This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UVM chapter.
One of the latest and fastest growing nutrition crazes is going “gluten free.” Gluten is the ingredient in breads and pizza dough that give it a chewy texture and traps carbon dioxide as it ferments allowing it to rise, but more and more people are choosing to rid their diet of gluten completely. The gluten free market has taken off rapidly since 2011 and will surpass fifteen billion dollars by 2016. This is all great news for people who have celiac disease, which is a severe allergy to gluten. When someone with celiac disease eats gluten products, which represent nearly 1/3 of the food products in the average grocery store, it affects the lining of their small intestine and leads to stomach irregularity and prevents the absorption of essential nutrients. Luckily, only about 1% of the American population has celiac disease, but the demand for gluten free products is much higher than just 1%.
So, why are increasing numbers of consumers going out of their way, and paying more for gluten free products? Some gluten free defenders argue that the wheat we consume today is not the same wheat we would have consumed 50 years ago, because it has been so processed and modified that nearly 40% of the population is unable to adequately digest the gluten in it. However, after researches studied the wheat some more it was determined the wheat has not change, but their grew concerns about unknown environmental hazards that lead to a small increase in the population of people with celiac disease in the last 50 years.
Today, many people choose gluten free diets because they have undiagnosed non-celiac gluten sensitivities, and they attribute their headaches, nausea, and trouble sleeping to their intolerance to gluten. Others perceive the gluten free diet as healthier, which is not necessarily true. What tends to make the gluten free diet appear healthier, is the fact that many people pay more attention to what they are consuming if they are following a gluten free diet. Additionally, many people who have tried a gluten free diet claim it resolved their digestion troubles. However, there is not much scientific evidence supporting the danger of gluten in the average diet. Small studies have been conducted displaying contradicting evidence; so more research is being conducted to understand the affects of gluten, and its impact on digestion.