Gluten-free Gluten

I’ll never forget where I was the moment I heard about…..gluten.

Okay not true….I have no idea where I was, nor do I even remember the moment, but I DO remember some afterthoughts (after I…thought of them).

How is it that, as advanced as we are as a society, somehow the whole concept of gluten being bad for us wasn’t “discovered” until recently? I don’t like to throw around the c-word very often, but if I didn’t know better, I’d think there was a massive Gluten Conspiracy on our hands. It never ceases to amuse me when I’m in the grocery store and see, let’s say…sweetened condensed milk (or some damn thing) that says “Now Gluten-Free!” Really? Never mind the fact that the ingredients that ARE in there are enough to slowly kill even a Tyrannosaurus Rex over time. Sure, I could go on and on here about how a gluten-rich diet was the real reason dinosaurs became extinct, but I’ll save that for another day.

Now, I don’t pretend to have a clue when it comes to the mysteries of the human body, and God knows I can’t take credit for a single iota of “advances” or discoveries that have led to the plethora of information we have today. So if a bunch of so-called experts came out and said that cigarette smoking is actually beneficial to our health when done in moderation, I maaay hafta jump in my car and buy a pallet of smokes. I mean…they’re the experts, right?

After growing up drinking diet pepsi (which was as much of a staple in our house as milk), it was interesting to later hear about the horrible effects of soda on the body. On a related note, I remember hearing some time ago that you should NEVER put plastic wrap over foods in the microwave, because it somehow emits carcinogenic thingies into our food as a result of being in the oh-so-safe microwave. Hahaha. This comes on the heels of 30-plus years of covering food in the microwave with plastic wrap? Speaking of microwaves…..if the experts told us conclusively that microwave use has been known to cause cancer due to extra high levels of dangerous microwavey stuff (which of course is a theory), what would we do? How would we adjust to the idea of suddenly not using a microwave oven? Perish the thought! Microwave ovens have become so ingrained in our daily life that it would be reaaaal easy to conclude that the “experts” aren’t so expert after all.

So what’s one to do? Are the experts really experts? Who ARE these people? Hey, I definitely appreciate people who do the leg work for me, butchyaknow….us cavemen don’t have time for all of this misinformation; we’re too busy hunting and making the kill. Speaking of which, I gotta run now and take down this T-Rex. I can only hope he hasn’t been eating gluten; the second-hand consumption may (or may not) be my demise.