Why Do So Many People Think They Need Gluten-Free Foods?

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/02/gluten_free_diet_distinguishing_celiac_disease_wheat_allergy_and_gluten.html

by curtis • 13 years ago

41 100 13 years ago

slate.com

dmschulman• 13 years ago

Clearly it has nothing to do with people's evolving eating habits and new found rejection of processed carbohydrate-rich flour based foods.

Clearly.

I also understand in the article the author focused on Celiacs vs diagnosed but-not-really Celiacs, but the author should really expand his thesis. You might not even have a medical condition but would still choose to reject white bread, Twinkies, crackers, pizza, etc.

autarch• 13 years ago

Rejecting white flour is not the same thing as claiming you cannot tolerate any gluten whatsoever.

stcredzero• 13 years ago

Yes, but for many it may be a obfuscated way of rejecting white flour.

nazgulnarsil• 13 years ago

Low carb diets became popular with the plebs, so a crypto low-carb diet is needed.

jonnathanson4• 13 years ago

Actually, independent of the whole low-carb craze, there's some evidence indicating that, as carbs go, wheat is a particularly bad one. Substantially worse than corn, rice, root vegetables, and other sources of starch.

People have definitely conflated the wheat gluten allergy issue (celiac disease and other forms) with low-carb dieting in general, which is misguided. As the article points out, the percentage of the population actually suffering from allergies to gluten is tiny. [1] But it may not be a bad idea to cut down on wheat, regardless. Especially products with highly processed wheat as a key ingredient.

[1] Although it may be growing, for reasons not currently understood. Alternatively, we may just be experiencing a boom in the diagnosis -- either a result of over-diagnosing, or rather, correct diagnoses after many decades of under-diagnosing.

kingnothing• 13 years ago

Do you have any sources for that?

nnq2• 13 years ago

> Substantially worse than corn, rice, root vegetables, and other sources of starch.

...can you share the source for this information?

javert8• 13 years ago

I have gotten really sick (to the point of being hospitalized) and I can basically tell it's related to bread in some way (very strong correlation suggests causation). No doctor has been able to help me at all (this is in the US). In one case, the doctor actually had to go look up "celiac diesase" (hadn't heard of it). Another told me it was just from drinking too much coffee and soda. But my symptoms go away completely and I feel fine when I totally avoid anything that might have bread (and still drink tons of coffee).

This article is probably the most helpful thing I've ever found - I have never been able to figure this out from Wikipedia. And I'll probably be bringing it with me if I ever try again to get help from the medical system.

Years ago my personal Wikipedia research lead me to conclude that there were no helpful tests to find out what I have. People have been telling me for years that I'm wrong. I actually started to believe it - maybe I misunderstood, or Wikipedia was wrong. Well, it looks like maybe I was right.

If anybody with medical experience can comment on the accuracy of this article, that would be great.

It has also been suggested to me that I may have a "yeast allergy" (by a traveller from Europe), so if anyone has any insight into that...

EDIT: To be clear, I pretty much ruled out celiac long ago, because my symptoms are not _that_ serious. I either have wheat allergy, gluten intolerance (most likely), or something simply not listed in this article. The great value of this article to me is that it lists several possible problems and clarifies what tests are and are not available. In other words, it does for me exactly what a physician should have done for me years ago.

gnosis2• 13 years ago

You can get an allergey test.[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allergy_test

javert8• 13 years ago

Except the article states that those aren't useful. (Maybe you are trying to tell me the article is wrong?)

> One problem with wheat allergy is that there is no good test for it. In fact, the blood tests for IgE (called RAST tests) are notoriously unreliable; for example, only one in eight children with a positive IgE test for peanuts is truly allergic.

> There’s not even a mediocre blood test for gluten intolerance. The diagnosis simply relies on someone’s subjective feelings of bloating, bowel changes, or mental fogginess after eating gluten

chrisa2• 13 years ago

I was referred to a gastroenterologist and had an upper endoscopy which was helpful. They can look at the cilia to see if they're damaged in a way consistent with celiac or something else.

It sounds like you already have done this, but there is a diet where you cut out everything that might be causing the issue, and then add things back one at a time. It can take weeks for celiac to feel better after removing wheat however, so the diet method can be a long, laborious route to take.

