Gluten Free Diets: Stop Following The Fad

So there is this newer trend I've noticed over the last year or so (probably has been developing over a much longer length of time, but I'm only just in the last few months aware of it) where people are eating gluten free diets but have no reason to eat gluten free diets.

What is a gluten free diet you may ask?  Well for those of us that haven't heard of it its defined this way:

1. A gluten-free diet is a diet that excludes the protein gluten. Gluten is found in grains such as wheat, barley, rye, and a cross between wheat and rye called triticale.

Now there is some confusion as to what the Gluten free diet is actually for, so to clear up the confusion  A gluten-free diet is primarily used to treat celiac disease. Gluten causes inflammation in the small intestines of people with celiac disease.  Celiac is something that a trained physician needs to diagnose.

Now before I came out I dated a girl that had celiac disease and her mother had it too so gluten free was a must in that household.  But people who take up the diet these days, unless recommended by a doctor in the case of celiac, aren't taking it up as a matter health necessity.

The problem is not that the diet exists. The problem is that since the diet exists people who are in no position to diagnose themselves with anything are taking up these diets as if they had it.  Ive asked a couple of people why they eat gluten free and they tell me that they're allergic to gluten and when I ask them how long did they go with the allergy symptoms before going to a doctor and being diagnosed with this allergy, they look at me like I have two heads and tell me that they didn't, which means they probably aren't allergic to gluten at all, but saw something somewhere from a source they didn't bother to confirm and decided that they were going to put themselves on this gluten free diet without going to a doctor to make sure it wouldn't negatively impact their health.

In other words:  People have taken a diet designed with a very specific purpose in mind and turned it into a fad diet, just like people do all the time. Why? Because people have this wish to be healthy, which is not a bad thing, but in that wish they become "conspiracy theorist" level stupid about it.  Thus Miss Skinny walks around declaring her swearing off gluten or other things she just read about in some magazine that didn't bother verifying their own information, and then she without verifying it herself adopts a diet that may actually be doing nothing it was meant for because she doesn't have that problem to begin with, and worse yet, may be dangerously impacting her health.

When adjusting your diet and not talking to your doctor about it, the best and safest way to go is to cut things that are widely known to be bad for you, such as soda which we know rots your teeth and in people who are susceptible to weight problems, obesity.  Add in fruits and vegetables, preferably steamed or raw.  If you're eating a heavy protein diet, maybe adjust that by cutting down on your portion size and actually adding things like vegetables.

But when going on a diet that's more extreme, make sure you talk to your doctor first and make sure there is an actual need to do that.  Otherwise you're needlessly putting your health at risk.