5 ms·

While I agree with most of what is in the article, I always wince when I see whole grains advertised as healthful foods. They're not. Wheat contains gluten, a

by kunai 13y ago

While I agree with most of what is in the article, I always wince when I see whole grains advertised as healthful foods. They're not. Wheat contains gluten, a known gastrointestinal irritant, and celiac and IBD patients know that wheat is one thing you want to stay away from. It can also trigger inflammation and cause serious health problems for anyone with an inflammatory condition. Perhaps proposing gluten-free foods is a better idea. In addition, the guidelines for "advertising to children" are quite peculiar, and I don't know why children should be advertised to at all. What even constitutes advertising to children is not quite clear either.

pranjalv123 13y ago
Of course, most people don't have gluten-related inflammatory conditions, so whole wheat is good for them!
- lysol 13y ago
  In fact, it's statistically rare. Unless you mean that self-diagnosed wannabe celiac stuff.
  - mjfern 13y ago
    It's called gluten intolerance (or sensitivity), not "self-diagnosed wannabe celiac stuff" and last time I checked it affected something like 5% of the US population (some state the incidence rate is as high as ~20%). Most people just live with the stomach discomfort because it's difficult to try a gluten-free diet. And dismissive comments like yours also aren't helpful in motivating people to experiment. I lived with stomach issues for 30+ years, and after trying a myriad of solutions, from eliminating dairy to exercise, I finally tried eliminating gluten from my diet. That did the trick.
    - awolf 13y ago
      Exactly. The jury is still out on exactly how prevalent gluten intolerance is, but the percentage is definitely a lot higher than most would guess. A second problem is that there is a whole spectrum of how intolerant people can be to gluten. Some people will simply find they are a little more constipated or gassy the next day if they eat gluten and some will find that they need to urgently visit the restroom 30 minutes after consuming it. Neither of those groups of people would be considered celiacs. Many of the people in those groups go through live oblivious as to the cause. Unfortunately, ignorance like that of lysol's grandparent comment dominates this debate. It's amazing and a bit scary the number of otherwise intelligent people who blindly assume that what is true for them is true for everyone. It's as if the mere fact that some people prefer to avoid gluten in their diets is a personal affront to them. It baffles me.
    - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
      6 years for me, and it was basically gone in two days after cutting gluten from my diet.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - knowtheory 13y ago
    Edit: This was a reply to Kunai, asserting that gluten is an inflammatory agent. I'm married to a woman with a dietetics degree. We have discussed this subject. She has read papers on the topic, and knows the literature. You, I am guessing, are a software developer, who, in all likelihood has not read the literature on this subject (if this assumption is incorrect i would be happy to stand corrected). It mystifies me how people stand so sure of themselves and claims such as "gluten is an inflammatory agent", despite the fact that grains have been consumed by vast numbers of humans for millennia, the absence of evidence that it causes disease, and the fact that no causal links have been proposed between gluten and causing Celiac disease†. †: my wife says that if you are strongly predisposed to Celiac (which has a genetic component), then yes, consuming gluten may exacerbate your condition. However the idea that you can take an otherwise healthy (or heck even unhealthy) person, force them to gorge on gluten to give them Celiac is definitely wrong.
    - kunai 13y ago
      My genetic markers for gluten were negative, but I do have IBD, and consuming any gluten at all usually causes a marked exacerbation of my symptoms. I am not well-versed in dietetics; although my parents are both physicians, and have seen many patients with Celiac disease and a predisposition towards gluten sensitivity, whereas 20 years ago there were very few. Other physicians have asserted similar stances. It's not empirical, but if you have any evidence that suggests otherwise, I would gladly be corrected.
      - skylan_q 13y ago
        >It's not empirical I'm going to stop you right there and say that evidence is empirical. I'll believe personal experience and observation over some conclusion from a published paper that used obscure statistical methods, possibly lied, got paid to publish a pre-determined finding and found a 2% significance of some occurrence of something with some caveats thrown in. The ADA has no interest in preventing or curing diabetes as curing diabetes would end the institution. The AMA isn't interested in getting people healthy and proper treatment because that would eliminate the need of such an organization. The only reason Snickers isn't in the food pyramid is only because people aren't that stupid... yet. http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/idiocracy_foodpyramid_big.jpg http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/idiocracy...
- volandovengo 13y ago
  Most people don't realize that they too have gluten issues. I thought I didn't have any issues with gluten until I stopped eating it for a month. Now if I eat gluten I get a headache almost immediately afterwards.
lowboy 13y ago
Care to post your sources that show how gluten isn't healthy for those without an intolerance (celiac, IBD, etc)?
- kunai 13y ago
  "There also appears to be an increased incidence of celiac disease, with one study which looked for antibodies from 1950s American blood samples finding that celiac disease is about four times as common as it was" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet#Popularity_and_nonceliac_health_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet#Popularity_and... "One study examined the effect of ω-5 gliadin, the primary cause of wheat dependent exercise/aspirin induced anaphylaxis, and found increased permeability of intestinal cells caused by this gliadin and another wheat albumin." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxic... "Another line of research shows gliadin binds a chemoattractant receptor and causes increases of a factor that destroys tight junctions. These junctions prevent leakage around the cells that line the small intestine, resulting in the leaking of food proteins into the body." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxic...
  - lowboy 13y ago
    It seems like the jury is still out on how many people suffer from gluten sensitivity, or the extent of the negative effect of gliadin. > A 2011 panel of celiac experts concluded that there is a condition related to gluten other than celiac disease and named it "non-celiac gluten sensitivity".[51] however, for those without celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, the diet is unnecessary.
  - ryeguy 13y ago
