Wednesday

#9. GF is not a diet fad, people!

I just caught an ABC news report about the gluten free diet. It talked about how Hollywood stars are going gluten free and alluded to it being some kind of glamour diet fad. One thing we find abhorrent is when it's touted as some kind of weight-loss plan. It down plays the impact of the disease to an offending point. The effect of which is that people don't take it as seriously as they need to. With no exaggeration I can tell you that having gluten intolerance and Celiac disease is both painful and emotionally challenging. It's no walk in the park.

While I'm thrilled to have so many more choices of foods now than what used to be available and I'm happy to take advantage of the 'buzz' for more gf products to be marketed, I really want Celiac disease and gluten intolerance to be discussed in a more educational tone. 

I know that it won't be long before the wheat board starts fighting back and things get really ugly. I imagine that they'll be telling people how 'dangerous' it is not to eat wheat, as sales are inevitably affected by the numbers of people turning away from their cereal breakfasts and sandwich lunches.  I feel like there is only a small window of time left to educate people about what is really happening to so many people before the tide starts turning around.

I really hope that people will take the time to really learn about these illnesses and try to understand the importance of eating the right foods for their bodies.

As for it being a diet, the people I've met who are on the gf and dairy free diets are far more concerned with putting weight on than loosing it. I'm very happy to say that I've gained some of my weight back recently that was lost while I made this radical change. That's gotta be good!
 Bon Appétit!