The gluten-free trend keeps growing. But is it all just hype? Does gluten sensitivity really exist? Are more people being diagnosed with celiac disease? Is modern wheat the problem or could it be genetic engineering? Here we unravel!
This story was produced in collaboration with the Food & Environment Reporting Network, a non-profit investigative journalism organization.
A few years ago, when I began writing a book about grains and bread, the
first question I usually got when I mentioned the project was: “Why are so many
people having problems with wheat?” In many ways, the question encapsulated the
current anxiety around bread and wheat, which has gyrated from a source of
sustenance for humanity into a toxic pariah.
Wheat—and the main protein it contains, gluten—has been cited as a cause
of weight gain, “brain fog,” skin rashes, joint pain, headaches, tiredness,
allergies, gas, intestinal distress, irritable bowel syndrome, depression and,
in the case of celiac disease—where the immune system goes haywire and attacks
the body—even death. Yet wheat, which is found not only in bread and pasta, but
also in beer and numerous processed foods, makes up one-fifth of all food eaten
worldwide and is the number-one source of protein in developing countries.
Humans have been eating wheat for around 10,000 years, starting with domestication
of wild grasses in the Near East, at the dawn of agriculture.....To Read More....
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