    The first study is correlative, not causative. The second and third studies are a bit too specific. Can you break this down into a list of effects on every day people? I think this quote sums it up best: "Gluten intolerance is one of the most popular self-diagnoses because of its over-expanded list of potential symptoms. The gluten scare is mostly an overblown hippy-fueled movement."
mosqutip 13y ago
Whole grains are absolutely a healthy choice in food, unless you have Celiac disease. What you're saying equates to calling nuts unhealthy because many people have nut allergies, but this is obviously the exception, not the rule.
- kunai 13y ago
  Well, then I'd take it that many schools banning peanut butter outright due to the fractional number of kids with peanut allergies is... overreaction?
  - cortesoft 13y ago
    People don't have allergic reactions to airborn gluten like they do peanuts. It is not the same.
  - venomsnake 13y ago
    Of course it is overreaction if the kids are above lets say 10.
  - criley 13y ago
    It's risk mitigation, that's all. The concept of a kid going anaphylactic at your business is very unattractive.
  - lowboy 13y ago
    No, it's appropriate to the severity of the allergic reaction, unless you can show me similarly severe cases with gluten as the following: http://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-allergic-reaction/ http://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-alle...
  - silvertonia 13y ago
    Peanut allergies can kill a kid pretty quickly. While it is a very small percentage of people who react strongly enough to it, if you've got a kid in the school with a known hypersensitivity, banning is not a bad idea. Anaphylaxis from food can take a while (up to an hour or two I believe) to set in. When it does, it can cut off an airway, and then you're basically racing against suffocation with an epipen. If the kid's outside at recess or in the bathroom alone or just slow to tell a teacher, you're in a bad situation. I don't know how much gluten it takes to trigger some of the scarier symptoms of IBD or if any of them are lethal in children. My guess is they're not, just because I haven't heard of gluten bans in schools.
hkmurakami 13y ago
One demonstrative experiment is to go cold turkey on grains for a few weeks, then try eating something like a bagel or two. When I did this, I found that eating wheat products made me feel sick. Been largely avoiding grains since (though I "cheat" from time to time)
- cortesoft 13y ago
  You could do the same with lots of foods. If you don't eat veggies for a while, the same thing happens the first vegetable you eat.
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    really? Every time I go non-vegetable, they taste and feel awesome when I come back to them!
  - rickdale 13y ago
    I find that if I become addicted to junk food after a binge weekend, simply fasting for 24hours makes me craaave healthy foods like vegetables, even spinach which I usually hate, and white meats. Its weird, but I recommend at least 24 hours of fasting each week. Its a great system reset.
- lukeschlather 13y ago
  That's true of a lot of foods. Definitely true of meat, especially red meat. I don't think the fact that your stomach has to spend some time adapting to a food is really evidence that it's categorically bad for you.
  - Osmium 13y ago
    >That's true of a lot of foods. Definitely true of meat, especially red meat. I'd definitely be interested in a citation if you have one! I find this really interesting, especially since I've accidentally cut red meat out of my diet recently (despite enjoying it quite a lot, so I don't want to be ill next time I have it!), so I'm wondering on what sort of timescales these effects happen (both losing and gaining the ability to digest a certain food group).
SCdF 13y ago
I am someone who at this stage in life seems to have^ an issue with gluten. Lots of people aren't like me though, and for them I do not believe there is any particularly well documented issues when it comes to gluten. ^Where 'seems to have' is self-produced anecdata: I spend months working through food group diet permutations (starting with removing basically except lightly cooked vegetables, miso soup and congee :-/) in an attempt to zero in on what was causing near-permanent (~10am->sleeping) acid reflux I had developed. Conclusions point fairly strongly to gluten, which I now mostly stay away from (I still eat it occasionally, zomg burgers, I just make sure breads/pasta/etc isn't the base of my diet).
notdang 13y ago
It seems that celiac disease and nut allergy is something specific to US.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  Not at all. Diagnostics may be more common at the US, or mis-diagnostics. Or maybe they are just over reacting to those two problems. But both problems happen all over the world.
medell 13y ago
I feel a Wheat Belly debate coming on.
rickdale 13y ago
Gluten free doesn't mean 100% of the gluten is removed from the food. So most people who are 'severely allergic' to gluten are really just convinced that is the case. The last time I saw my cousin she looked and acted anorexic, meanwhile raving about her new gluten free vegan lifestyle. She looked terrible. My other cousin who suffers from narcolepsy was on the same diet raving about all her new energy while falling asleep at the table. Meanwhile I went from being the fattest person in the family to the most in shape in less than 10 months. I usually jokingly order a side of gluten these days, just to piss the gluten freers off. Tip for American grocery shoppers: Don't hit the isles. Stay within the vegetable and fruits section, shop there, only there, then leave. That is a healthy diet. Usually there are nuts and meat in that section. Don't be looking for the gluten free potato chips and cookies, that isn't healthy.
- awolf 13y ago
  Gluten free means contains no gluten. What are you talking about?
  - kunai 13y ago
    Actually, gluten-free means that there's a very small proportion of gluten in relation to the product, not that 100% of it has been removed. ---- "The current international Codex Alimentarius standard allows for 20 parts per million of gluten in so-called "gluten-free" foods" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet ---- It's enough to prevent exacerbation of symptoms for those with gluten sensitivity, but it's not a complete removal.
    - awolf 13y ago
      What I'm responding to is the fact that most foods don't contain gluten in the first place and people who are severely allergic to gluten know better than to eat foods in which gluten has been "removed" from the food through some chemical process (which is extremely rare, by the way, I can think of only one such product off the top of my head... much more common is accidental cross contamination which is a constant worry for celiacs and gluten intolerant people). Celiacs don't even eat food prepared in the same production environment as foods that contain gluten. The sentiment that these people are deluding themselves because their very careful planned and meticulously controlled gluten free diets still contain gluten is preposterous.
Falling3 13y ago
>Wheat contains gluten, a known gastrointestinal irritant, and celiac and IBD patients know that wheat is one thing you want to stay away from. Yes, and anyone allergic to strawberries know they should be avoided as well.

