Blaming gluten for our health problems has become one of the biggest trends of the decade. There are numerous claims as to the detrimental effects of gluten to our health. Unfortunately, these claims are misdirected. Gluten doesn't cause these problems, aside from with people who actually have celiac disease. However the incidence of celiac didsease in the United States is less than one percent. Even newer than the anti-gluten movement, is the anti-anti-gluten movement. This idea (let's call it the pro-gluten movement) has the air of cultural revival and nostalgia, and for good reason. Implicitly, we've understood for hundreds of years that it isn't the gluten that causes problems.
The basic argument is that it simply doesn't make sense. Humans have been eating bread, and therefore gluten for thousands of years, why is it that we're only figuring out now that it's bad for us? The anti-gluten movement makes some appealing arguments, and most of them are correct. They say that humans can't digest wheat completely, refined wheat has little nutritional value, phytic acid in bread reduces vitamin intake, and the simple fact that cutting gluten reduces flatulence. Funny enough, most of these arguments say nothing about gluten.
The problem is not in the gluten, it's in the flour and in the bread. The overriding problem is that the bread we now eat is different than what we'd been eating for thousands of years. There are two main developments. The first is the use of more refined, finer white flour. The second, later development, is the advent of fast-acting yeast. And we are not the first to notice these changes. In 1754, the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote his Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men, and wrote the following:
The extreme inequality in our lifestyle... the ease with which we arouse and satisfy our appetites and our sensuality; the overly refined foods of the wealthy, which nourish them with irritating juices and overwhelm them with indigestion... these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making. (Rousseau, Discourse On The Origin Of Inequality)
Reading this statement led me start researching the changes in food culture, especially in bread. It is clear that Rousseau had already started seeing the effects of highly-refined flour and specialized yeast. Although commercialized quick-acting yeast, or bakers' yeast, didn't become popular until the mid-18th century there is evidence of specialized yeast even before then. As soon as bakers saw that some dough rose faster than others, they began selectively using and selling yeast, encouraging less healthy, fast-rising breads.
But why are these things bad? The first reason is the switch from whole-grain to white flout, being overly refined presents with several defects. Fiber and vitamins are both lost when flour is refined and filtered. Furthermore, white flour has a significantly higher glycemic index than whole-wheat flour. The second reason is the use of quicker yeast. Yeast is the bacteria by which bread rises. It used to be that all bread would be sourdough. This means that the yeast would be naturally-occurring, and as such it would take much longer to rise, and longer to develop. Using such yeast was a labor intensive process, as it required time commitments to wait for yeast in the flour and air to start fermenting in a water and flour mixture. But there are advantages to using natural yeast. Humans can, and have always been able to digest wheat when fermented for enough time. The phytic acid that we mentioned before is eliminated with each hour that bread is allowed to rise and hence ferment. Therefore sourdough bread also allows easier vitamin digestion.
So what does this mean? Either Rousseau was really smart in seeing the correlation between refined foods and health problems, or he was tired of rich people being nourished "with irritating juices ... [that] overwhelm them with indigestion." But this was a very specific development. The poor who persisted in making their own bread did not have these specific upper-class-associated health issues. Although life sciences were still under-developed, it didn't take knowledge of micro-organism to see that refined, processed foods were the cause of the problem.
The point is that gluten is hard to digest, but it matters how we eat it. When it's in white bread, or other industrially baked and fermented products, gluten can cause problems. However, when it's been fermented properly and we get gluten along with the nutrients resulting in that fermentation, bread's nutritional value is spectacularly higher.
To learn more about this, I highly suggest that everyone watch writer and journalist Michael Pollan's Netflix series "Cooked." The amazing fact that he reveals, and that Rousseau understood is that there is value in the way our ancestors did things. While we now think of Sourdough as a novelty, in our history, it was everywhere. As a Jew, I remember the traditional story of Passover. No, not the exodus from Egypt, but the tale of bread starters. Leading up to the holiday, Jews would rid their houses of risen (or fermented) bread products. They would then make specific bread that would be insured to not have fermented at all, as only 18 minutes would be allowed between when the water and flour touched, and the Matzoh was finished. The idea of this would be to remind us of the Israelites cooking in a hurry in leaving Egypt. However, in later Jewish communities, non-Jewish women would gather outside the Synagogues on the last night of Passover. They would then sell pieces of their bread-starters to Jewish women so they could immediately start making bread again. In my family we just go out the next morning and buy doughnuts. Furthermore, the Jewish blessing for bread, sanctifying God who "brought out" bread from the land stresses the link between nature, and what we cook for ourselves. It was only after watching "Cooked" on Netflix that I realized that these traditions meant sourdough.
Just like biological traits, our traditions are subject to natural selection. So many cultures have traditions concerning bread, that it is not a surprise baking bread is importance. However, by losing the link to cooking, especially baking, we lose more than traditions, we lose nutrition. Moreover, we are not the first to notice this. Those who looked for it saw this problem 3 centuries before we did. So the lesson is twofold; one — hold on to traditions, especially those concerning cooking, it is likely that they're more legitimately beneficial than just culturally significant. And two — we should read the classics more. The trend has developed that we see literature written before the last half-century as inherently archaic, outdated, irrelevant, and adhering to patriarchal misogynistic values. Often though, we find ourselves with gems of knowledge that have infinite relevance to our modern life, and even if such a discovery is one in a hundred, it is worth it to regain these pieces of cultural knowledge that we have forgotten.
Besides that, if anyone wants to sell me a sourdough starter, I'll be available on the last night of Passover, April 30th.
