In Defense of Gluten

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I like bread. I like how it crumbles when you slice it, I like its lingering yeasty aftertaste, I like how it seems to leap out of the toaster as if begging to be consumed, and most of all, I like the way it makes me feel. Bread is soup’s raison d’etre, the perfect complement to butter, and based off of my highly questionable credentials, it’s a naturally occurring anti-depressant.

So, I’m here to say once and for all: stop hating on bread! It is not the root of all evil, it’s not responsible for the fall of humankind, and it’s not gonna kill you to eat it every now and then.

In recent months, gluten-free has been all the rage. Celebrities, books, and dubious healthcare professionals are quick to espouse the benefits of a diet sans bread, pasta, cereal, muffins, and cookies – AKA everything that makes life worth living. Such outlets claim that cutting out the majority of the bottom chunk of the food pyramid will make you feel better, sleep better, and look better.

The Atkins Diet first brought the notion of low-carb eating to the mainstream, touting the importance of cutting out carbs in favor of proteins and fats. Just like the Atkins diet, the gluten-free diet by definition outlaws the consumption of many high-carb foods. If you eat less, chances are you will lose weight and subsequently feel better. Therefore, cutting any calories from your diet, whether it’s glazed donuts or tofu, will eventually result in weight loss, so looking upon gluten products with the same scorn as a Stanford student at a Cal game is just plain foolish.

The gluten-free diet originated for those with gluten allergies/intolerance and sufferers of celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that afflicts around 1 percent of American adults. Consuming gluten with celiac disease results in damage to the small intestine that leads to severe pain, fatigue and a bevy of other problems. For these individuals, avoidance of gluten is imperative to their health and the well-being of their bodies.

Gluten in itself isn’t necessary to the general population’s diets; however, products that contain gluten, such as wheat, barley and rye, are essential to a healthy diet. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends that around half of the carbohydrates in our diets come from whole grain products, and since gluten – a protein that gives dough its elasticity – is prevalent in the majority of them, cutting out foods such as whole grain bread and pasta could result in a nutritional deficit.

Furthermore, fancy gluten-free bread with milled flaxseed and coconut oil from the bakery at Whole Foods is calorically equivalent to good ol’ fashion whole wheat bread from Walgreens. The sale of gluten-free products hit $4.2 billion in 2012, according to market research firm Packaged Facts, and that number is only expected to grow. With the profusion of sources touting the benefits of going gluten-free, Americans are racing to their nearest groovy grocery stores to bite into a piece of this latest fad diet, but the only belt they’ll be tightening is the one around their wallet.

As with many issues plaguing our society, the problem lies in overconsumption and producer modification. Americans are consuming more and more processed starch products that are developed in laboratories by scientists – not cooks – with the hopes of selling a greater amount of product for the cheapest price. Eating too much of anything puts a strain on your health, which is especially true in the case of food items that have been completely altered from their organic states. Eating natural, minimally processed foods in moderation – that’s the key to a healthy lifestyle, not cutting out major food groups in their entirety.

So the bottom line is, next time you’re waiting in line at C.R.E.A.M. and contemplating sandwiching your salted caramel ice cream between two gluten-free cookies, just don’t do it; never sacrifice the sanctity of your ice cream sandwich in the pursuit of falsified health claims. The bottom line: Gluten doesn’t make you fat, you make you fat.

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