by kunai 13y ago

pranjalv123 13y ago

Of course, most people don't have gluten-related inflammatory conditions, so whole wheat is good for them!

lysol 13y ago
In fact, it's statistically rare. Unless you mean that self-diagnosed wannabe celiac stuff.
- mjfern 13y ago
  It's called gluten intolerance (or sensitivity), not "self-diagnosed wannabe celiac stuff" and last time I checked it affected something like 5% of the US population (some state the incidence rate is as high as ~20%). Most people just live with the stomach discomfort because it's difficult to try a gluten-free diet. And dismissive comments like yours also aren't helpful in motivating people to experiment. I lived with stomach issues for 30+ years, and after trying a myriad of solutions, from eliminating dairy to exercise, I finally tried eliminating gluten from my diet. That did the trick.
  - awolf 13y ago
    Exactly. The jury is still out on exactly how prevalent gluten intolerance is, but the percentage is definitely a lot higher than most would guess. A second problem is that there is a whole spectrum of how intolerant people can be to gluten. Some people will simply find they are a little more constipated or gassy the next day if they eat gluten and some will find that they need to urgently visit the restroom 30 minutes after consuming it. Neither of those groups of people would be considered celiacs. Many of the people in those groups go through live oblivious as to the cause. Unfortunately, ignorance like that of lysol's grandparent comment dominates this debate. It's amazing and a bit scary the number of otherwise intelligent people who blindly assume that what is true for them is true for everyone. It's as if the mere fact that some people prefer to avoid gluten in their diets is a personal affront to them. It baffles me.
  - aaronbrethorst 13y ago
    6 years for me, and it was basically gone in two days after cutting gluten from my diet.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
- knowtheory 13y ago
  Edit: This was a reply to Kunai, asserting that gluten is an inflammatory agent. I'm married to a woman with a dietetics degree. We have discussed this subject. She has read papers on the topic, and knows the literature. You, I am guessing, are a software developer, who, in all likelihood has not read the literature on this subject (if this assumption is incorrect i would be happy to stand corrected). It mystifies me how people stand so sure of themselves and claims such as "gluten is an inflammatory agent", despite the fact that grains have been consumed by vast numbers of humans for millennia, the absence of evidence that it causes disease, and the fact that no causal links have been proposed between gluten and causing Celiac disease†. †: my wife says that if you are strongly predisposed to Celiac (which has a genetic component), then yes, consuming gluten may exacerbate your condition. However the idea that you can take an otherwise healthy (or heck even unhealthy) person, force them to gorge on gluten to give them Celiac is definitely wrong.
  - kunai 13y ago
    My genetic markers for gluten were negative, but I do have IBD, and consuming any gluten at all usually causes a marked exacerbation of my symptoms. I am not well-versed in dietetics; although my parents are both physicians, and have seen many patients with Celiac disease and a predisposition towards gluten sensitivity, whereas 20 years ago there were very few. Other physicians have asserted similar stances. It's not empirical, but if you have any evidence that suggests otherwise, I would gladly be corrected.
    - skylan_q 13y ago
      >It's not empirical I'm going to stop you right there and say that evidence is empirical. I'll believe personal experience and observation over some conclusion from a published paper that used obscure statistical methods, possibly lied, got paid to publish a pre-determined finding and found a 2% significance of some occurrence of something with some caveats thrown in. The ADA has no interest in preventing or curing diabetes as curing diabetes would end the institution. The AMA isn't interested in getting people healthy and proper treatment because that would eliminate the need of such an organization. The only reason Snickers isn't in the food pyramid is only because people aren't that stupid... yet. http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/idiocracy_foodpyramid_big.jpg http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/idiocracy...
volandovengo 13y ago
Most people don't realize that they too have gluten issues. I thought I didn't have any issues with gluten until I stopped eating it for a month. Now if I eat gluten I get a headache almost immediately afterwards.

