The Gluten Free Market Trends

David Zinczenko's article "Don't Blame the Eater" discuses with regard to a series of health-related topics involving food that most people and, particularly, young individuals eat today. The article is meant to raise public awareness concerning the risks associated with consuming particular foods. These respective risks are generally ignored because companies selling the products refrain from emphasizing the exact effects that consuming their food can have on someone's health. The reality is that cheap foods are an appealing alternative for young people who are more concerned about the quantity than the quality of the foods they eat.

While a gluten-free diet can be life changing to a celiac patient it can be damaging to someone like me who is not celiac nor gluten intolerant. Yet the gluten-free diet seems to the be new black in North American house holds. As reported in Gluten Free Diet Fad

I promise not to bore you with statistics, but medical conditions including food allergies, celiac disease and gluten intolerance have become a large, growing problem in the United States. Official estimates are that 4% of adults and 8% of children have food allergies while almost 7% of all Americans suffer from celiac disease or a form of gluten sensitivity. If you translate that into actual population, in Maryland alone, a conservative estimate would be over a half million

Video “InFact: Gluten Free Diets” by Brain Dunning. Being a waitress I am always being asked if we can accommodate a gluten- free diet. If our food contains gluten and if we have gluten free products such as bread. To be honest I don’t even know what gluten is. This video points out gluten is a protein which is found in wheat, rye, and barley. When people ask me for gluten free I have always wondered if it’s for health benefits or some kind of allergy. Dunning answered my question, with his claim that some people cannot tolerate gluten including people who have celiac disease. He also does point out that gluten- free fad has grown. It is another thing people are worrying about for no real reason. So yes some eat gluten- free for health reason

In recent years people have become more and more health conscious, but many people are more scared of gluten then they are of food that has been proven

If you recently eliminated a common food ingredient from your diet by choice or due to a health problem, then you are likely learning that eating out is tough when you have dietary restrictions. Cooking and eating at home every night can become boring night after night, so it is important to learn what you can and cannot eat at popular restaurants. One type of restaurant that can have a surprising number of options for people with dietary restrictions is the Mexican restaurant. Read on to find out just what Mexican dishes you can eat when you must eat a gluten-free diet or are vegan.

Despite what you might see on the labels of all manner of foods in the grocery store, or hear from enthusiastic celebrity spokespeople, gluten free is not the right choice for everyone. An estimate has from 5% - 6% of us, some 18 million Americans, having some level of sensitivity to gluten.

3. In her article “Understanding WHEAT &GLUTEN: Issues in Today's Clients” Tammera Karr writes about the health concerns involving gluten consumption and the current research involving it. She writes that there is extensive research about gluten that shows that is causes several different health problems as indicated in answer 1. She summarizes how the immune system works in our body and about how our T cells are able to destroy antigens in the body and they also function in signaling other cells of the immune system to perform what they are supposed to do. This is important because a person who has a gluten allergy has T cells that do not work properly and they are not able to differentiate between the good and the bad things in their body. Karr writes that when a person consumes gluten, that gluten is carrying DNA of foreign bodies that are not naturally found in wheat. Proteins called Glaidins are one of the foreign bodies it carries and this protein can be found in rye, barley, spelt, trticale, and oats that have been cross contaminated. Gliadin acts as a trigger to the lymphocytes in the small intestine and it causes inflammation also known as “leaky gut syndome”(Karr). These Gliadin proteins are not naturally occurring. Wheat hybridization, genetic engineering, herbicide, and pesticide usage, sail husbandry, and food manufacturing are more commonly used and are the main source of these proteins. Because our

The term gluten has become a generic word to describe the protein that causes inflammation in patients with celiac disease when in actuality the disease is activated by a peptide in wheat and two separate proteins in rye and barley. Researchers have found other environmental factors that lead to development of the disease in individuals that carry the proper genetic makeup including early gluten introduction to children, cesarean delivery, and lack of breast-feeding (Kupfer & Jabri,

Inspired by a movement that touts healthy eating and warns of danger from an industrialized food supply, millions of Americans are cutting back on processed and fast foods and sugary soda. Many are turning to fresh, lean and “clean” foods out of fear that sugar, salt, fat and additives can lead to heart disease, obesity, diabetes and other problems. Other Americans, however, continue to eat unhealthily, contributing to record levels of diet-related illnesses and rising health care costs. Healthy-eating activists want the government to tax sugary sodas, mandate expanded nutrition labels and restrict portion sizes. The food industry is fighting such proposals, contending that changing the nation 's eating habits lies more with the free market than with legislation. Meanwhile, nutritionists and medical professionals are debating the value of gluten-free diets, with proponents claiming that wheat products lead to a wide range of illnesses and critics arguing that the diets lack scientific merit.

One reason there has been an increase in gluten free consumers is because of a drive for health and weight loss. In many modern diets, cutting carbs is portrayed as the first thing to cut out of your diet if you are trying to lose weight and gluten is found in almost all carbohydrates which makes going gluten free the easiest way to cut carbs. In fact, around twenty-two percent of Americans believe that gluten is unhealthy and twenty-seven percent of people who eat gluten free do it to help them in their weight lose efforts (Shoukas). However, Jillian Michaels, an American personal trainer, author, and businesswoman, disproves this myth. She explains that gluten is not harmful to one’s health and will not cause weight gain. That weight loss occurs from balance, healthy diets (Michaels). In other words, too much or too little of any type of food in a diet is unhealthy and in order to lose weight, you need to have sensible amounts of all foods as opposed to just cutting out some food groups.

2.7 million people in Britain believe gluten is harmful (Fenton). America is being overrun by gluten-free fad diets that are misleading the public. Contrary to the common misconception, it is unwise for people who are not allergic to gluten to go on gluten free diets, because these diets are unhealthy, harmful, and impractical. Gluten is actually good for nutrition, gluten free substitutes are more expensive, contain dangerously high levels of arsenic, have less nutrition, and can cause weight gain.

With this in mind, there are brands who innovate their products and make way to produce bread and other delicacies that are gluten-free to ensure that they can reach the gluten-free people market. These gluten free bread brands may be few compared to those who manufacture normal and regular breads, but they can still keep the market abuzz with their different gluten-free foods.

When I was attending primary school, maladies such as non-celiac gluten-sensitivity did not exist. Fast forward to the year 2016, and I can name at least five people who are gluten-free. The popularity of the gluten-free diet has grown, with, “approximately 30% of the US population adhering to a gluten-free diet” (Linda Johanson, 2015). Why is it that so much of the US population has adopted a gluten-free diet? According to the American Journal of Cardiology (AJC), this trend has been fueled by,

The distorted image of gluten in the media is due to food companies taking advantage of gluten-insensitive people’s drives for perfection in order to make more profit. In reality, gluten has no bad health effects for those without gluten-sensitivity. Moreover, a gluten-free diet can have negative health effects in people who are insensitive to gluten.