VLM11• 13 years ago

"It can take weeks for celiac to feel better after removing wheat however,"

My experience with my son is yes it takes awhile for the absolute value to reach "I feel great" but the 1st derivative swung hard positive permanently and obviously in just a couple days. Curious if that's your experience? Like it takes weeks to reach 100 on a scale of 1 to 100, but in just a couple days you could tell it was clearly up an upswing. It might be easier with little kids "oh look he only threw up 7 times today instead of his usual 10 and the number seems to be going down every day..." Then too there is the stereotypical "kids heal faster" mythology etc etc.

thrill• 13 years ago

When my wife was diagnosed with celiac disease 20 years ago it was after two weeks of significant diarrhea to the point of hospitlization for dehydration. Fortunately the doctor who diagnosed her after a couple of days was young and up to speed, realizing even the hospital food was exacerbating her condition. Simply changing her diet while in hospital and she felt remarkably better after just a couple of days. One physician she saw later in life even dismissed the idea that such a condition existed, even with the GI evidence presented. There's a growing recognition of the condition, and as stated elsewhere it's not actually that hard to eat gluten free if you prepare your own food, and today there are more restaurants that will cater to it, though one always runs the risk of contamination when eating out (about 1 out of 10 I'd say based on experience, but we eat out infrequently anyway). Like anything that becomes a fad though there are people who will dismiss the idea of an intolerance - I once watched a waitress bring back a salad she'd obviously simply removed the croutons from after being asked, again, for a crouton-free salad (a particularly ugly piece of radicchio gave it away). After I pitched a fit, we left, being unable to trust the attention of the staff. Many celiacs develop other food sensitivities - once the cilia is damaged, the body seems more susceptible to future problems.

As for those who think their symptoms being mild means it's not gluten intolerance, the gold standard remains an upper GI examination - it's not that bad (I've had several, for other reasons), and then you know and can react with knowledge vice guessing (there's a blood test not yet approved as I recall). While feeling good again was quick for my wife, it took several weeks to actually consider her healthy again - she had been malnourished for some time prior to the diagnosis, and any such stressful event will take time to recover from.

VLM11• 13 years ago

"Years ago my personal Wikipedia research lead me to conclude that there were no helpful tests to find out what I have"

My son has had celiac disease all his life, from a long time before it became trendy and it'll last till the end of his life a long time after its off the front page. He's one of the 1 in 100. This was before wikipedia. Perhaps a future dating system will number years as in BW before wiki and AW after wiki. Anyway needless to say I recall quite clearly, his pediatrician FINALLY did a blood test as a last resort (celiac is not a profitable disease to treat, therefore rule out everything more profitable first) which had wildly high results, then refer to gastroenterologist who knocked him out and did an endoscopy, "yup all inflamed and Fed up in there" then trial run gluten free diet and his blood antibody numbers started dropping and he nearly instantly had a normal digestive system. And like yourself he gets horrifically sick a couple hours after eating gluten containing foods and it lasts and closely resembles a very, very bad food poisoning incident (like to the point of dyhydration danger, and yes he has been poked with IVs in the ER for this). So I donno about all this "there's no tests" this is extremely heavily trodden ground. Your primary care doc might be pretty ignorant of this specific disease but I can't imagine a gastroenterologist being confused, this is after all kinda their bread -n- butter...

On the other hand I donno if you technically "need" a medical diagnosis. I'll spare you the details, but shellfish and plain ole chicken eggs don't seem to be terribly well tolerated by my digestive system... solution? I don't eat them. I don't need a trendy diet or diagnosis or a pill or celebrity endorsement, I just don't eat lobster or fried eggs.

Note that wheat provides approximately nothing valuable to your body other than empty calories, so feel free not to eat it. Also almost all junk/highly processed foods are stuffed with wheat as a filler so your health will most likely dramatically improve if you stop eating wheat. The reason trendy actresses feel better after stopping wheat is not the lack of wholegrain bread but the lack of twinkies, not the lack of soy sauce but the lack of an entire pan of lasagna in one sitting, etc. Its not at all like giving up citrus or giving up meat where you have to put at least a minimal amount of care into making sure you don't end up with a major nutritional problem.

BTW his whole digestive system got messed up and he's also allergic to soy and milk casein proteins. Supposedly if you "tough it out" for a couple decades you can get cancer from the constant inflamation. Also his growth was pretty stunted until he got a proper diet (at which point he started growing so fast I swear you could watch him get taller). So get this checked out. I may not be a medical doctor, but it doesn't take a PHD to figure out if it makes you sick, don't eat it.

javert8• 13 years ago

Never eating wheat means I can't easily go out with others to eat (many restaurants in a Southern college town _only_ have things with wheat), can't eat most desserts, and basically can't do fast food (almost everything is breaded). So it's a huge social handicap.

