Alright folks, so I’ve mentioned this in passing in previous articles, but I am gluten-free and wheat-free. Specifically, I’m wheat gluten-free. So rice gluten is okay.
Confusing? I know, it still confuses me, too.
To their credit, gluten-free breads no longer look like they could build the Great Wall of China, and they often taste alright as well. Nothing in comparison to a lovely French baguette, but hey, life’s not fair.
Going gluten-free isn’t anything new, but is leading many people to check ingredient labels (yay!) to see if something is gluten-free (more yay!) to then see if it has extra health benefits (not so much).
From personal experience and also from admitting that I was a child who had absolutely no self-control, I can tell you that wheat and the gluten it contains is a beautiful, miraculous thing. It creates the most buttery, layered croissant; it lends itself to the chewiest pizza crusts; and the quality of bread is actually just amazing and cannot. Be. Replicated.
Unfortunately.
Anyway, if you have allergies or intolerances, going gluten-free is the obvious choice for your mental and physical well-being. I mean, unless you really love doing crazy things you can’t control, or feeling like you’ve aged forty years in 24 hours, or the feeling of your brain cells dying. Or searing agony in your gastrointestinal system? I’m not the Grinch, so that sounds fairly undesirable.
But for the rest of you…honestly, I don’t know if it’s worth it. Gluten-free alternatives really only have one purpose, and that is to be, well, gluten-free. And also to make it taste good. Taste, however, is a double-edged sword...
In order to replicate the mouthfeel and flavor of wheat gluten (an ultimately futile uphill battle), companies add sugar, fat, and other additives to enhance the stability or taste of the final product. The gluten would normally keep the dough together, but since there is no wheat gluten…things fall apart. Like my life at college. (Kidding. Sort of.)
Eating gluten-free cookies and thinking they are going to be healthier, or make you lose weight (what? This is madness), is sort of like thinking you are going to be healthier or lose weight by eating frozen yogurt instead of ice cream. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this is just not the case.
On that note…if you can eat wheat gluten without facing any detrimental side effects, why would you stop? Are you afraid of gaining weight? Because you should know that it is the amount of pasta you eat that has the potential for weight gain, not that you are eating pasta in the first place…
Which still doesn’t stop me from cooking an entire batch of gluten-free pasta and then eating it in one day. Probably in one sitting. (Hey, you can’t go wrong with butter, garlic, parsley, and lots of mushrooms!)
I went gluten-free almost ten years ago. I don’t regret it (anymore, mostly), and you can actually find almost anything if you know where to look. Plus, gluten-free is definitely a food trend so it’s everywhere. The products are hugely improved now, but I still stand by eating wheat if you’re not going to face anything bad afterwards.
If you really want to improve your health, go for the whole grains. Unless you’re really not into fibrous foods. Then your hopes and dreams of being healthier will simply go down the toilet. Literally.