My wife was advised to try going gluten-free for a period of time to see if it would help with a condition she had been dealing with. It didn't help with that, but we did discover that she lost about 10 pounds and her previously regular bloating and intestinal discomfort went away. We have since observed a fairly strong correlation between consuming regular bread and bloating. So she largely eats gluten free foods.

But we don't go to overboard on gluten-replaced foods, and instead try more for food choices that just don't have gluten either way. Sure, we do have rice noodles or corn pasta sometimes, and I do have gluten-free bread in the freezer for her for occasional sandwiches, but we usually just eat more like East Asians or Mexicans and just don't have bread.

It's kind of like when I was ten, I noticed that sometimes I had bad diarrhea after we had spaghetti and so after running an experiment on myself, I deduced that a certain brands of sauce made me have diarrhea, along with raw tomatoes. I also discovered the same thing with soy sauce and peanuts, and although I no longer have that same sensitivity to soy sauce and lessened to peanuts, I still avoid those foods.

Basically, I think almost everyone has some sensitivity to some kind of food, most of us just don't know it. If you do have to avoid some kind of food, avoid it, don't go for a substitute.

This is anecdotal still unless you control for other parts of the diet, such as total carb intake, total sodium intake, and/or dietary fiber intake.

When many people stop eating gluten, they often just stop eating so much bread, usually lower their total carb, sodium intake (there's tons of it in bread), and often sugar and other things as well, sometimes substantially lower.

Occasionally the opposite is true if people start swapping out large amounts of glutenous products for sugary fruits.

The same thing happens with MSG and chinese restaurant syndrome. People tend to think MSG itself, and not their actual sodium intake (MSG is sodium + glutamic acid), makes them feel sick. In controlled studies with equivalent sodium intake and controlling for taste (basically two gelatin pills, one with MSG and the other with an equivalent amount of sodium), there's been no correlation.

Totally agree that my wife going gluten free is relatively anecdotal. I didn't wish to put her through too much torture trying to run empirical tests, but I do know that there are times when she has accidentally consumed regular versions of food that she has no problems with the gluten-free version, and she has bloated. Doesn't really bloat with gluten-free. Relatively anecdotal and not the strongest causation, but definite correlation.

My personal issues with spaghetti sauce however, I did control for as much as possible, purchasing enough ingredients to make multiple rounds of the rest of the meal, varying only spaghetti sauce. Basic outcome: Prego and some other local store brands from 10 years ago means diarrhea, Ragu does not. Same thing with nuts - eat peanuts, almonds, pistachios, wait an hour, diarrhea. Don't know if it's it's in my head or not, but since it happens, I try to avoid foods that make it happen.

Fun fact: if you look in an old copy of the Joy of Cooking, there are several references to wheat allergies (only found one in the index at a glance), including an old USDA publication on the subject (couldn't find that easily). This book has been around since 1931.

Can you explain more about why you think that is interesting in this context?

Because several people below are asserting that sensitivity to gluten (or whatever it is in wheat that gives people the wheat heebie-jeebies) is some kind of modern thing. It's not; people just forgot about it, then remembered again. About half of what I consider noteworthy enough to say on HN or my blog is pointing out that humanity regularly forgets, then remembers important things. FWIIW, my own mild sensitivity is almost certainly not to gluten, as certain Italian 00 flours, rye and oatmeal don't bother me at all.

The popularity of self diagnosis with gluten sensitivities does seem to be a modern thing.

I'm not saying self diagnosed allergies are nonsense (I know someone who is clearly allergic to Yellow #5), I guess I would just consider someone claiming it was all fake (rather than much of it being faddish) an ill-informed crank (and not really feel the need to push back on what they are saying).

I was a little ahead of the curve on this: I figured it out going on a strict keto diet in furtherance of my hobby of picking up heavy things (then putting them down again). I couldn't believe how good I felt, even on a diet of nothing but tuna and water. When I added things back to my diet; milk, rice, beans; all no problemo. First time I ate spaghetti, I went back to feeling like dirt. The internets informed me that other people were sensitive to wheat as well (this was around ~ 2004), and I haven't looked back since then.

Wheat allergy is more often then not a Gluten Allergy.