So the idea that "just not eating wheat is not a big deal" is just not true.

I really appreciate your post, thanks.

msutherl2• 13 years ago

Bring this article from a few days ago with you instead, it's much better: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/opinion/sunday/what-really...

javert8• 13 years ago

I already saw that, but you see, it's not better. It's not useful at all.

The amazing thing about the Slate article is that it gives a list of several possible issues you can have when you observe that eating wheat gives you a problem.

I have pretty much ruled out actual celiac disease (though not officially); my symptoms just aren't that serious. It's pretty certain I have one of the other two afflictions listed in the Slate article, or possibly something similar that they just forgot to mention.

jE22teTh• 13 years ago

> To be clear, I pretty much ruled out celiac long ago, because my symptoms are not _that_ serious.

My symptoms were less than yours (constipation once in a while) but I am 100% confirmed celiac. I had positives on the anti-tissue transglutaminase IgG, IgA tests and endoscopy confirmed extensive damage consistent with years of celiac disease. You should rule out celiac disease with the IgG, IgA tests, followed by endoscopy if positive.

javert8• 13 years ago

Thank you very much. This was actually very helpful. I have some old medical results from years ago, that I don't (didn't understand). I looked through them to see if IgA was there, and it is. I didn't know what that was until now.

My IgA test was negative. The false negative rate for that test is 10%, so I have a small chance of actually having coeliac, but I probably don't.

Anyway, I definitely might end up getting another biopsy done to check for coeliac. (I had one done, but it was too high up, above the duodenum, to say anything about coeliac.)

emehrkay• 13 years ago

I make my own "wheat meat" which is 99% wheat gluten. It's delicious, fun, and interesting. If you arent one of those people who care or cant handle it, I suggest trying it out. There are plenty of recipes online, you'll just need about an hour

xemoka4• 13 years ago

For those looking for more information on this "wheat meat", searching for "seitan" will provide.

ljf2• 13 years ago

A vegan friend got me to try it, loved it. But the explosive reaction proved that its not for me.

Tasted awesome though, give it a try, its one of the cheapest proteins and can be so tasty!

shawndumas3• 13 years ago

My son, who is deathly allergic (anaphylactically allergic) to peanut-butter, had a blood test to see if he might have grown out of it (he hasn't; poor kid).

The doctor also order the blood test to screen for specific allergy-causing antibodies to various common allergens, including wheat proteins.

It turns out that his blood had a reaction to albumin (or maybe it was globulin; I can't remember). The Doctor called it a 'wheat allergy' and went on about diarrhea. And Mom and I thought he was just trying to avoid doing the dishes when he'd bolt to the bathroom right after eating: Go figure...

We just look for gluten free because if there is no gluten there is none of the other 4 proteins found in wheat.

mipapage3• 13 years ago

Drop gluten for 3 weeks; do you feel better? Feel bad when you get back on it? Problem solved, really. Until science supports our observations, I don't need much more proof than that.

zwieback2• 13 years ago

Your reply perfectly sums up why anti-gluten and other food crazes periodically sweep through our culture: science's job isn't to support peoples self-observation and that observation does not prove gluten intolerance.

The gluten-free + gluten/placebo experiment could show whether someone is gluten intolerant or not, until then the approach you mention is indistinguishable from superstition.

jellicle• 13 years ago

For an individual, it doesn't matter whether the effect is placebo or not; it's real to the individual.

If standing on tiptoes and spinning around three times each morning makes you feel better, you should do it.

It's only for determining what sorts of interventions we should use for a larger population that we care about whether the effect is placebo or not.

dbrian2• 13 years ago

Sure, but when you make personal choices for your own diet you should absolutely base it on your own observations.

mipapage3• 13 years ago

This has nothing to do with fads or crazes, at least for me and many other's that I know.

It is important to apply critical thinking in all aspects of what you do.

