Gluten Free Diet in the MSM

I came across an article on Stuff today about gluten free food that touched on some interesting ideas.

The article claimed that as many as 25% of Americans are avoiding gluten. Having heard the difficulty a relative had finding gluten free foods on a recent trip to the USA (to the extent of losing a fair amount of weight during the short trip!), I find this rather surprising.

The article is good, however at pointing out that some of us cannot eat gluten for medical reasons rather than entirely dismissing gluten free diets as merely a fad, although it comes close. Whether or not a quarter of America is indeed avoiding gluten because Chelsea Clinton, Old Spice Man and Gwyneth Paltrow do so, the rapid growth of people following low gluten diets should fuel a wider range of better quality, cheaper gluten free foods for us, but on the other hand it can also lead to the hospitality industry underestimating the sensitivity of coeliacs to gluten.

Have a read for yourself here.

Posted by Rory on Sep 20th, 2010 under Awareness of Gluten Allergy | Permalink | Comments(0) | Tweet | Facebook

Gluten Flour

I recently heard of someone I know, who newly diagnosed with coeliac disease, was baked a gluten free cake by a kind friend. Having only been gluten free a short time, he was missing a lot of his usual foods & gladly accepted, only to become very ill indeed. What went wrong?

The friend used a product called "Gluten Flour". Gluten flour is more or less wheat flour with much of the starch removed, leaving MOSTLY gluten!! While there are legitimate uses for gluten flour, for a coeliac, there is not much you'd want to avoid more than this! If you yourself have coeliac disease, you're unlikely to fall into this trap as you probably are (and should!) check labels carefully, but as you saw in this case, it was an ignorant friend, so make sure you are extra careful when teaching friends how to not poison you!

What really got me annoyed at this was that I have found that a local Countdown supermarket has decided to locate this "Gluten Flour" bang in the middle of their gluten free section.

What adds insult to injury as that Healtheries, the manufacturer of "Gluten Flour" also produce a gluten free rice flour, which the same Countdown decided was best located at the opposite end of the same aisle as the gluten free section -right above the wheat flour. I don't try to make sense of these decisions, but it's a good reminder to be extra careful when friends cook for you!

Posted by Rory on Jun 6th, 2010 under Awareness of Gluten Allergy | Permalink | Comments(0) | Tweet | Facebook