten-free diet
and you know they aren't sensitive (based on decades of late night pizza and
sandwich runs) and they clearly aren't celiac so you say "oh yeah, no problem
I've planned out a gluten free meal, health and whatever", and you serve
gluten rich foods to them anyways and nobody complains about vague nonspecific
symptoms and everybody says they liked the meal and want your recipe - and
then a week later complains they can't get it to taste right with their gluten
free substitutes.

~~~
brc
I know someone who is sure that her kids misbehave because of gluten, so she
does everything to control their diet. At parties, she hovers around and takes
cookies and cake and other things off them. The kids generally become whiny
and behave badly. She usually puts this down to them slipping in some gluten
while she want looking.

The other kids stuff their faces, roar around feeding off the energy of the
party, and go home happy.

If we are going to talk about anything, it should be unhealthy obsessiveness
with diets. Get some exercise, eat fresh foods for the most part. Go crazy and
eat some ice cream ,pizza or chocolate cake once in a while. Job done.

~~~
sopooneo
Is food nonsense filling the vacuum left by the decline of religion?

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metaleks
Anecdotally, this really began picking up when Novak Djokovic, the #1 tennis
player in the world, began giving it such large press. When asked about his
string of successes at the time, he told the press that he changed his diet,
and completely cut out gluten. What he failed to mention during those initial
interviews was that he was allergic to the stuff, which was the most likely
cause for his inconsistent performances. The media, however, took the gluten-
free diet and just ran with it... and here we are!

------
simonmales
I'm generally convinced that gluten is bad is everyone, or more so humans are
not designed to digest it.

But replacing one processed ingredient with another, doesn't make much
difference.

~~~
MereInterest
Question 1: Why are you convinced? Apart from celiac disease, evidence
suggests that there is no such thing as "gluten intolerance", let alone
universal gluten intolerance.

[http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitiv...](http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/05/gluten_sensitivity_may_not_exist.html)

Question 2: Why do you call gluten "processed"? It is a naturally occurring
compound in wheat, and has been an essential part of bread for thousands of
years.

~~~
simonmales
Re Question 2: Wheat is processed into flour, which has gluten. No one eats
wheat raw.

~~~
Karellen
The "processing" of wheat is simply grinding it, in a mill[0]. The ears are
literally just physically broken down into small pieces. No chemicals are
added, and ideally no chemical reactions happen within the wheat/flour.
Certainly gluten is not a product of the milling process; it is a protein that
exists in the original ears of wheat[1].

Also, the process of milling cannot be described as cooking by any reasonable
defintion of the word, so I'm not sure what you mean by wheat being "raw" in a
way that flour is not. Unless you count finely chopped ingredients as no
longer being "raw".

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gristmill](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gristmill)

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat)

~~~
brc
You make the point better than I did.

I would also add that, by this definition, any animal product eaten is
processed - even eggs - which are cracked and then usually cooked. Ground beef
is extremely processed - having been butchered and then fed through a grinder.

You can theoretically grow your own wheat and grind your own flour. If you can
do it yourself without a food factory and secret ingredients, then I don't
think it fits any reasonable definition of 'processed'.

~~~
simonmales
Cool I see your point.

In my mind grinding is processing. It is being processed so we can make
something something else out of it. Would you eat it on its own?

I broadly wipe that anything that can't be done with ones hands is processed.
But that opens the question if cooking meat is considered processing.

I can't see prehistoric man grinding wheat to make a meal.

~~~
DanBC
Wheat is used in many recipes without being ground into flour. See cracked
wheat or bulgar wheat for examples.

Cooking meat causes chemical changes - maillard reaction.
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maillard_reaction)

Many low tech cultures use carbs obtained from crushing or pulping grains. The
reason they don't use wheat is not because of the need for grinding but
because of the need for agriculture.

