Gluten Intolerance and Diet

For people living with gluten allergies or intolerances, eating in American society can be a complex, sinister task in which it seems as if manufacturers are out to sneak wheat, barley, rye, or oats into every single food that exisits on American supermarket shelves today.

Gluten intolerance involves the body's inability to digest readily (or at all) barley, wheat, rye, or oats. In some gluten-intolerant persons, such as the 1% of all Americans who struggle with Celiac Disease, the substance embeds itself in the villi in the small and large intestine, flattening the thin, finger-like projections that line the intestine and help to push particles through the digestive tract while absorbing nutrients from the food. When the offending substance flattens these villi, it makes the body unable to absorb nutrients, and the food is unable to do its job.

While gluten is quite obviously found in the grains such as barley, wheat, rye, and oats, it is also found in most beers, many hard liquors, many condiments, and in preservatives such as "modified food starch," which sounds non-threatening until a person with a food intolerance eats it and experiences digestive distress for a day or two. Condiments such as mustard, mayonaisse, salad dressing, and even ketchup may have hidden sources of gluten for those with an intolerance issue.

You might think a basic rice-based cereal would be safe, but most conventional food manufacturers sneak barley malt into store-shelf rice cereals. To be 100% safe, people with intolerance must call food manufacturers to confirm that various foods do not contain gluten. Even thickeners with gluten are used in certain ice creams, a seemingly innocuous item; shredded cheese often includes wheat as an anti-caking agent, and wheat is also used in some ground spices to prevent caking as well.

While most barley, wheat, rye, and oat intolerances are diagnosed in early childhood, the trend has been changing: for unknown reasons, more and more adults are being diagnosed with this extreme intolerance. Medical science hasn't caught up in its understanding of this new trend, but the results, whether the patient is a child or an adult, are the same: never eat these substances.

People with this kind of intolerance must be monitored closely and regularly by physicians. Blood work indicating the level of gluten in the blood is done every three months. In addition, living on such a careful diet can be expensive. While a five pound bag of wheat flour can run $.99, just one pound of rice flur may cost $.99. The economic cost of living with celiac and this intolerance can be staggering.

More and more manufacturers are working with accommodations for this intolerance. As long as people with these conditions and allergies have the information they need and are firmly educated about the ways to avoid foods that provoke problems, the patient can live a normal livfe on an abnormal diet.