The Real Side Effect Of A Gluten-Free Diet: Scientific Illiteracy

 

 

GLUTEN LIE

 

 

 

” Walk into any grocery store or coffee shop and you’ll find gluten-free muffins, gluten-free chips, and gluten-free bread. Gluten has replaced fat as the ingredient we love to shun.

  And yet, scientists can’t find any good evidence to support this fad. Gluten is a protein composite that gives shape to grains like wheat, rye, and barley. And it’s true that a very small fraction of people have celiac disease, a real medical condition that causes their bodies to violently reject gluten. But that’s only a small fraction of people, and it’s not enough to explain the craze. The rest of us are going gluten-free without any real scientific basis for doing so.

  It’s exactly because the gluten-free diet has surged in popularity recently, despite the science, that Alan Jay Levinovitz, a professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison University, became fascinated by it. I talked to him about his new book, The Gluten Lie, to better understand why we’ve gone against this grain to the tune of more than $10 billion this year. “

 

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