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Comment by carom | Hacker News Reader

Gluten free isn't a health fad. Please learn about celiacs.

The set of celiacs is much smaller than the set of people who think eating gluten free food is a good idea.

Afaik unhealthy diet increases gluten sensitivity. I have it and it sucks having your knees and elbows hurt for a week after eating a gluten rich pizza.

> Afaik unhealthy diet increases gluten sensitivity

I don't want to argue with your overall point at all, because I assume that whatever this sentence specifically means to you is true for you - but given that there is no actually objective definition of what a healthy diet is - it's hard to agree with the statement in general. I would feel like I was eating unhealthily if I had a can of coke every day, but that doesn't actually mean it's unhealthy. It probably depends on everything else I'm eating, how much I'm burning off, maybe even something as fine-grained as how fast I drink it. You would almost definitely feel unhealthy if you were eating bread every day, but as long as it was whole-wheat and had some good sandwich fixins in it, I'd feel pretty good about that.

Anyway, sorry if I'm being pedantic, but I feel like people toss around things like "healthy diet" as if we're all supposed to know and agree what that means.

> You would almost definitely feel unhealthy if you were eating bread every day, but as long as it was whole-wheat and had some good sandwich fixins in it, I'd feel pretty good about that.

Eating bread every day is actually pretty common in some cultures and people don't even stop to think it's unhealthy because it's so commonplace, so even that varies.

The poster I was replying to said they had a gluten sensitivity, which is why I was saying he would probably find it an unhealthy part of his diet. I did not mean to imply that I think eating bread every day is unhealthy :)

It is a health fad for most. People with actual diagnosed celiac's disease are rare. Self diagnosed… that is another deal…

I work with a guy who is a real, fully diagnosed celiac sufferer. The gluten-free fad has had serious consequences for him. Some restaurants don't take him seriously, claim gluten-free food when it isn't, and he gets seriously ill when that happens. He doesn't eat out so much any more because it's not worth the risk.

On the other hand, it has greatly increased the availability of pre-packaged gluten-free food options. The consequences aren't all bad.

(I have a sibling with celiac disease).

Did it increase the actual availability, or just the marketing?

I've noticed things that never had glueten in it, labeled "glueten-free" after the craze a few years ago.

It absolutely increased availability. When my sibling was first diagnosed things like gluten free bread had to be ordered and shipped and were extremely expensive. Now they're available in many (mostly up-market) grocery stores, and while still expensive have come down in price a lot.

I’m currently on vacation and the hotel breakfast buffet has a gluten free bread option. Granted, it’s prepackaged toast, but I’d say it’s better than hungry.

There are plenty of foods that have never had gluten-containing ingredients, but have always been made in factories or contexts where they come into contact with gluten. Celiacs, and people with NCGS who have strong reactions, when given the option will usually avoid anything that hasn't been actively tested and confirmed gluten free. For things like a bag of rice, or produce, there isn't an option with that label for re-assurance, and then it's a gamble... the odds of a bag of rice containing gluten may be low, but with such big consequences it's still a gamble. So the proliferation of the GF label is useful. There have also been a ton of new products launched that are gluten free, so it's definitely not just a labeling thing.

A close friend of mine with celiac disease says it was a whole different world after 2014 or so. Like being on an alien planet and being in a familiar place.

In addition to celiac disease, which is not actually so rare - only about 3 times as rare as red hair - there is also Wheat Allergy, which is very real and detectable by measuring immune responses - and Non-Celiac Gluten Sensitivity (NCGS).

Most of the "health fad" people you're talking about would probably self-categorize themselves as NCGS, but that doesn't mean that everybody who is NCGS is part of a health fad. Double-blind "challenge" studies where people are unaware if what they are eating contains wheat/gluten have confirmed that for some people this is definitely real and not a made up fad.

I'm not denying the existence of people going gluten free for fad or orthorexia reasons, but be careful when you lump everyone who is gluten free for non-celiac reasons into that category.

It can be both…

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