Food B.S.: Where Science, Sanity, and Satire Collide by Barbara McDermott

Author:Barbara McDermott [McDermott, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2017-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 6:

I’m Not A Gluten Freak!

It’s gluten-free! The gold standard of…what, exactly? So trendy. So foodie. So chic.

A fellow elementary school teacher shared with me as we sat together on the school bus. We were on the road, taking our 5th graders on a field trip. Like many relationships develop, we had gotten to know each other in small fragments. Lunch Room. Recess. Teacher’s Lounge. Faculty Meetings.

You see it too, right?

Our encounters always involved food. Food. If we are saddled with a health issue, we might take closer notice of each other’s food choices, what’s on the plates, what’s usually reached for.

How does each faculty member negotiate the parent-gifted Teacher Appreciation Day lunch spread? (I witnessed a similar food offering ritual at a doctor’s office gifted by a pharmaceutical company…so many layers of crazy! Especially because the medical staff couldn’t see it…or could they? I don’t know.) Those of us enlightened folk…not because we sought it out by choice, but because life threw us a curve ball…know the deeper science of food. While the rest of the world ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhhs’ over color, presentation, purity, and taste, we see it all so very clearly, undistracted by the fanfare.

So, this coworker knew she had a friend in me because when she first “came out of the closet” mentioning that she ate gluten-free, I asked what her health challenge was.

Her response? “Wow. You’re the first person who ever asked me that.” She told me that she hesitated to share her gluten-free life because most people had quickly judged that she was just being a trendy food snob. “I’m not following the latest trend…I HAVE to eat this way!” she shared with me.

Food is right up there with religion and politics. We are subject to judgment and contempt (a mixture of disgust and anger). There’s personal bias, identity, ethics, even morality. People can be put off or irritated when we politely decline and then we are labeled a “gluten-freak.”

A troublemaker. A boat-rocker. Overly picky. Being difficult. Making things harder than they have to be.

But what’s really happening, under the surface? We are making the others uncomfortable. They ask themselves, “What am I missing?” Shadows of doubt. “Don’t rock my world!!!” Again, this was me.

Science Time

Gluten is the protein component of wheat and other grains. It has the unique capacity to cross the blood-brain barrier, causing addictive behaviors, just like a drug addiction. When gluten is digested, a polypeptide called gluteomorphin crosses into the brain and binds to our brain’s morphine receptor. [1] This is why grain-based food products such as bread often have people using words like “love” to describe their relationship with them.

“I LOOOOVE bread.” Sound familiar?

It is addiction euphoria compounded by punishment and consequence. And like any addiction, it’s simple chemistry. Each exposure increases our threshold, requiring more and more of the stuff to satisfy or attain the “fix.”

The gliadin in gluten

causes “leaky” gut.

Having to eat gluten-free is actually more about a component of gluten, called gliadin. It’s the gliadin in the gluten that causes “leaky” gut.

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