The Great Gluten-Free Rip Off

Anyway, there’s a multi billion dollar industry selling food products to people that don’t benefit from them, don’t need them. Gluten-free is one, it’s not aimed at the 1%, it’s the 99% they want to attract.

My view is that if you don’t have problems with gluten it’s better to keep eating it as you miss on some key nutrients by giving up wheat. Wheat is very nutritious. Barley is also very nutritious, regular oats too. I really miss gluten but these days it’s a bit like eating cement for me.

I don’t think people should give up because it’s a fad. It’s a major change and if people worry about too much wheat then rye bread is a low wheat healthier alternative. I’m thinking of making my own sourdough GF bread after seeing a recipe here. I have found I tolerate that better than the regular GF bread.

This is very true for pretty much every brand that we buy of normal food. It’s called marketing.

My mumm, 77, was diagnosed with coeliac as a child, a life long condition. She gets cross with what she says are trendy types hoovering up all the gluten free products in supermarkets and restaurants so she has to go without.

I try and explain they have every right to eat as they see fit but she’s very stuck in her ways and has a concrete reality tunnel.

I don’t eat much packet food or ready meals, I mostly cook from scratch as I am not keen on all the additives or the fact it’s not fresh and prepared by goodness knows who

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I’m sorry your mum has to go without, it really isn’t fair. Coeliac disease is a terrible thing to have to manage, and well done on your mum for doing so all these years.

I do wonder though, with the changes to farming, having to feed a growing population (around the world, not just here), that food “interference” has a lot to do with the rising surge in food intolerances.

On the matter of general intolerances and bodily reactions, I am fairly sure that being bombarded with unfamiliar scents is an issue, from things like perfume, furniture polish and those dreadful plug-in scents.

I feel weird around those plug-in scents, like off kilter.

Homes with them in smell sickly and artificial, I’m sure they bombard the immune system.

Fresh air is far superior to a house stinking of vanilla

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I’m pretty sure I read that some of these products are carcinogenic, particularly scented candles in poorly ventilated rooms. Research is ongoing on phthalates, aldehydes, 1,4-dichlorobenzene, formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acetone, picric acid, methyl vinyl ketone etc. Some of these chemicals are in shampoos and shower gels (although that is being reduced since focus on the harmful effects was publicised).

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There are plenty of studies that have been done on it, though I see that many of these no longer appear in google results.

Read something like the GAPS book (or not - keep eating it if you want to :lol:) the book has been mentioned a few times on the forum:

It covers gluten.

I agree - but it’s worth realising that the whole ‘food’ industry is about profit, probably less than 1% of companies operating in the space actually care about your health…

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I strongly believe it’s nature rather than nurture Azz. Some people can survive and thrive on foods that might kill someone with an inherited weakness. Not everyone has to try so hard to be healthy. The main trouble is that it’s so hard to work out the DNA side to see who might benefit from dietary changes. There’s still so much research to be done. But definitely lots of rubbish in regular foods we can buy off the shelf, especially the preservatives. Nowadays it’s difficult to even tell which veg haven’t been tampered with. Organic produce seems to be disappearing from our shelves. What does RSPCA assured even mean? Why aren’t we told whether the meat we are eating has been treated with antibiotics?

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I have Hashimoto’s Disease and sometime when the Thyroid flags then you get hot or feel the cold at the very least…You get fat then thin and so I have three wardrobes for my different size changes of Clothes…
Then there is the Mental side…
It is very common in various degrees but still not really understood so well…
Just the Stomach is for me the one thing that is like my guide…
It is a very important organ in it’s own right and as is said so often if your stomach is not happy your not…right now my stomach is almost perfect and so I am…

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Something I am mindful of is eating sufficient raw uncooked fibre to help clean the gut.

Also such a difference between my home made egg pasta and anything I have bought, easier on the gut.

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Saw an interesting tweet on gluten, the author claims gluten intolerance may actually be the body reacting to pesticides found in many grain based products.

Also read a thread on the Sardinian diet which is very carb focused and yet there are 10 x more centarians per capita than in the USA. The key differences in diet include that Sardinian carbs are made using local organic ingredients, that the diet is essentially all local wholefoods, that their red wine has a fraction of the sugar and is full of antioxidants compared to that found in whites consumed in the US and that Sardinians are way, way less sedentary.

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I can believe it (about the pesticide reactions to grains)

The Sardinian diet sounds interesting too…more carbs, more movement = less obesity.

Not that I wish to live to 100, but if their red wine is healthier…I may consider it! :smiley:

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Sardinian red wine health

https://x.com/morellifit/status/1795430381014970760?s=46

If that were the case wouldn’t people with gluten issues also react to most foods that are grown with pesticides? Are grains more “infused” with pesticides and is organically grown grain ok for people with intolerance? I’ve not been brave enough to experiment as I feel very sick for a few days if it goes wrong.

I’ve noticed that I now also react to some preservatives, I think I’ve already mentioned on the thread that I’ve given up booze but find healthwise the alcohol substitutes are good/bad depending on which preservative they use. Potassium sorbate sucks.

I haven’t noticed much difference with organic produce. Is our organic produce from the supermarket really that “organic”?

I strongly feel that much of what we are being told is safe will end up being withdrawn in 20 years when they realise just what all these toxins are doing to us. Ultra processed should carry a health warning.

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I’ve always removed the outer leaves of produce such as cabbages and lettuce because I have seen the soot / grime accumulation on crops near roads. As such one cannot be sure organic produce is free of such muck which must in any event accumulate in the plant regardless.

Fish are full of all sorts of accumulation. Basically there’s far too many people on the poor old planet. I saw huge amounts of rubbish floating all around Borneo.

The planet will one day pay us back, Covid was a taster

Once a person’s immune system has developed an intolerance to gluten, switching to organic wheat products would not be a solution.

However, I think what has been suggested is that certain modern processes in wheat production are contributing to the human gut becoming sensitive or intolerant to wheat products in the first place.

This article is a few years old now but it explains it well, I think.
I believe the processes outlined here are still carried out today.
There has been a lot of calls from organisations like the U.K. Soil Association to ban the use of glyphosate, especially as a pre-harvest treatment, but I think it is still allowed, with a few restrictions.

https://www.totalresults.net/blog/?id=426

Apparently they won’t have to ban Glyphosphate anytime soon. It seems to be used on pre-harvest rapeseed oil and cereals.

Last year the EU gave Glyphosphate an extension of ten years to 2033.

This is from Sept 23 - Thanks Therese!

Defra Secretary of State Thérèse Coffey says glyphosate is here to stay – NFUonline.

From June 2023 - not good news for those living near farmlands :

People are complaining about the number of weeds in Brighton and Hove :

I was in Holland & Barret earlier. They’ve got:

1kg Oats, may contain peanuts, soya, milk, sesame, sulphites, nuts, for £4.99

1kg Oats, may contain peanuts, soya, milk, sesame, sulphites, nuts and other cereals containing gluten for £1.69

Sounds dodgy to me. How can they guarantee there’s no other cereals containing gluten at such a huge price difference, when they can’t guarantee there’s no other foreign bodies? Presumably, they are only listing items they know customers may object to if they are allergic, so I wonder what else could be in there, not worth a mention.

LINK1 . . . . . LINK2

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I reckon because it costs more to keep the grain growing in one field, and keep the soil nutrient dense, and also keeping the crops separate from “glutenised” food all the way through to the product hitting the shelves.

Disclaimer: This post has not been written with any farming knowledge whatsoever :laughing:

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