The comment was to make a connection that this isn't just a new thing. People have been allergic to grains for a long time.

Most GF foods may trade the cealiac disease for something worse - diabetes. The starches they replace wheat with (like tapioca) have much higher glycemic index than wheat! If you can't have wheat, trying avoiding all refined carbs! As it's hard to stay completely away from gluten foods, my family is sparingly using Italian einkorn wheat (the ancient non-GMO wheat) products by Jovial [1].

[1] https://jovialfoods.com/einkorn/

this. The problem is not gluten. The problem is how wheat, especially in the USA has been selected and/or modified to increase its gluten amount to a level more and more people can't tolerate. The increase of pollution and pesticides might also be responsible for our increased reactions to allergens. Arte showed a lot interesting documentaries about this subject last summer.

Yes, exactly. All foods contain some level of natural toxins and anti-nutrients, and wheat has a long history of consumption, i.e. we can assume that we've adapted to it already. What we haven't had time to adapt to is the modern wheat.

the gluten argument, for me, is really a conversation about shitting'pooping'defecating'whatever-ing-you-need-to-talk-about-excrement-seriously

do some light research, find grain alternatives that are gluten free, eat that for a week and see if how your body expels its used resources is changed

it is interesting to me that the initial response to a 'fad' is aggressive denial stead some basic experimenting

there is a world of interest for those that are willing or wanting to dig deep in giving up mass produced bread products

i find with each limitation i place on my diet the more interesting my meals become because i am forced to think of alternatives to standard meals, similar to how artists will impose limitations to incite creativity

meals without bread products remain unaffected but if you love baking, like the anecdotal couple at the end of the article, you baking can become even more interesting and involved using alt flours, baking with alt flours is like chemistry with each one having different bake reactions and health benefits

also, there is beginning to be science to support the adverse effects one feels when ingesting gliadin class proteins, component to gluten, which increases intestinal permeability inhibiting nutrient absorbtion(i)

the reality is the food industry is out for money stead your health

if you change your mind on what your health requirements are the industry will follow and in due time we will have all the donuts and cookies anyone could want and they will be made with alt flours

(i) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18485912

farm to toilet

It's just another fad, like the Atkins Diet. That diet, for a few years, caused egg demand to skyrocket, forcing producers to change much like how this is currently causing change. But it will recede like all fads do.

i think an analogy of high fructose corn syrup is more apt

is removing HFCS from your personal diet a fad? is removing HFCS from your personal diet beneficial to ones health? are more products using HFCS or alternatives these days?

personally after choosing to actively know what is in the food i am buying i find the nutrition labels to be too lacking in information: o, really, 20g of protein? what kind of protein? what ingredient is sourcing that protein? what scientific studies can be cited to explain how my body reacts to that protein?

i want more information stead less so i can continue to make decisions for myself about how i fuel my body

In one word - nothing.

Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe culinary allergies and the likes were virtually unheard of. Or autism and ADHD.

Right now everyone has some kind of intolerance. I think for the majority it is reverse placebo effect. For the others - people spend so much time trying to be sterile and pop antibiotics like tic-tac that their immune system lacks any form of calibration and measurable response.

> Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe culinary allergies and the likes were virtually unheard of. Or autism and ADHD.

> Right now everyone has some kind of intolerance. I think for the majority it is reverse placebo effect.

Did you just call autism a fake condition? Have you ever met anyone with severe autism before? Some of these people need near constant supervision for their entire adult lives, and you think they're just, what? Faking it? For the funzies?

Sorry but that's a new level of dumb. Autism has gone by many names but it has been written about since at least the year 1566. The only thing that is relatively new is its name, and that might change a few more times as "autism" seems to contain at least three different distinct conditions.

If you bothered to read the first sentence of the second paragraph it is obvious the following is about the food allergies. Unless somehow autistic are intolerant to something. Which I have no knowledge of.

The autism was just a side mention.

They clearly did not call it a fake condition. You're being hyper reactive, and calling them dumb for something they plainly did not say.

They said it was extremely rare. It was extremely rare - in terms of being diagnosed - in the 1980s in Europe.

Today a diagnosis of ADHD is far more rare in Europe than in the US.

