Food fads: Don’t be a gluten for punishment
JUST like it became fashionable to ditch the carbs or skip breakfast (which has now been given the fancy name of ‘intermittent fasting’), going gluten-free has also become increasingly fashionable.
Let’s face it – if you were given a slice of normal bread and a gluten-free version, you’d presume the latter would be healthier, right? The same goes for any dish on a restaurant menu.
The assumption that gluten-free foods are healthier has become a trend, but dietitian Melissa Meier wants you to change this mindset.
“If you look on the packet of a gluten-free product, nine times out of 10 it’s full of rubbish because they take the gluten out and put all this stuff in there to make it taste better,” she says on the latest episode of Healthy-ish, Are food intolerances just fashionable?
“So there’s really refined flours and additives and that kind of thing to make it taste good. Whereas if you could just eat the wholegrain bread, it’s fine to do that.”
Ms Meier has been coeliac for 11 years and used to suffer with “lots of gastrointestinal issues” like “bloating, pain diarrhoea, the lot”. The rise of the gluten-free trend has had benefits for her – as well as for every other coeliac – but it’s also had negative repercussions for those who don’t fall into this category.
“In some ways it’s a really good thing that there’s all this focus on gluten-free. Every restaurant I go to has glutenfree items on their menu,” she explains. “It’s so easy to go into a supermarket and buy something that’s gluten-free.
“But obviously, it’s not so good for the people that are just trying to do it fashionably because they’re not getting any nutritional benefit from it.”
Instead of cutting out gluten, Ms Meier wants you to focus on eating wholefoods.
“It’s just about eating healthy, whole core foods – that’s how you have a healthy gluten-free diet. You don’t have to go into the supermarket and buy packets and packets and packets of different things. Just eat real food.”
And for those who do have a gluten intolerance, there’s an abundance of healthy wholefood options for you, too.
“Vegetables, fruit, wholegrains that are gluten-free – things like quinoa, buckwheat, that kind of thing – lean protein – and flavour things with herbs and spices rather than pre-made sauces and condiments.
“That’s healthy eating advice for anyone, not just people that are gluten-free.”
Think of it like this: “People know you take out pizza, burgers, pastries and all of that stuff, and of course that’s not healthy to be eating. But it’s not because of the gluten that’s in those foods. It’s the saturated fat, sodium and sugar that’s in all of those foods that people associate with gluten, but gluten itself.”
In fact, there’s a long list of scientifically proven foods that are healthy for you and contain gluten.
“Eating gluten-containing foods can be healthy – like wholegrain bread, rolled oats, all of those foods that have gluten in them that we know are so good for us. There’s so much scientific research supporting wholegrains, so it’s not healthy to be glutenfree.” it’s not the
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