<p>A lot of things are being thrown around here and more than a bit of it is putting together two different things as one phenomenon. People with Celiac’s disease (young guy who works for me has it, and it took a while to get diagnosed) have problems with gluten specifically, and have to stay away from products with it. Celiac’s disease is not wheat sensitivity, they are two different things, but people are throwing them around as if they are the same and they aren’t.</p>
<p>The reason gluten free diets work for people in losing weight and such is they are basically cutting out simple carbs, both because of the wheat, rye barley and I think rice , and also because these days a lot of wheat products like bread have added sugar, thanks to our government’s subsidy of corn production and HFC. When you stop eating wheat and other grains, or cut back on them, you can lose weight because eating a diet rich in vegetables (which are carbs, but are not complex carbs) and protein with some fats will have less calories in general, and are digested differently. People claim the results are the gluten, but in reality it is changing eating habits. </p>
<p>And yes, there are issues with eating too much wheat, Emerald City was dead spot on about the wheat we eat. Anyone remember the lyrics of "America the Beautiful? with amber waves of grain? You won’t see that any more, they created a hybridized wheat to produce larger heads that actually is used to make the grain (the seeds), and these plants are runty, around 2 feet tall, which not coincidentally is easier to harvest using machinery. It was developed as part of the “green revolution” that did increase yields tremendously and helped prevent even more widespread hunger than exists today (much of which is not lack of production, but politics and greed and indifference to the poor, not lack of food). The problem is that hybrid wheat is not the same as heritage wheat, and it contains compounds that among other things are an irritant. This isn’t GMO wheat, this is a hybrid, but it is different enough than the wheat people used to eat that I personally suspect we aren’t as tolerant of it and it is causing issues, based on what I have ready.</p>
<p>There are problems with wheat, one of the standard lines on diet, especially for heart health, is to eat a diet full of whole grains (take a look at the FDA ‘plate’ or at the Heart Association recommendations), and to limit fats, yet what studies are showing is that eating a diet loaded with simple carbs like grains, even whole grains, may be a culprit in heart disease. The last studies coming out indicate that the HDL/LDL ratio is not the key indicator of heart risk (one reason that came up, is that doctors have put patients on Niacin, which brings the ratio into the ‘right range’, but the lancet and other journals have studies that show that taking Niacin affects the ratio positively, but has no effect on heart health. The reason is that the real indicator is something I had done the last time I went to my cardiologist, the LDL particle count, and more importantly, the type of particles (they come in two types, a smaller one, and a ‘large, fluffy one’, the latter one is not goof), and what the studies are showing is that diets high in grains and simple carbs (which include sugar), cause the LDL particle count to skyrocket. </p>
<p>However, and this is important, diet and nutrition don’t work the same way for any two people. There are people who might do better on a diet more high carb and low fat, traditional southern italian diets based on pasta or Asian diets with rice seem to flout the idea that all grains are bad. I do think that grains should be in proportion, I think extremely low carb diets are bad news, the way that for other reasons high fat diets are, Atkins is a bloody disaster area (in part, because it treats vegetables the way it does simple carbs, and encourages a diet that is way, way out of whack, sorry, eating bacon, even non nitrate bacon, or heavy creme and so forth the way the diet emphasizes is a disaster area). The nutrition website I belong to is very pragmatic, and they often come up with articles that seem to contradict what they have written before, they are willing to look at what is out there and if a case is made, change recommendations. Recently they had an article they published that talked about how in some people, eating grains and more carbs doesn’t cause problems the way it would in other people, and this despite the fact that their basic nutrition recommendations are vegetables be the largest portion, then lean protein including meat, then carbs from grains and with healthy fats from nuts included, and fruit in proportion as well. </p>
<p>Fad diets are always weird, because they work, but often not for the reason they claim. The so called ‘grapefruit’ diet worked because eating grapefruit with its fiber helps fill the person up, and much of the dietary recommendations are lower simple carbs, higher protein and vegetables. Gluten free works because it forces people to eat more vegetables and proteins, eliminates wheat and some other grains, which is the same thing.</p>
<p>The most confusing source of nutrition information is the government, which shouldn’t be surprising, many of their decisions are based in politics and the farm lobby, not health. The government, the FDA, the surgeon general’s office, all are pushing people to limit sugar, yet the same government gives huge subsidies to the corn farmers and corn industry that make HFC so dirt cheap that it is used, not just in sodas and drinks, but in a lot of other things as fillers (take a look sometime at ‘non fat’ frozen yogurt, or ‘non fat’ cookies, or ‘low fat’ muffins, or the bread you buy at the supermaket, and see how much contain HFC. The government is big on the obesity epidemic yet the FDA ‘dinner plate’ pushes grains as the biggest part of the diet, rather than vegetables, again because of politics.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my friend at work is happy for the gluten free trend, he says at the very least it is a lot easier to try and find things to eat and has found that most stuff labelled as ‘gluten free’ seems to be what they say, and that it makes finding things easier. </p>
<p>What I really would wish is that there be some sort of easily accessible clearinghouse for nutrition and diet information, in theory the government websites should be but generally aren’t IMO, and a lot of nutritionists and nutrition experts seem to be caught up in their own particular orthodoxy, promoting one agenda over another rather than finding what works (I will add this is based on my own impressions and it not a knock at nutritionists, I am talking what I see publicized which is a small percentage of those out there). Then, too, you have something like the “Paleo Diet”, which I think has some merits to it, but the promoters take it into fad land with claims like “this is what our ancestors ate, must be good for us” rather than saying “This kind of diet that they likely ate has merit in terms of figuring out what to eat”…among other things, our ancestors ate whatever they could find, and probably experienced 3 years of famine for every year of plentiful food…(I want to get a t shirt made to make my view known, it would show a saber tooth tiger chasing down primitive humans with the text “I just love the paleo diet”</p>