I saw some ads for gluten free fast food today and it reminded me of a principle I’ve touched on in earlier articles. I’ve noticed that we have a tendency to demonize a single nutrient and, in doing so, lose sight of the bigger picture. This is hugely profitable for food companies because they can introduce whole new lines of products labelled with the newest buzzword. “Gluten Free” is currently one of those buzzwords, and gluten is currently one of our scapegoats.
Gluten is a protein found in wheat – among other grains – that, as it turns out, many people don’t handle well. Some researchers have found that as much a third of people have some level of gluten intolerance, and many people are intolerant to the point where it can cause serious problems. These findings have also brought along an enormous market for gluten free products which are being milked to their fullest potential.
Gluten and the Prasouda Diet
I’m all for avoiding harmful substances and the Prasouda diet can work great for people avoiding gluten, since the vast majority of the diet is made up of meats, fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy and healthy oils.
What I want to emphasize though is that gluten is just another brick in the wall of unhealthy substances. The idea of gluten free fast food highlights our tendency to pick out a scapegoat and then ignore all the other bad things that are going on. Perhaps we do this because it lets us feel good about ourselves by making a small change. We go gluten free and we feel like we’re doing something important for our health and we can give ourselves a pat on the back.
The problem here is that it often leads us to ignore the various other detriments to our health. Taking a step in the right direction is fine, but too often we fool ourselves into thinking we’re all the way there. Maybe it’s the advertisers who fool us into thinking that adding or removing a single thing to our diet will change everything, or maybe we’re just lazy, but either way I want to emphasize the importance of the whole picture.
The Prasouda diet is a lifestyle change that focuses on the health of everything you eat, not just the hot or not protien, berry or antioxidant. We want to be lean and healthy, not slightly less fat and slightly less unhealthy. Gluten free fast food is still fast food, just like gluten free rat poison is still rat poison.