2014: A year of battle lines drawn through dinner table

Have you picked a side yet? If not, you’d better think fast, because the battle lines are being drawn and they cut right down the dinner table.

For if there was any theme to the food world in 2014, it was the prevalence of polarizing issues. Whether we were tussling over genetically modified organisms, or debating how healthy is too healthy for school lunches, or scolding one another for our gluten choices, this year our collective culinary consciousness seemed mired in disputes.

So here’s a roundup of some of the more contentious items on this year’s menu of food news: To gluten or not to gluten

Oh, that pesky grain protein. For several years now gluten has been the “new fat,” that demonized ingredient-ofthe-moment that countless Americans obsess over. And like so many dietary fads before it, the anti-gluten movement has heralded a tidal wave of products and promises.

But this is no ordinary Snackwell’s situation. Gluten — which can pop up unexpectedly across the food chain — really can make people diagnosed with celiac and other digestive disorders exceedingly ill. Except that those folks alone — by some measures about 3 million — can’t account for the growth of the gluten-free market into a multi-billion-dollar industry.

And there’s our dispute. Experts increasingly — and with greater volume — question the value of going glutenfree without a diagnosis, yet plenty of people staunchly stand by anecdotal health benefits.

And so we have a glut of gluten-free products, from doughnuts to dog food. Now even Fido can pick a side.

At least we can now agree on what gluten-free means. As of August, the term is regulated, meaning manufacturers no longer can slap it willynilly on packages. GMO, Yes or no?

Like it or not, genetically modified foods are on the menu. So this year, the debate centered on how much we should know about that.

Advocates of GMOs — mostly business interests behind the industry — say the foods not only are safe but are key to managing the world’s increasingly complex agricultural needs.

Critics say we don’t yet know enough about the foods to make that leap. But seeming to accept that the foods are here to stay, lately they have focused their efforts on legislation that would require labeling for foods containing GMO ingredients.

That set the stage for bigspending battles to win over voters. In May, Vermont became the first state to require the labels, but that’s on hold pending legal challenges. Ballot measures that would have required labeling in California and Washington already had been defeated, and a similar measure in Oregon failed this year.