Being entrenched in the Nutrition world for so long, I forget that most people are unaware of the impact of high levels of gluten containing foods on their overall health.
So let's start from the beginning.
What is gluten? Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Gluten acts like a glue, provides no beneficial nutrients and creates the consistency that we all love in bread, pancakes, cakes etc. Gluten has always been present in grains used for bread making but with developments in agriculture, cross-breeding and genetic modification, the new strains of wheat used today, are less well tolerated.
So gluten itself, in many cases, isn't the demon it's portrayed to be. The degradation in the quality of the grains used to make flour, from years of mutilation to ensure high crop yield, is likely to be having a greater impact on consumers overall health than gluten. Choosing a grain for its yield left us with low nutrient density and these new strains have reduced ability to uptake nutrients from the soil. Therefore, in many cases, the white flour used for 80% of products sold in Australia is actually costing us nutrients. You see, every single bodily process is a chemical reaction and the fuel for these reactions are nutrients. Digestion is a cascade of chemical reactions and to digest white flour products, we use more nutrients than the foods provide, making them a drain on our system.
Furthermore, cereal grains contain phytic acid (or phytates) and enzyme inhibitors. These compounds either bind to essential nutrients in our foods or they inhibit our natural digestive enzyme processes. Neither of these are good for us in excess.
The main thing I want to stress here is EXCESS.
If you are not celiac, there should be no reason why you cannot tolerate some gluten. However, the marketing of breakfast cereals has left many of us starting our day with this terrible, processed, fortified food - please, if you eat cereal, stop. Then we snack on cakes and biscuits, have a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner. This is excess! The focus has been on grains in our meals when the focus should be on protein.
So gluten itself isn't always the issue. Many gluten containing foods are highly processed and contain preservatives and flavourings. Consider the bread aisle in the supermarket. Pick up and read the ingredients of a standard white loaf, the ingredients should be white flour, yeast, water and salt..... but they are not! There are so many other things added to create 'that' consistency that is so moreish and means you can eat 6 slices in one sitting. And cheap cakes and biscuits and pasta and noodles... all made with poor quality grain, and synthetic additives. These synthetic ingredients are not understood by our body and give rise to inflammation which fuels disease.
It is guaranteed, if you eliminate all cheap white flour products and substitute with GF breads (again, read the ingredients, Almond Road is one of the only ones I recommend, or make your own) an ancient grain fermented sourdough, rice & quinoa pastas & wholefoods. You will feel more satiated and you will consume a higher level of nutrients. Ancient grains are called such as they are the original strain, not the mutilated version grown for yield. Look for triticale, rye and khoarsan flours in the ingredient list.
In summary, gluten for many people isn't the demon. The industrialised food industry has provided us with highly processed, deeply un-nutritious foods and the result is the rise in lifestyle diseases that are killing more people than any other causes of death. Our number one killer is our diet. Move your focus to high quality protein, wholefoods and healthy GF alternatives in your meals, the difference will be noticeable.