7 ms·

My hot take: a bunch of shitty gluten free food products have displaced better, cheaper, quality food. The people who think they are gluten intolerant are worse

My hot take: a bunch of shitty gluten free food products have displaced better, cheaper, quality food. The people who think they are gluten intolerant are worse off, the people who are gluten tolerant are worse off, and the .5% of actual celiac sufferers are better off.

caslon 5y ago
Aside from the pandemic years, which are outliers, food has been consistently getting drastically cheaper for decades: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditure-series/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditure-seri...
- danuker 5y ago
  What actual spreadsheet are you looking at? "Constant dollar food and alcohol expenditures, with taxes and tips, for all purchasers"? Because expenditure grew. Look at the FAO food price index, and you see it only decreased since 2010-ish, but on average since 1961 prices grew to roughly match inflation. https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/worldfood/images/home_graph_3_dec265.jpg https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/worldfood/images/hom... https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/ https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/
alisonkisk 5y ago
Can you give one example?
emodendroket 5y ago
Nobody forces you to buy the gluten-free pasta or whatever, so I can't see how things are worse for the people who neither have nor believe themselves to have Celiac disease.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Yeah, I don’t know what this is about. You can buy stuff with gluten in it. But I can kind of see it as if you had 99 things that meet your preference and 1 thing that doesn’t, then when you move to a world with 900 things that meet your preference and 100 that don’t, you see that as 9% of things being displaced rather than you having additional 801 things. In fact, I shall call this the Percentage Bias. The Percentage Bias is when you allege displacement by looking at alterations in ratios without looking at alterations in total amounts.
  - pksebben 5y ago
    It does come off as a bit kneejerk, huh. There's this like, cultural thing where folks just get mad at people who do things they don't understand, especially when they perceive it as 'dumb'. My question to that is; why on earth do you care what other people choose to do and why? I get that there was an argument made here to that effect, but for real, nobody is suffering from other people eating less gluten. I know I'm not and I love me a good bagel.
BadCookie 5y ago
I mistakenly thought that I was better off not eating gluten because I felt much better after going gluten free. I am now fairly sure that the real benefit I experienced came from reducing my sugar intake. Cutting out gluten tends to cut out sugar in tandem: breakfast cereal, cookies, cake, and so on. I wonder if this explains why so many people who aren’t celiac think they see a big benefit from a gluten-free diet. Lots of Americans are flirting with diabetes if they aren’t already diabetic. (And lots of sugar isn’t great for a person even if they are completely healthy.)
- carlmr 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's it. But good luck explaining this to a believer.
  - User23 5y ago
    Gluten is an important dietary protein source for vegetarians and vegans.
    - mikeyjk 5y ago
      What makes it important? Isn't protein really easy to get from veges? Like chickpeas, tofu, tempeh, quinoa, edamame, lentils, etc
      - rsanek 5y ago
        It's crazy to me how all of these examples are either legumes or legume derivatives, and the one exception (quinoa) actually isn't a very good source of protein.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Autistic persons may get complications from eating gluten, because it may not break down completely and instead forms gliadorphin (gluteomorphin), which is a morphine peptide. It causes damage to intestinal villi and reduces gut motility, hiding the damage.
watwut 5y ago
I am gluten tolerant and my life was absolutely totally unaffected.

caslon 5y ago

Aside from the pandemic years, which are outliers, food has been consistently getting drastically cheaper for decades: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditure-series/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditure-seri...

danuker 5y ago
What actual spreadsheet are you looking at? "Constant dollar food and alcohol expenditures, with taxes and tips, for all purchasers"? Because expenditure grew. Look at the FAO food price index, and you see it only decreased since 2010-ish, but on average since 1961 prices grew to roughly match inflation. https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/worldfood/images/home_graph_3_dec265.jpg https://www.fao.org/fileadmin/templates/worldfood/images/hom... https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/ https://www.fao.org/worldfoodsituation/foodpricesindex/en/

alisonkisk 5y ago

Can you give one example?

emodendroket 5y ago

Nobody forces you to buy the gluten-free pasta or whatever, so I can't see how things are worse for the people who neither have nor believe themselves to have Celiac disease.

renewiltord 5y ago
Yeah, I don’t know what this is about. You can buy stuff with gluten in it. But I can kind of see it as if you had 99 things that meet your preference and 1 thing that doesn’t, then when you move to a world with 900 things that meet your preference and 100 that don’t, you see that as 9% of things being displaced rather than you having additional 801 things. In fact, I shall call this the Percentage Bias. The Percentage Bias is when you allege displacement by looking at alterations in ratios without looking at alterations in total amounts.
- pksebben 5y ago
  It does come off as a bit kneejerk, huh. There's this like, cultural thing where folks just get mad at people who do things they don't understand, especially when they perceive it as 'dumb'. My question to that is; why on earth do you care what other people choose to do and why? I get that there was an argument made here to that effect, but for real, nobody is suffering from other people eating less gluten. I know I'm not and I love me a good bagel.

BadCookie 5y ago

I mistakenly thought that I was better off not eating gluten because I felt much better after going gluten free. I am now fairly sure that the real benefit I experienced came from reducing my sugar intake. Cutting out gluten tends to cut out sugar in tandem: breakfast cereal, cookies, cake, and so on. I wonder if this explains why so many people who aren’t celiac think they see a big benefit from a gluten-free diet. Lots of Americans are flirting with diabetes if they aren’t already diabetic. (And lots of sugar isn’t great for a person even if they are completely healthy.)

carlmr 5y ago
I'm pretty sure that's it. But good luck explaining this to a believer.
- User23 5y ago
  Gluten is an important dietary protein source for vegetarians and vegans.
  - mikeyjk 5y ago
    What makes it important? Isn't protein really easy to get from veges? Like chickpeas, tofu, tempeh, quinoa, edamame, lentils, etc
    - rsanek 5y ago
      It's crazy to me how all of these examples are either legumes or legume derivatives, and the one exception (quinoa) actually isn't a very good source of protein.
eurasiantiger 5y ago
Autistic persons may get complications from eating gluten, because it may not break down completely and instead forms gliadorphin (gluteomorphin), which is a morphine peptide. It causes damage to intestinal villi and reduces gut motility, hiding the damage.

watwut 5y ago

I am gluten tolerant and my life was absolutely totally unaffected.