Gluten free

[red]

My friend has been dealing with Chronic Fatigue and painful joints .  He was thinking he had a Sugar problem and of course he refuses to go to the Doctor 
Last week he was given some Gluten Free Hershey's Dark Chocolate and he was Fine so now he is going down the Gluten Free Rabbit Hole 

[Don P]

If I have a mouthful of chocolate I'm kinda distracted too  
I'm right certain the egyptians were eating wheat flour, Iraq is it's native origin. I know the romans were, it's where we get "the daily grind" from. They were bigtime bread eaters, over a pound per person per day. It's a wonder we ever made it  .

[Southside]

Why would a dark chocolate bar have wheat in it to begin with? 

[Stephen1]

SS What I was told is its not really the wheat but Gluten that they use to bind everything together that causes all the problems. 
The wheat we eat today has been modified greatly from the wheat of centuries ago.Wheat of old was 6' tall, we have shrunk it, modified its gene structure for drought, insects, and all sorts of other Stufff,  that is why lots of people have problems. humans are 30,000 years old and the new fangled wheat is only decades old, our systems have not adjusted yet. 

[red]

Chocolate as such does not contain gluten .  However ingredients that are commonly added to chocolate may contain gluten 

[Don P]

So rather than gluten free, the market is for heritage wheat flour?

[Ianab]

A lot of people seem to have an intolerance for Gluten. Not an actual allergy, just they start getting side effects if they consume too much. So it's not so much that they can't eat it, more that eating a LOT of it causes issues, You know, a bit like drinking too much beer causes problems. 

For many of them they don't have to go the whole gluten free route, just adjust their diet a bit and reduce the amount of high gluten bread products they are eating. So it's not that they can't eat pizza, it's just that toast for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and pasta for dinner is a gluten overload. Any one of those meals in a day isn't a problem, but 3 is too much. Hard to diagnose, because they don't react to it right away.

Then of course there is the true allergic folks, and they do need to avoid it totally, but that's a fairly small %. 

[sawguy21]

@Stephen1 If it weren't for your 'newfangled wheat' we would not be producing any because of the short growing season and pests such as rust. I think this whole gluten free mania is overblown, most are just looking for attention. As @Ianab notes only a very small percentage are truly allergic.

[Southside]

So rather than gluten free, the market is for heritage wheat flour?

Oh you have no idea.  Spelt, Emmer, Kamut, are going into the tanks in Kansas to be sold directly to bakeries, consumers, etc.  The hard red will keep the bills paid, but it's the others that make the money.  

[Ianab]

Ironically it's the demand for fluffy white bread that keeps the high Gluten flour in demand. The bread we eat today would be very different to what they had 2,000 years ago.   Also wheat bread is mostly a "Western" food, traditionally other societies have had different sources of carbs. Rice / millet / taro / corn etc depending on where in the World they lived.   Pre-European days in NZ the locals had Kumara (sweet potatoes) and bracken fern roots that they would soak, dry and pound into "flour". There were no grains / potatoes / corn etc.  

Also interesting is that the kumara plant is from Sth America, and arrived here in NZ about 1300 AD with the first Polynesian settlers. 

[Don P]

On the acorn rabbit hole I went down the last day or two, I don't know of anyone eating them now, they have been a staple many times. Once the tannin is removed they are sort of a super food.

Those proto wheat grains apparently kick off a true celiac sufferer. I'm not sure I blame the gluten when the highly processed food as a whole is more likely the culprit in most cases. If you're having a food problem, grandma's rule was pretty smart "If you can't tell what it is, don't eat it"

The old gristmill we worked on was pretty telling of what processing has done, The stones and crude sorting stuff were idle and replaced by a "modern", turn of the century roller mill, which is what we all grew up eating rather than real whole wheat. That doesn't have anything to do with gluten... but it is why even the bugs quit messing with wheat flour. They had sifted the nourishment out of it to make light fluffy baked goods. We have since put vitamins and minerals back in to replace the ones we took out. I'm sure that makes sense somewhere.

Our 4 legged buddy has seized twice more in the past day, I think I'll be up awhile yet. I wonder if the processed diet we feed them isn't part of it.

[Stephen1]

@Stephen1 If it weren't for your 'newfangled wheat' we would not be producing any because of the short growing season and pests such as rust. I think this whole gluten free mania is overblown, most are just looking for attention. As @Ianab notes only a very small percentage are truly allergic.

sawguy21 a small percentage is how much? Only %1 of the World population would be 800,000,000 people. Go to Europe and see all the uproar for non GMO. I was shocked when I went to England 20 years ago, the demand  for non GMO product was everywhere. 
My daughter is definitely 'allergic' to Gluten,  I had to live with it as she grew up ,took a while to find the problem but eventually when we found what the problem was, all our lives turned around. 
We are told lots of stuff will not hurt us or there is no damage to the environment , then after a bunch of years we see the results. 

[Bert]

I can personally attest to to gluten being a source for fatigue and joint paint. A little over a year ago I was getting myself tested for all kinds of potential ailments including Lyme etc. because I was tired and in pain with no history of same. My wife has a friend who has a full on gluten allergy and she suggested to stay away from gluten for a week and see what happened. I did and found that was the source of my problem. I went from doubled over working in the woods to 100% fine in a weeks time. At this point @Ianab is spot on. I can eat it, but too much and I start to notice it. At the first sign of a muscle pain, no more pasta, bread, etc for a couple days. 

I don't pretend to know the specifics on it but from what I recall in my readings at time gluten is a source of inflammation for some people. Kind of a cumulative effect. All I really know is it worked for me and was a huge relief when I finally figured it out. The pain and fatigue got real bad last year around the holidays when I was overdoing it on Christmas meals, cookies, deserts, and dinner rolls. It all made sense in the end.