So, I won't go into the science of why gluten is bad for people especially those who are sensitive to it, but let me just reiterate that gluten can cause some serious health problems in people. This isn't just some new age, hippie, mumbo jumbo. This is medical fact, and even doctors will tell you so, even if they haven't yet understood that gluten-free diets can be beneficial for many people, even those who don't have celiac or allergies to it.
That said, I'd now like to address those of you who are seriously considering going gluten free: gluten contamination is very serious and real. Removing gluten from your diet is not a matter of discipline or being finicky. You can't order a bowl of chicken noodle soup and just pick out the noodles. You can't order a pizza and just scrape off the cheese. This isn't about you getting fat or not, this isn't a matter of discipline, denial, or moderation. If you have gluten sensitivity, you theoretically can't even have one molecule of gluten. You have to view gluten as a poison, which it is. Once a food (or a knife, or a plate) touches gluten, it is contaminated. This is important to understand in the restaurant setting, where there is a lot of cross-contamination, and it's important to understand when someone serves you a gluten-containing item. You must tell the person that you have a serious allergy to gluten, because that's what it is. Just as people with nut allergies can't have things that have even touched nuts (no other way to phrase that sentence, sorry), people with gluten allergies can't have anything that has touched gluten, and there's no such thing as "just a little bit" of gluten.
It's difficult, I know. Any change in lifestyle is difficult. But this is a matter of life and death. I hate to put it so dramatically, but the lust I see in people's eyes when they think about bread or cupcakes, and the excuses people make to indulge in those things even as they have medical proof that they can't have them, just makes me want to smack them. Unlike most "diets" and conventional nutritional advice, this is not a vanity thing. My advice has nothing to do with making people thinner or more attractive or fit into their swimsuits better. It's about helping people not get sick and die a slow death. It's about not developing painful and crippling autoimmune diseases.
I watched my dad eat himself half to death. Every time I tried to prevent him from eating something that even his doctors told him he wasn't supposed to eat, he just said, "Just a little bit." When pressed he would say, "What is life if I can't enjoy it?" But the problem is, these foods were killing him slowly, and we were left having to take care of him. I would have accepted his logic if he were eating honey-flavored arsenic, or if he were sky-diving. As it was, we were left watching him deteriorate and depend more and more on our help. Yes, enjoy life, but you can enjoy life without bread. You can enjoy life without pasta. Hell, they make really good gluten free versions of those things, but more importantly, there are so many other amazing foods out there that you can eat, the vast majority of which you haven't even tried yet! Eliminating gluten isn't about limiting your life, it's like a little obstacle to make you explore even more and love even more food than you previously imagined. Life is also about being there for the people you love and not forcing them to take care of you prematurely. Is having crippling arthritis or Crohn's disease for the last two or three decades of your life worth eating that cupcake? You want to sacrifice your health in order to enjoy Barilla pasta or Annie's mac n' cheese that you bought at the Giant?
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