lowboy 13y ago

Care to post your sources that show how gluten isn't healthy for those without an intolerance (celiac, IBD, etc)?

kunai 13y ago
"There also appears to be an increased incidence of celiac disease, with one study which looked for antibodies from 1950s American blood samples finding that celiac disease is about four times as common as it was" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet#Popularity_and_nonceliac_health_effects http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet#Popularity_and... "One study examined the effect of ω-5 gliadin, the primary cause of wheat dependent exercise/aspirin induced anaphylaxis, and found increased permeability of intestinal cells caused by this gliadin and another wheat albumin." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxic... "Another line of research shows gliadin binds a chemoattractant receptor and causes increases of a factor that destroys tight junctions. These junctions prevent leakage around the cells that line the small intestine, resulting in the leaking of food proteins into the body." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_sensitivity#Gluten_toxic...
- lowboy 13y ago
  It seems like the jury is still out on how many people suffer from gluten sensitivity, or the extent of the negative effect of gliadin. > A 2011 panel of celiac experts concluded that there is a condition related to gluten other than celiac disease and named it "non-celiac gluten sensitivity".[51] however, for those without celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, the diet is unnecessary.
- ryeguy 13y ago
  The first study is correlative, not causative. The second and third studies are a bit too specific. Can you break this down into a list of effects on every day people? I think this quote sums it up best: "Gluten intolerance is one of the most popular self-diagnoses because of its over-expanded list of potential symptoms. The gluten scare is mostly an overblown hippy-fueled movement."

mosqutip 13y ago

Whole grains are absolutely a healthy choice in food, unless you have Celiac disease. What you're saying equates to calling nuts unhealthy because many people have nut allergies, but this is obviously the exception, not the rule.

kunai 13y ago
Well, then I'd take it that many schools banning peanut butter outright due to the fractional number of kids with peanut allergies is... overreaction?
- cortesoft 13y ago
  People don't have allergic reactions to airborn gluten like they do peanuts. It is not the same.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Of course it is overreaction if the kids are above lets say 10.
- criley 13y ago
  It's risk mitigation, that's all. The concept of a kid going anaphylactic at your business is very unattractive.
- lowboy 13y ago
  No, it's appropriate to the severity of the allergic reaction, unless you can show me similarly severe cases with gluten as the following: http://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-allergic-reaction/ http://fox13now.com/2013/04/26/boy-11-dies-after-severe-alle...
- silvertonia 13y ago
  Peanut allergies can kill a kid pretty quickly. While it is a very small percentage of people who react strongly enough to it, if you've got a kid in the school with a known hypersensitivity, banning is not a bad idea. Anaphylaxis from food can take a while (up to an hour or two I believe) to set in. When it does, it can cut off an airway, and then you're basically racing against suffocation with an epipen. If the kid's outside at recess or in the bathroom alone or just slow to tell a teacher, you're in a bad situation. I don't know how much gluten it takes to trigger some of the scarier symptoms of IBD or if any of them are lethal in children. My guess is they're not, just because I haven't heard of gluten bans in schools.

