Gluten Free For Non-Celiac/not Intolerant?

[kcorcoran2013]

I have been gluten-free for about 2 months now due to intolerance.  One of the books I have recently read in researching the topic of celiac and gluten intolerance is  book "Wheat Belly".  This book talks about the reasons why EVERYBODY should be gluten-free regardless of whether or not they have celiac or gluten intolerance.  Based on the info in this book and to support me, my husband has gone gluten-free.  As a result, he has already experienced several improvements with arthiritis in his hand and plantar faciatis.  He also is slowly loosing inches from his waiste.   I also have recently  heard and seen talk about the "Gluten-Free fad diet" and how for people without celiac issues, it is a fraud and an unnecessary lifestyle change.  I am just curious about any opinions you all might have on people without gluten issues following the gluten-free diet and how to encourage others to follow the diet if indeed it is a healthy thing for all people.  Thanks!

 

[mushroom]

It is true that many who go gluten free in support of other family members to help keep them safe end up discovering that they have been reacting to gluten themselves.  I would not go so far as to say that no one should eat gluten, however.  Certainly, the gluten free diet is not at all harmful to anyone, so long as it is kept in mind that much of the glutenous food is enriched with added vitamins and minerals which we would otherwise perhaps end up being deficient in, while the gluten free food is not.  Gluten free processed foods tend to contain higher levels of fats and sugars, so if you are planning on substituting these in you could end up with a higher calorie load than before.

 

If, instead, you eat whole, naturally gluten free foods, and bake most of your own baked goods, and supplement with nutrients you or your diet are deficient in (many of us have to eliminate food groups which contain necessary nutrients) it can be a healthier way to eat.

[Takala]

Most of the talking points against the "gluten free fad diet" are coming from various lobbying interests, who are all trying to jockey for position over the agricultural subsidies given to corporations to grow various crops, and for the biological research and the medical research dollars for universities.  They are using talking points provided by certain "experts" who, when researched, turn out to not be celiac or gluten intolerant, and who are not specialists in the disease, nor educated as gastroenterologists, and who have a financial stake in continuing the status quo.  Others are registered dietitians who, when researched, are just all repeating the exact same talking points from the wheat lobby. The ones who are the most annoying are the ones who are not revealing potential conflicts of interest. 

 

  Yes, of the "studies" these "experts" quote,  there have been a lot of studies done of the effects of diets heavy in number of servings of whole grains, but the problem is, they are diets based on wheat, and they are not studies of diets based on "not wheat."  Since the mechanism of celiac disease wasn't really recognized in modern times until the World War 2 era, there are no long range studies of successive generations of humans eating modern whole wheat grains vs. studies of successive generations of humans eating whole non- wheat grains as a large part of their diet.  We are not mice.   In fact, it's only been about 67 to 68 years that wheat was recognized as causing celiac, and that celiac is an auto immune reaction, and that's only 2 human generations. So a lot of these pronouncement of what really is and what really is NOT going on is a lot of speculation, as far as I am concerned.  Entire continents did not have wheat introduced as a crop until fairly recently, in the Americas, it's only been here a few hundred years out of anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 years of human habitation, the same can be said for Australia, Africa below the Sahara, and the Far East, wheat is relatively new, all of which used other forms of starches and carbohydrates until humans migrated out of the middle east roughly 5,000 years ago with dryland crop agriculture, and brought wheat type grains with them, slowly spreading it into Europe and Asia.

 

I haven't read the Wheat Belly book (I guess I should get around to it... ) just the reviews and all the food fights on the internet over the thing.  It's just one theory and one book, but you'd think the grain subsidy lobby had found the instruction manual for the End Times.  It seems to be along the lines of the Atkins Diet book from the past, who was another researcher who was convinced it was high starch modern diets combined with high saturated fat from meats which were making people age poorly.  Then, as now, I see a lot of evangelical vegetarian/vegans (you know, the ones who really want all the rest of us to eat like they do  )  really not liking the idea. I did read the Atkins book, I might even have a copy somewhere, because at the time I was experimenting with different diets, it had some recipes, and I was surprised how often what he actually said was misrepresented in the media.   The problem with Wheat Belly is that he thinks all people range in gluten intolerance from so mild they never realize it to full blown celiac and refractive sprue, and yet we do have some people who live to very old age eating wheat, anyway, and some of them do seem to do well on a vegetarian diet.  There are so many other foods which have problems, yet we eat them anyway, I don't know if I agree with his premise.  I think wheat is fine for some people, just not as many people as the wheat lobby wishes.  But I like how he acknowledges there are a lot of gluten intolerants who are not celiac, because getting THAT recognized by the medical profession has been difficult. 

 

As to you and your husband's diet, just keep eating whatever makes you feel best.