Shorel4• 13 years ago

Now this is a good reason to prove if farts can be created by placebo effects and superstition.

dbrian2• 13 years ago

I agree, elimination diets are great. And this is all anyone can really do as an individual to find what works best for them. I did the same thing with dairy. I just feel better without it.

michael_h• 13 years ago

As pointed out elsewhere in this thread, when you drop gluten, you drop pizza, some ice creams, and a ton of processed foods, so 'not eating garbage' may be helping more than 'not eating gluten'.

jerf3• 13 years ago

The key to this test, is not just that you drop the gluten. The key is that you then try it again (3 weeks should be enough time for anyone who is not elderly). Have a nice whole wheat sandwich with nothing but healthy ingredients if you like; if you feel like crap afterwards, stop eating wheat. Do you have Celiac? Do you have gluten sensitivity? Do you have a wheat allergy? Do you really care? If you truly have any of those three things, you will know, because the resulting symptoms are well beyond what you would reasonably want to imagine/reverse placebo up.

If you suspect you may have any of these problems, this really is the best test to do. All of the formal, medical tests are varying degrees of unpleasant and distressingly inconclusive. This one is conclusive, and easy, excepting the giving up of the yummies for three weeks.

cooldeal• 13 years ago

According to the article, a full two third of people who thought the same way did not have gluten tolerance.

The mind is a powerful thing.

mipapage3• 13 years ago

Sure, so if you do this, be diligent. Awareness is important.

r00fus• 13 years ago

> Drop gluten for 3 weeks; do you feel better? Feel bad when you get back on it? Problem solved, really. Until science supports our observations, I don't need much more proof than that.

Science does support it if you did the observations, recorded fastidiously and properly controlled your experiment. "big name" science does not exclude normal people from conducting scientific experiments. Oblig xkcd: http://xkcd.com/397/

lotides• 13 years ago

My son is extremely allergic to wheat and milk. We have to carry an epi-pen with us everywhere. He swells up, including his face and throat, when he comes in contact with these allergens. It's cost us thousands of dollars in hospital bills, missed work and is a constant worry. If people eat something, don't wash their hands and then touch him, he'll get a bad rash. Most gluten free food is free of wheat and some of that is free of dairy too. I'm thankful for the gluten free trend. Without it, my son wouldn't have much of a chance to eat many common foods. You wouldn't believe some of the things they put wheat in, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. He can't even play with play dough. So I'll continue to pay 5x as much for a loaf of gluten-free bread because it gives my son a more normal life.

jonnathanson4• 13 years ago

I'm gluten-free by medical necessity, though not nearly as bad as what is unfortunately afflicting your son. And gluten-free products are a) expensive, b) still pretty rare, and c) unlikely to be found outside of specialized sections in large supermarkets or online retailers.

If nothing else, gluten-free faddism creates market forces that increase the availability of gluten-free options while simultaneously reducing their (substantial!) cost. So in that sense, it has some positive externalities.

For example, you can actually get a gluten-free option on most airplane flights these days. That certainly wasn't the case 5 years ago (or at least it wasn't unless you went out of your way to arrange something).

Conversely, the one real danger is that a lot of products are coming to market very quickly, and not all of them are as gluten-free or wheat-safe as they claim. (For instance, a product not made with wheat, but processed in the same factory as wheat products, can get away with calling itself "gluten free," and you need to read the very, very fine print on the package to figure this out). The labeling standards need to catch up to the marketing.

VLM11• 13 years ago

"And gluten-free products are a) expensive, b) still pretty rare, and c) unlikely to be found outside of specialized sections"

Not true. Our whole family has been on the diet for a decade or so for medical necessity of our son. Yes if you "demand" something like gluten containing junk food its terribly expensive and frankly doesn't taste very good, usually. But a perfectly "normal" GF lifestyle isn't any more difficult or expensive than a G lifestyle.

Grilled chicken caesar salad with homemade tasty dressing... just hold the crutons.

Traditional steak dinner with all the fixings, just don't marinate in soy sauce based marinades and don't serve garlic bread on the side.

Beef pot roast with all the fixings except dinner rolls.

Meatloaf just use rice as a binder instead of wheat flour and thicken the gravy with off the shelf cornstarch instead of wheat flour.

For obvious "bun" reasons we tend to cook a heck of a lot more kebobs than burgers and brats. He have had cornbread burger buns and they're not as bad as they might sound... after all corn torilla and seasoned meat is not unheard of, so cornbread and somewhat less seasoned meat is pretty good too.

Lime garlic marinated chicken stir fried

Snack time tends a lot more toward corn chips and salsa or sliced up fruit than toward cookies and cake slices.

You'd be amazed what can be done with cornbread and cornbread batter, but you have to make your own from cornmeal, the mixes in the store use flour as a binder. No problemo homemade is about 1/2 the cost of boxed mix anyway.