> They clearly did not call it a fake condition.

Like hell they didn't. If we reform the sentence:

> Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe [autism] and the likes were virtually unheard of. Right now everyone has some kind of intolerance. I think for the majority it is [.] placebo effect.

In this context a "reverse placebo" and a placebo mean the same thing (since technically a reverse placebo is a real condition, making what they said before it contradict what they had just said, so we can only assume they meant to say "a placebo by a different route" rather than a "reverse placebo" which makes no sense in the context).

> You're being hyper reactive, and calling them dumb for something they plainly did not say.

There's no way you can explain away that post without it coming across dumb. They just took three conditions and called them placebos.

> It was extremely rare - in terms of being diagnosed - in the 1980s in Europe.

Sorry, no, that is not what they said. The term "diagnosed" never appeared in that post, and reading it back when you get to the part about popping antibiotics like tick-tacks the implication is CLEARLY about us creating fictitious conditions today or treating conditions which "rarely" exist.

You cannot just re-write their post and then claim the criticism of what they actually wrote originally is wrong.

There's no benefit to be found in this argument.

Well my wife is a coeliac, and it definitely affects her - small amounts of wheat can leave her with food poisoning style symptoms, trapped in the toilet and very ill. And this isn't just when she is aware that she might have eaten, she's had this when she's eaten things supposedly gluten free, and then been ill - only to realise that someone thought 'maybe a little wouldn't hurt her'.

Way before that my dads first wife had this in the late 50s in the UK - the doctors thought she had leukemia. They had basically given up on her (as there was no treatment for leukemia at the time) and she went home to her parents - there she met a student doctor who wondered if it could be wheat. Within a week she was up again after nearly a year bed ridden.

I think years ago these people just wouldn't survive childhood, or if it occurred in adulthood (as it did for my wife and my father's first wife(, then it would have been misdiagnosed as something else. Those truly affected by this aren't subscribing to some fad, they really are ill, life-threateningly so.

On the flip side - I had no allergy, but I feel a lot better if I cut out simple carbs, in particular bread and pasta. If I eat a sandwich at lunch I am usually dopey for the rest of the afternoon - if I eat a protein rich lunch, then I feel great. I don't blame that on the gluten - but cutting it out has done me no harm.

People who go gluten-free typically do not have any form of celiac -- the fad largely started with claims of non-celiac gluten sensitivity, and even the researchers who originally identified that have now retracted their claims and stated they can find no evidence that such sensitivity exists.

Said researchers have claimed[1] that reducing FODMAPs[2] (which many gluten-free diets coincidentally reduce) could be the culprit for the problems that people are experiencing (and attributing to non-celiac gluten sensitivity). It is worth noting that the follow-up study (which caused them to retract) had a sample-size of ~30 people (though it was especially comprehensive).

[1] Less 'claimed' than postulated. Their follow-up study showed that the symptoms were mostly showing up in relation the presence of FODMAPs in the diet.

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FODMAP

The plural of anecdote is not data.

Just because people suffered silently with poorly understood conditions (autism, ADHD) or didn't discuss their food issues doesn't mean those conditions didn't exist.

My uncle has always had celiac disease and he grew up in the 1960's.

I have heard this being called a disease of civilisation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_disease

As countries become more industrialised, their population acquires new diseases. One hypothesis I've heard for explaining peanut allergies is that the much greater number of caesarean births is to blame. Apparently being shoved headfirst through a vagina full of germs is a great way to boost your immune system:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/256915.php

That's interesting. Peanut allergy is the one I've wondered most about why it suddenly was a thing.

Growing up I never even heard of it, and if it's something that can cause deadly reactions so easily, you'd think it would have come up.

I don't know how big a role it plays, and I'm sure someone has looked at it, but an initial thought is "we got better at treating it, so there are more living people for whom it is a known issue" could be a part of the picture.

> One hypothesis I've heard for explaining peanut allergies is that the much greater number of caesarean births is to blame.

Why would this only explain peanut allergies?

>Or autism and ADHD

Given our rapidly evolving understanding of these disorders in the past few decades, I don't see how anyone can claim a working knowledge of ASD or ADHD in the 1980s (especially in the bleak, grayscale zone of Europe).