hkmurakami 13y ago

One demonstrative experiment is to go cold turkey on grains for a few weeks, then try eating something like a bagel or two. When I did this, I found that eating wheat products made me feel sick. Been largely avoiding grains since (though I "cheat" from time to time)

cortesoft 13y ago
You could do the same with lots of foods. If you don't eat veggies for a while, the same thing happens the first vegetable you eat.
- hkmurakami 13y ago
  really? Every time I go non-vegetable, they taste and feel awesome when I come back to them!
- rickdale 13y ago
  I find that if I become addicted to junk food after a binge weekend, simply fasting for 24hours makes me craaave healthy foods like vegetables, even spinach which I usually hate, and white meats. Its weird, but I recommend at least 24 hours of fasting each week. Its a great system reset.
lukeschlather 13y ago
That's true of a lot of foods. Definitely true of meat, especially red meat. I don't think the fact that your stomach has to spend some time adapting to a food is really evidence that it's categorically bad for you.
- Osmium 13y ago
  >That's true of a lot of foods. Definitely true of meat, especially red meat. I'd definitely be interested in a citation if you have one! I find this really interesting, especially since I've accidentally cut red meat out of my diet recently (despite enjoying it quite a lot, so I don't want to be ill next time I have it!), so I'm wondering on what sort of timescales these effects happen (both losing and gaining the ability to digest a certain food group).

SCdF 13y ago

I am someone who at this stage in life seems to have^ an issue with gluten. Lots of people aren't like me though, and for them I do not believe there is any particularly well documented issues when it comes to gluten. ^Where 'seems to have' is self-produced anecdata: I spend months working through food group diet permutations (starting with removing basically except lightly cooked vegetables, miso soup and congee :-/) in an attempt to zero in on what was causing near-permanent (~10am->sleeping) acid reflux I had developed. Conclusions point fairly strongly to gluten, which I now mostly stay away from (I still eat it occasionally, zomg burgers, I just make sure breads/pasta/etc isn't the base of my diet).

notdang 13y ago

It seems that celiac disease and nut allergy is something specific to US.

marcosdumay 13y ago
Not at all. Diagnostics may be more common at the US, or mis-diagnostics. Or maybe they are just over reacting to those two problems. But both problems happen all over the world.

medell 13y ago

I feel a Wheat Belly debate coming on.

rickdale 13y ago

Gluten free doesn't mean 100% of the gluten is removed from the food. So most people who are 'severely allergic' to gluten are really just convinced that is the case. The last time I saw my cousin she looked and acted anorexic, meanwhile raving about her new gluten free vegan lifestyle. She looked terrible. My other cousin who suffers from narcolepsy was on the same diet raving about all her new energy while falling asleep at the table. Meanwhile I went from being the fattest person in the family to the most in shape in less than 10 months. I usually jokingly order a side of gluten these days, just to piss the gluten freers off. Tip for American grocery shoppers: Don't hit the isles. Stay within the vegetable and fruits section, shop there, only there, then leave. That is a healthy diet. Usually there are nuts and meat in that section. Don't be looking for the gluten free potato chips and cookies, that isn't healthy.

awolf 13y ago
Gluten free means contains no gluten. What are you talking about?
- kunai 13y ago
  Actually, gluten-free means that there's a very small proportion of gluten in relation to the product, not that 100% of it has been removed. ---- "The current international Codex Alimentarius standard allows for 20 parts per million of gluten in so-called "gluten-free" foods" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diet ---- It's enough to prevent exacerbation of symptoms for those with gluten sensitivity, but it's not a complete removal.
  - awolf 13y ago
    What I'm responding to is the fact that most foods don't contain gluten in the first place and people who are severely allergic to gluten know better than to eat foods in which gluten has been "removed" from the food through some chemical process (which is extremely rare, by the way, I can think of only one such product off the top of my head... much more common is accidental cross contamination which is a constant worry for celiacs and gluten intolerant people). Celiacs don't even eat food prepared in the same production environment as foods that contain gluten. The sentiment that these people are deluding themselves because their very careful planned and meticulously controlled gluten free diets still contain gluten is preposterous.

Falling3 13y ago

>Wheat contains gluten, a known gastrointestinal irritant, and celiac and IBD patients know that wheat is one thing you want to stay away from. Yes, and anyone allergic to strawberries know they should be avoided as well.