I don't like eggs, but obviously for breakfast we do a lot more bacon -n- eggs than bacon -n- pancakes.

I do agree that for social reasons a GF cake costing $10 and tasting like instant potatoes and crunchy rice is kinda ridiculous. So unless there's intense social pressure we don't buy the "GF-products" and stick to naturally GF food instead. Very little baby spinach contains wheat, for example.

chris_mahan6• 13 years ago

My doctor told me to. Been wheat-free for 4 months, and feeling much better. Also, caffeine-free.

chris_mahan6• 13 years ago

Also, I'm french, and the bread from Udi's is awesome. (http://udisglutenfree.com/)

woodchuck64• 13 years ago

Udi's is so much lighter and tastier than all other gluten-free breads, I suspect black magic.

Also, best gluten-free pastas anywhere in my experience: Ancient Harvest Quinoa/Corn Pastas (http://www.quinoa.net/145/163.html, sold at Amazon, Whole Foods, etc.) Amazing mac & cheese, amazing spaghetti.

jpdoctor• 13 years ago

> Also, caffeine-free.

You had me going until you wrote that.

chris_mahan6• 13 years ago

You should try it. Headaches last a week, then it's all good. I sleep much, much better, and my mood is better. Plus, I drink no sodas, tea, or coffee, so I am saving several dollars per day. It adds up.

nnq2• 13 years ago

...so you have no idea whether it's from cutting out caffeine or gluten. Great way to not understand your body! Try going on a seitan rich diet for a week (it's basically pure gluten made to taste like meat, and actually tastes quite good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)) - if you actually feel any worse (more than the nocebo effect), then you might really have a gluten problem. If you feel better, then the problem was most likely the coffee (or some other ingredient of the gluten containing foods you were eating, in which case you better of on no-gluten, so you'll need a further experiment to clarify this). Experimenting on your body is cool, trust me (yeah, it's boring compared to doing it with some hard drugs or psychedelics, buy still sciency and fun :) )

chris_mahan6• 13 years ago

No, because I went off caffeine completely from 2005 to 2008, without altering my gluten diet at all.

intopieces• 13 years ago

A lot of the anti-gluten sentiment semight be rooted in the need for a quick fix to dieting issues. The idea being 'if I just cut out this one thing, all of my belly fat will go away.' People (myself included) hate the idea that dieting is a change of lifestyle, that you can't just slash one thing for a few months and call it a day. I think the challenge should be: no processed foods for a month. None whatsoever. Then see how you feel. But because we've mostly decided that our budget should go to everything else besides good food, that's a difficult task indeed.

Bjuukia2• 13 years ago

What do you consider processed food? In other words, could you give a one-day meal sample?

maqr• 13 years ago

After recently relocating to San Francisco, I'm concerned that I'm not getting enough gluten.

Spooky233• 13 years ago

Wheat has been a key part of human diet for something like 10,000 years. The gluten crisis has been with us for 3-4.

It's an ideal chronic condition for the 99% of suburbanites not affected by celiac disease who need something to complain about, conspicuously spend money on and attract attention. It sounds serious, onerous to deal with, and has no stigma attached to it.

When people actually "stop eating gluten", they buy really bad bread for $8 a loaf. They also stop eating food like pizza, a variety of processed foods, ice cream, etc. So they lose weight and "feel better".

shawndumas3• 13 years ago

My son's blood, independent of his body, produced allergy-causing antibodies when exposed to wheat proteins; I guess his blood just wanted something to complain 'bout in order to get attention, huh?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5288333

Spooky233• 13 years ago

Your son has a medical condition that is truly horrible. He's the 1%.

20 years ago, the 99% of people who don't have conditions like your son's were refusing to eat products containing eggs, and were loading up on a variety of foods containing oat bran at inflated prices.

30 years ago, those some type of people were refusing to eat pork.

jerf3• 13 years ago

I was going to say that wheat has been bred for more gluten content, but in the process of looking around for concrete evidence of that claim, I found this: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jf305122s So, nevermind that then.

