I read an online article from a well-known magazine a couple of weeks ago about gluten intolerance and desserts. I'm not going to name the magazine because when I tried to find that particular article again today, I couldn't find it. But it's not the magazine itself I want to talk about today, but rather the subject matter of the article.
Before I start, let me point out that I'm going to use the term "gluten intolerance" to cover any intolerance with gluten, including Celiac disease, non-Celiac gluten intolerance, or a wheat allergy. The article discussed a situation in which you are a guest at someone's home for dinner. It stated that a person could use their gluten intolerance diagnosis to get out of eating most any dessert. This of course implies that the dessert will be something glutenous. The purpose of using your diagnosis of a gluten intolerance was not to keep from getting a full-on glutenization, but rather to maintain any weight loss you've had with the gluten free lifestyle.
Say WHAT? The gluten free lifestyle is not this great weight loss program, that we'll one day reach our goal weight, get over the intolerance, and go back to eating gluten-filled food. Some people do lose weight once they adapt the gluten free lifestyle, but that's not the primary reason we live this way. We live this way because we're sick and tired of being sick and tired!
You know how quickly people will jump on bandwagons, especially when it comes to diets. There have been too many to count -- Adkins, Adkins revised, South Beach, Mayo Clinic, the blood type diet -- the list goes on and on. Please don't tell me that the gluten free "diet" is going to get thrown in the mix as a really terrific way to lose weight. I'm not trying to begrudge anyone from losing weight at all. But I don't want food manufacturers and restaurant chefs to get careless with proper gluten free food preparation. Cross-contamination is a very big issue, and they need to be very aware and knowledgable about it.
Whenever I'm invited to someone's home for dinner, I make sure I go over the menu and ingredients with the host. I answer a lot of questions about whether this ingredient is safe or not. I'm very fortunate that all of my friends are open to listening and do everything they can to provide a safe meal for me.
Yes, this makes me very high maintenance to cook for. But I'd rather discuss the menu long before we reach that final dessert course. I don't want to have to refuse chocolate cake, but would rather enjoy chocolate-covered strawberries.
I don't treat the gluten free lifestyle as a diet. It is how I live everyday. And my lifestyle includes desserts!
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