An Opinion.

The following is an opinion.  It is an opinion gathered from experience, and research, and listening.  Just listening to people can provide great insight and allow you to state your opinions in a manner which shows that there is basis and value to that opinion. 

A good friend of mine recently had a small rant online about the not based in science claims about food, wheat, sugars, etc.  I chimed in because in the time I've been cooking, researching food, and learning how to cook a healthy, yet tasty and complete menu, I've found that there is a lot of misinformation about food, the effects of food, and the American diet. 

Let's start with wheat.  I've known people with real problems with gluten.  I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with Celiac Disease, a condition in which gluten makes the small hairs inside your intestine basically lie down and turn you into a funnel for the food you eat.  This is a serious and potentially fatal condition that is made easier to bear thanks to people thinking that a gluten free diet is going to make them healthy.  The gluten free craze has resulted in bakeries, restaurants and even breweries developing flavorful gluten free products.  Celiac Disease is a fairly rare condition, however, and the people in the world that are truly sensitive to gluten is a very small minority.   This doesn't stop people from eliminating gluten from their diet in a desperate attempt to make themselves feel better. 

The problem with the theory that gluten is at the root of all their problems is simple.  Wheat is at the base of the food chains for practically every society in the world.  Countries like Italy and France do not have the health problems, the obesity, or the diabetes that we do as a society.  Within our society the groups that have higher rates of obesity, diabetes and health problems do not eat a lot of wheat as a rule.  The problem is not gluten, or sugar, or fatty foods, the problem is excess.  Many people who eliminate gluten from their diet probably do feel better for a short time, not because they have eliminated gluten but because they have taken one form of excess from their diet.  Americans have wheat at every meal.  Toast with breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, dinner rolls at dinner, and cookies, pastries, or cake for dessert.   This is 4 to 6 servings of wheat a day.  Usually in most diets this is also not the only starch they have, hash browns at breakfast, french fries or chips at lunch, and potatoes or rice with dinner.  This excess is what is the problem.

If people simply looked at their diet and balanced it better, ate smaller portions, avoided getting seconds and thirds, chose to ate roasted potatoes instead of fries, left the gluten out of one meal, or left the soda pop in the cooler, they would feel better without denying themselves something they enjoy.

We avoid high fructose corn syrup but buy things sweetened with GMO sugar beet sugar instead.  We demonize sugar but continue to eat it in its many forms believing that by eschewing processed sugar we are somehow more righteous.  If we as Americans started by avoiding the excess our society has suckled, if we just look at our ingredients, if we try not to eat too much of one thing, we will live healthier, longer, more productive lives.  If we, however, continue to live in excess, and by excess I include excessively eliminating basic foods from our diet, we will continue to suffer from the many problems associated with our excessive behavior.

In short, my opinion is that it is not gluten, sugar, or even high fructose corn syrup that is at the base of our health problems but the excess of our lives.  Excessive eating, dieting, restricting, buying, and living our lives in excess.  The old motto to "live simply, that others may simply live" needs to be the refrain we hear more often.