It is entirely possible that it is simply an improved diagnosis artifact. My paternal grandmother, from whom I have inherited my celiac (yes, hitting my father too), relates a family tale about a great-uncle who was notoriously "lazy" and unmotivated, and who slept a lot. As a judgment of character in late 1800s farm-country Ohio, that's a pretty serious character flaw, but nobody had a clue it could have been diet-related (a suggestion that probably would have been found laughable, in favor of the character flaw theory). Obviously we can't prove it was a celiac case, but it matches our modern experiences in our gene line pretty well, so it is at least not an unreasonable theory. It's not unlikely Celiac's been around with us for a very long time... it's just that it usually doesn't kill you, certainly not prior to breeding age. (For which I am grateful.)

martinced• 13 years ago

I do eat some wheat though I may try to see if there's a correlation between nausea and wheat after reading the informative comments here. But I hardly eat any pizza or all that industrial processed crap and I'm very light on ice cream. I'm not a food-fetichist at all: but I simply pay attention not to eat junk-food (ready-to-eat pizzas in the microwave oven [or even the regular oven] is junk-food).

Honestly I do "feel better" when I'm fit, which I always am... And so is my girlfriend. And we do sports : tennis and censored.

I know some people think that "fat is beautiful" (probably after-the-fact rationalization but whatever) but IMHO Maria Sharapova is way sexier than either Oprah Winfrey.

Interestingly there seems to be some automated selection process going around: slim and fit women tend to prefer slim and fit men (not always true of course) while junk-food-eater-no-sport-whatsoever women/men tend to find partners attracted by the same lifestyle.

YMMV.

com2kid• 13 years ago

The type of wheat we eat has changed dramatically over the last two generations though. See https://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-problems-with-modern-whe... for a comparison of the current form of wheat we eat to older forms of wheat which people may be less sensitive to.

mark_l_watson• 13 years ago

My wife has done some research on this, and her belief is that ancient wheat was OK, but the modern wheat is engineered for very short plants, many planting cycles per year, and more gluten. I don't know if this is valid, but when I eat bread made with spelt for a few weeks, I seem to feel better but I am not sure if this isn't just a placebo effect. Fortunately spelt bread is very tasty, unlike things like brown rice bread that I don't like.

Also, no need to give up pizza (pardon a shameless plug: http://cookingspace.com/?detail=Cauliflower%20and%20Broccoli...)

VLM11• 13 years ago

"Wheat has been a key part of human diet for something like 10,000 years."

Thats an interesting anthropological question. That is almost certainly wrong for almost anyone other than descendants of certain rather small cultural areas. I've always found it interesting how some Roman Empire products like wheat are still very popular while others like garum are not so popular. It might have something to do with garum being really gross and donuts and bread being yummy.

None the less its humorous how narrow minded anthropologically some people are. All of us, and I mean ALL, only have ancestors who lived in Switzerland and drank cow milk and lived in southern Italy and ate bread and pasta and no other cultures nor their descendants exist, just us Europeans...

I genetically resemble that culturally imperialistic outlook on history, but I sometimes wonder just how many generations you'd have to go back on my wife's side to find a nation where basically no one drank milk or ate wheat, or at most it was a weird and unusual snack. I'm thinking only about 3 generations. And now hundreds of pounds of that weird stuff getting shoved down the throat per year, that's gotta be a shock to the carefully evolved gut. Go back 200 years and tell my wife's ancestors that my wife would be expected to consume hundreds of pounds of cow milk products per year, and those ancestors would likely be all "uh, and WTF is a dairy cow?" No 10K years necessary. In fact if you told my parents that I'd be expected to eat 20 pounds of soy per year, they'd sound about the same "uh, and WTF is a soybean?" Its just not part of my ancestry, even my very recent ancestry. In fact I'm almost 100% certain my grandma would have had no idea what a soybean was, and now they're shoved down my throat.

Finally ask any biologist, you've gotta go way the heck further back in history that 10K years to find a common biological ancestor who primarily ate grains (like a proto man-cow, I guess). If a space alien landed, after it got tired of sticking probes in the rears of hillbillies and reading the funny resulting tabloid stories, then the alien started dissecting earth animals, looking at our innards it would probably be pretty surprised to discover we like to tell ourselves we're supposed to be grain eaters. Why those idiots are obviously evolved to eat fruits and nuts and meats, WTF are those idiot earthlings doing eating cow-food like grains?

Spooky233• 13 years ago

I don't know where your wife is from, but wheat originated in the Fertile Crescent, and was a driving force behind urbanization and the formation of city-states. A substantial number of people and cultures in turn spun out of there. If you are not of Sub-Sahara African descent, you have ancestors from there. In Africa, there were very limited grain crops available... Mostly sourgum and millet iirc.

Just about any northern hemisphere agricultural society relied upon grains. They were (and to some extent, still are) essential to society advancing to the point that people can specialize in things other than gathering food.