You Are Not Allergic To Gluten

     Without noticing my wife bought a couple of boxes of stuffing for Thanksgiving last year that said that they were gluten-free.  I checked the ingredients, and they're using rice flour and tapioca starch, and other kinds of non-gluten flours, I expect it to be sticky.  Why were there boxes of gluten-free stuffing at the store?  Because around a third of everyone in the United States is avoiding gluten, because somehow they think that they have an allergy to gluten or a sensitivity to gluten.  Quick fact check, neither of those exist, so what is going on?  The following is an excerpt from a book I wrote last year called Macro 4:1:1 For Life available on Amazon and Amazon Kindle, and it's in the Kindle Learning Library. 

     For more than 25 years the United States has been obsessed with various kinds of low-carb diets.   It all started with the Atkins Diet becoming popular in 1993 and 1994 and continued from there, the South Beach diet was launched in 2003, and every other diet in the last 25 years including the most recent Paleo and Keto diets are all low-carb diets pretending to be a new, different diet you should try.  The Atkins diet is no better and no worse than the South Beach diet, nor is it any better or any worse than any other low-carb diet, they are all the same.

     This includes the modern fad diet where people think that they are, "allergic," to wheat gluten, or that they have a, "sensitivity," to it, and they try to eat a "gluten-free" diet, like up to ⅓ of the population of the United States.  There is no such thing as an allergy to gluten, just Celiacs Disease that affects less than 1% of Americans and less than 2% of Europeans, everyone else has undiagnosed Irritable Bowel Syndrome or IBS which has been diagnosed in 5% - 10% of Americans.  All people that think they are allergic to wheat gluten should follow a low-FODMAPs diet for IBS, also simply known as a FODMAP diet.

     People that follow gluten-free diets are trying to resolve bowel issues, not lose weight, but the end result is that by avoiding gluten many people on gluten-free diets will often try a Paleo diet, or some other low-carb diet, and find that it helps their bowels because people with IBS have trouble digesting foods that can ferment inside you.  The easy test to determine if you have undiagnosed IBS is to eat a piece of sour rye or sourdough bread one day, and then regular rye or regular wheat bread the next day.   People with IBS can eat a single piece of sour rye or sourdough bread with no problems, but can't eat plain bread, garlic, beans, and whole lists of other foods that have certain sugars and other fermentable items in them.  In moderation, sour dough, sauerkraut, and other pre-fermented foods don't bother people with IBS, the low-FODMAPs diet is quite detailed, and most people who try it find that it solves their bowel problems.   If you're interested, Harvard Health has multiple pages devoted to explaining how low-FODMAPs diets help people with IBS.