So here you go, a photo on a recent cover of Maclean’s magazine (seen here, to the left) featured a stack of bagels along with a HUGE headline that reads”The Dangers of Going Gluten-Free” clearly it is mimicking the cover of Dr. William Davis’ best selling book “Wheat Belly”. Tricky little marketing there Maclean’s…. After reading the article, I was left speechless and here’s why….
The first half of the article lambastes those of us who are in the gluten-free food industry for providing safe food. The author drones on about how “lucrative” it is to be in the gluten-free food industry right now. Rather than praising the businesses for creating safe alternatives, Cathi Gulli goes on to report how much money business brings in from those on a GF diet. She even criticizes Rice Krispies for making a GF version. What is wrong with that? For EONS gluten-free kids have yearned to have the simple pleasure of a rice krispie square and now they can. I would say that is cause for celebration but instead the article goes on to mock the fact that Kellogg’s has forged ahead with a gluten-free cereal. Gulli even goes so far as to criticize the church for offering gluten-free eucharistic wafers. To me, that is a pot shot too low. As a person who is severely gluten-intolerant, I would be so overwhelmingly grateful if my church were to adopt gluten-free eucharistic hosts. I think I’d sing the Hallelujah chorus!
But, back to Maclean’s…. once you have read about how “lucrative” the industry is, Gulli goes on to bring in the science (or lack thereof) behind what she calls a dangerous diet. In reading the “research” she puts forward, I am almost tempted to believe that the doctors in this piece work for huge GMO conglomerates like Monsanto and are trying to steer us towards a diet filled with wheat and other genetically modified foods. Not only that, she alienates those who are not celiac but are on a gluten-free diet and labels us “gluten avoiders” and paints us as evil doers who are “confusing” the doctors with our chronic complaints about “gut issues”. What I find so absolutely brilliant about this article is that Cathi Gulli writes about how people are finding out themselves that eliminating gluten from their diet helps clear up gut issues or other ailments they are facing because their doctors “can’t explain or don’t know why” these issues are occurring. Then, she goes on to put the nail in her own coffin by talking about Peter Tayler, a man whose seemingly excruciating 5 year long ordeal lead to a diagnosis of celiac disease…. a diagnosis that came from a doctor WITH CELIAC disease. Does anyone else find this so unbelievably ironic?! C’mon people… this is where I want to slap medical professionals and tell them to:
Yep, wake up and smell the coffee Maclean’s and the medical profession!!! Your own doctor is celiac but can’t figure out why you are having gut issues? Oh my… time to get a new doctor is my advice. Thankfully, Mr. Tayler was correctly diagnosed but not before his body underwent significant turmoil over five years and what we don’t know is what happened to his gut during those years but we DO know that his symptoms were gone in three months after adopting a gluten-free lifestyle. So it begs the point:
You’d think that if you yourself have celiac disease and your patient has gut issues that you would perhaps suggest a test for celiac disease, I mean, am I crazy for thinking that? But what happens is that the medical profession gets hooked on things like IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome), or ulcers or even Crohn’s disease and, as recounted in the Maclean’s article, it can take up to 12 years for the medical professionals to diagnose celiac disease. Twelve years. I can’t even tell you how many of my friends have been diagnosed with IBS only to find out they are severely gluten-intolerant and, in some cases, celiac. Now, I just tell folks who complain about gut issues to make sure that their tests include celiac disease and gluten sensitivity. The faster you get a diagnosis the better. Twelve years for a diagnosis is absolute nonsense.
Gulli did, in fact, do some homework for this article. She interviewed Dr. Mohsin Rashid who sweepingly declares that ALL gastroenterologists and family doctors are seeing a phenomenon whereby people who have stopped eating gluten and noticed a marked improvement in their health feel that their personal experience is good enough proof that gluten is the cause. Rashid declares this a “pitfall” because it doesn’t allow for a true test for celiac disease. To that I concede and say he’s right BUT and a big BUT, if you notice that avoiding gluten makes you feel GOOD as opposed to having gut issues, pain, bloating, soreness, eczema, psoriasis, hair loss etc, then I think anyone would come to the conclusion that they are on the right track by following a gluten-free diet. If you suspect that something is bothering your body and you avoid it and notice an improvement, then chances are you were on the right track to begin with, that’s a basic conclusion that just about all of us would make, I am sure.
Enter into the Maclean’s article Doctors Cadenhead and Sweeny who, in an article for the BC Medical Journal, pronounce that a gluten-free diet is not needed because most of the evidence around wheat or gluten sensitivity is “unsubstantiated by science”. So here’s my question to them: Can you please find for me where there is scientific evidence that a diet containing gluten is good for me? Ya, didn’t think so…..
About mid-way through the article you find out about how “dangerous” it is to go gluten-free. The article paints all of us “gluten avoiders” as running out in hoards to clear the supermarket shelves of all the food labelled gluten-free because it is just that, it’s gluten-free so it’s good for me. Like the blind leading the blind. Only the author is so unbelievably wrong. My experience with those on a GF diet is that they are WAY more careful than that, they take the time to label read. They understand that avoiding gluten means perhaps an increase in the amount of fruits and veg they consume. They label read to make sure their GF items contain quality ingredients like quinoa, teff, sorghum, chickpea, coconut and other good GF flours. So if going GF is bad for you then why does the author include in the article a statement from a Calgary RD who says “Because when people do switch over to a gluten-free diet, a lot of times it does mean eliminating fast foods, processed foods, refined grains, or it means cooking at home more often, eating more vegetables and fruits,” the RD explains. “They feel better and they think it is the [avoidance of] gluten when really it may be the fact that they are eating better in general.” DUH… YA, so explain to me then why gluten-free is bad… I’m eating less processed food, less preservatives, packing on the fruits and veggies but it’s dangerous??? HUH??? How can you paint all “gluten avoiders” with the same brush and so tag us all as, basically, lacking in food smarts. We’re a lot smarter than our gluten eating counterparts in many, many cases.
I was pretty steamed after reading this article, to say the least. Don’t go dissing the gluten-free diet when you don’t have the science to back you up. And please don’t go passively praising a diet rich in GMOs either because that only leads me to believe that somewhere in some dark back room an exchange has taken place between the big GMO producers and some scientists/doctors/media/medical professionals to praise their efforts for tampering with our food. And please, don’t vilify those of us who suffer from gluten-sensitivity and cast us all ignorant when it comes to what we eat. I’ll bet that there are a lot more of us who know what we are consuming then you would care to recognize. Lastly, to Maclean’s… I’m disappointed that you chose to print such a sensationalized viewpoint of gluten-free living. In this day and age of fast food, preservatives, high teach food science, high fat, sugar and sodium and yes, genetic modifications of food,
have you ever thought that perhaps it is we, those of us who follow a strict diet, that are the ones who have gotten it right from the start?
