The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths about What You Eat

Product Information

On this one I'd like to quote the SciBabe, a hilarious science blogger who recently took down the Food Babe: "You're constantly 'detoxing' just by living," she says. "Your kidneys and liver take care of cleaning out unnecessary things in the body fairly efficiently on their own. Proof? The toilet paper industry." Gluten emerged as the perfect villain. Soon books were coming out, by doctors who weren't experts in nutrition, claiming gluten caused every disease imaginable, from Alzheimer's to cancer to ADHD. Just like the monks, they promised miracles from going gluten free: easy weight loss, the ability to cure yourself of anything and avoid chronic illness. And just like the monks, they are wrong. Can you tell us a little bit about why we shouldn't really be abstaining from gluten, sugar, fat, or salt unless we have a specific medical condition? Also, why is it so hard to test the effect of such diets on us?

Voices Comment Gluten-free diets reveal more about Western anxieties than they do about the protein At that time, the Atkins diet had already become wildly popular, scaring a nation away from carbs. Then the Paleo diet hit, with its very compelling story of a time in the past when everyone was healthier than sinful, gluttonous modern people. The same story, by the way, that ancient Chinese monks used to tell. I specialize in Chinese religion. Nearly 2,000 years ago, a group of monks claimed that if you avoided eating grains, you could live forever, clear up your skin, resist disease, fly, and teleport. Then, a couple hundred years later, [their] prohibition shifted from grains to meat—but the promises stayed the same. These same monks also said that people needed to take special, secret, expensive supplements if they really wanted to live forever. Put down that gluten-free paleo muffin and cold-pressed green juice and listen up: Alan Levinovitz wants to cure you of your Dr. Ozitis. We build our lives and identities around powerful myths. The garden of Eden is huge: One bite of the wrong food and we fall from grace. Science has shown that people choose evidence and organize it based on how it fits into stories they already believe. Our belief that eating badly is the cause of all suffering is very deeply ingrained. How much is this magical thinking embedded in our DNA?The first, most important, thing to point out is that sensitivity to gluten is very real. People with celiac disease cannot eat any gluten, and there is also evidence suggesting that some people without celiac—including those who suffer from irritable bowel syndrome and other digestive issues—may benefit from a gluten-free or low-carbohydrate diet. I see a crisis of authenticity. We're all so afraid of being "fake." And so you hear people talk about eating "real" food, as if by magic you can become more real by eating real food. There's also the easy stigmatization of obese people, whose "sin" is visible—and often associated with class.

People will always be susceptible to myth and superstition. But as we become aware of the role of those myths, their power over us diminishes. Once upon a time, myths about women's subordination to men (Eve created from Adam's rib) were extremely powerful. Now we recognize them for the foolishness that they are. Okay. So we now know that many of the fad diets around today are bonkers. With that in mind, what, or how, should we be eating?verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{