diet---less-is-more

One of the most recent diet crazes is self-diagnosis of food intolerances. Perhaps it is to keep up with the crowd or just a reason to cut out an entire food group? Gluten has become the evil counterpart to carbohydrates, mainly due to its attention with coeliacs. Coeliacs cannot tolerate or have problems digesting gluten, with symptoms including bloating and diarrhoea.

OVERRULE
Most gluten free foods are worse than regular foods. Why? Gluten is a binding agent. So without this, manufacturers have to think of new binders, which are normally artificial, highly processed and often includes added sugars.

“A gluten free diet is not necessarily healthier for everyone,” says Bingley-Pullin. “Only those people with an allergy or intolerance to gluten will benefit from restricting the gluten content of their foods. For people neither allergic nor intolerant, gluten free is not necessarily the healthier option.”

Make it good
You are better off sticking with low GI whole grains, which as we now know have shown to be beneficial in long term weight loss plans. Bingley-Pullin suggests “using a variety of grains; buckwheat, rice, millet, spelt, corn, will provide a different range of nutrients as well as not overloading the body with often problem-causing wheat (and not just to coeliacs)”.