Gluten free food, or coeliac food?
There's a growing clamour from some parts of the media about gluten free food. The official line is that gluten free food is there to enable coeliacs and people with dermatitis herpetiformis to eat safely. The unofficial line is that a lot of people are eating gluten free food as a part of a fad diet or because it makes them feel healthier.
The fact is, there are a lot of undiagnosed coeliacs. If you feel less bloated, less tired, or have a better frequency and consistency of stool on a sustained gluten free diet, you're probably a coeliac. The official line is that you should maintain a gluten-containing diet until you're diagnosed by biopsy or blood test (although the latter has a quite high failure rate), but what is the advantage of that? Doctors (in the UK at least) have terrible delays in seeing someone and eating gluten as a coeliac can be dangerous (I was hospitalized as a baby due to a blocked digestive tract). The sooner you can stop getting contaminated and clean up your bowels, the better your outcomes will be, and the more likely you will be to be able to continue to drink cow's milk.
If you are eating gluten free as a fad because you think it is somehow healthier, you are probably wrong, and you may be causing yourself malnutrition. It's especially easy to forget to replace the calcium in inexpensive bread with that of expensive gluten free bread, but aside from that, if you eat the right things, you should not be unhealthy on a gluten free diet.
So if you feel healthier omitting wheat (semolina, spelt, cous cous and all the other hidden wheats), barley and regular oats, then you should take them out of your diet. If you feel healthier, you should consider yourself a coeliac and never eat another piece of gluten-containing food.
If you are a coeliac, whether diagnosed or not, you should read every label, and quit beer. There is no point having a nearly gluten free diet, because that causes serious intestinal damage. But there is a reason to eat gluten free if you are not diagnosed.
The fact is, there are a lot of undiagnosed coeliacs. If you feel less bloated, less tired, or have a better frequency and consistency of stool on a sustained gluten free diet, you're probably a coeliac. The official line is that you should maintain a gluten-containing diet until you're diagnosed by biopsy or blood test (although the latter has a quite high failure rate), but what is the advantage of that? Doctors (in the UK at least) have terrible delays in seeing someone and eating gluten as a coeliac can be dangerous (I was hospitalized as a baby due to a blocked digestive tract). The sooner you can stop getting contaminated and clean up your bowels, the better your outcomes will be, and the more likely you will be to be able to continue to drink cow's milk.
If you are eating gluten free as a fad because you think it is somehow healthier, you are probably wrong, and you may be causing yourself malnutrition. It's especially easy to forget to replace the calcium in inexpensive bread with that of expensive gluten free bread, but aside from that, if you eat the right things, you should not be unhealthy on a gluten free diet.
So if you feel healthier omitting wheat (semolina, spelt, cous cous and all the other hidden wheats), barley and regular oats, then you should take them out of your diet. If you feel healthier, you should consider yourself a coeliac and never eat another piece of gluten-containing food.
If you are a coeliac, whether diagnosed or not, you should read every label, and quit beer. There is no point having a nearly gluten free diet, because that causes serious intestinal damage. But there is a reason to eat gluten free if you are not diagnosed.