Seeing as the article makes no mention of either disorder, you seem to be lost also to its content.

The diagnosis rate of ADHD in Europe is half the rate of the US. That's very likely to be a case of rampant over-diagnosis.

Well, part of it is that often, diagnoses for ADHD in the US do not include learning disability testing.

> Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe culinary allergies and the likes were virtually unheard of. Or autism and ADHD.

Romanian orphanages are not the places we want to get health care advice from.

http://www.theguardian.com/slideshow/page/0,,1985460,00.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/romanian-orphans-subject...

http://www.npr.org/2012/08/19/158924764/for-romanias-orphans...

Hmm ... I think that for every orphan in Romania, there is one mentally ill homeless person on the streets of US.

Watch Sicko. So can we boldly say that all US medical knowledge is void?

  Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe [..] were virtually unheard of. Or
  autism [..]

Can you back that up? Is there some reliable data about the occurence of autism on both sides of the iron wall back in the days?

Just because something has yet to be discovered or classified doesnt mean it never existed before that point.

I've known people born with diabetes who probably wouldnt have made it very far in life a 100 years ago or so.

Yes, they were vitually unheard of in the US as well... but since then, we've come pretty far in medical science. Far more things are considered autism now than they were in the 80's.

How many of the people have a medically substantiated intolerance that is beyond normal human intolerances? Chilis, for example, give some of us heartburn. This is well within normal variance. Some of us truly cannot eat certain foods - wheat, peanuts, onions... and so on - this is outside of normal. Medical tests can prove this. From what I can tell, however, is that most people are treating this like a fad diet and positive results can easily be attributed to other things (watching what you eat, less fatty foods, more vegetables, and so on).

The comment about antibiotics is a rather different one. People couldn't just pop antibiotics if doctors didn't prescribe them (and/or if they aren't readily available otherwise). I agree on the over-sterility and so far, science is backing this up with a general message of: Be clean, but not too clean.

"Growing up in the 80s in Eastern Europe culinary allergies and the likes were virtually unheard of. Or autism and ADHD."

And bipolar disorder was often misdiagnosed as schizophrenia, and people were generally just considered "eccentric" instead of having a disorder.

That doesn't mean the disorders didn't exist :)

I suspect a guaranteed job there actually did help a lot of people with mental disorders.

Also back then Eastern Europeans were eating way less meat and sugary foods. Also self grown food was very popular (due to lack of food in centralized stores)

Nut allergies are also unheard of in 3rd world countries. But this could be because they simply die and no one understands why. Places like South East Asia have a high peanut diet, so children who are allergic likely die fairly quickly without adequate medical care, which is a tragedy.

> But this could be because they simply die and no one understands why.

No.

Israel, a first world country, has the world's lowest incidence of peanut allergy. It has been shown that this is not genetic, but environmental.

It is postulated that this is because peanut products are introduced early into the diet of virtually all Israeli kids - usually before 1 year - through a popular snack called "Bamba" [0].

You may find this surprising, but the ubiquitous advice to delay introducing allergen into children's diets is NOT based on any study, and actually contradicts some known findings.

The reason nut allergies are unheard of is almost surely note because kids die very quickly.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamba_%28snack%29#Peanut_allerg...

So... you go from "allergies, autism and ADHD" are unheard of directly to "it's all some sort of reverse placebo effect?" Are you including autism and ADHD in that statement? If not, then why are you mentioning them?

Not including them. It was an just an afterthought.

And why the overreaction to their mentioning anyway?

Western European 80s kid here, fully agree with you (except for autism, I suppose)

Even today, living between the UK & France, it seems like every restaurant in London has nuts/gluten-free options or at least menu info, whereas in Paris hardly anyone cares. Raw milk cheese is also more or less being banned in the US. In both cases, I haven't seen any data suggesting a health disaster in the more traditional country.

Besides, your being downvoted, snarkily shown links of Romanian orphanages, and generally being taught nutrition lessons by Americans, would be highly amusing if it wasn't for the blatant racism.

Neither was rape or child molestation, but those occurred in silence for the most part until light was shed on them over a similar time period.