Gluten Free Dieting. Should you or Shouldn't You?

LONDON - June 13, 2013 - PRLog -- Gluten Free Diets

Here at Total Diet Food we have noticed a real trend in clients requesting Gluten Free Plans. On a sample day last week over 40% of our clients were on Gluten Free Plans whilst less than half of those had been prescribed or advised to do so by a professional, the rest had made a decision to avoid gluten on their own accord.

This is an extremely interesting trend for us and last week we visited the incredible Allergy and Free From show at Olympia in London which was absolutely packed with Gluten Free food ideas and even some pretty good gluten free beer. The products that you can use on a Gluten Free diet are proliferating and with careful planning you can really enjoy a full and extremely healthy balanced diet. Like so many areas of the health and fitness industry, it’s a complicated subject though and here we will try to break down the facts;

Is Gluten Bad?

If you have Celiac disease or heightened gluten sensitivity, both of which being much more prevalent in society than previously thought, it can cause some very painful and dangerous reactions. Coeliacs have an immune based reaction and that can lead to serious complications if the sufferer continues to eat gluten.

If you don’t have a specific medical problem with Gluten the evidence is much less clear. There is nothing special in Gluten that would mean avoiding it would necessarily assist weight loss and although many people have found that it helps many other ailments apart from digestive issues, there is little decent evidence so far to say the benefits are worth the hassle.

Mark DeMeo, M.D., director of gastroenterology and nutrition at the Adult Celiac Disease Program at Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, says "there's nothing magical about a gluten-free diet that's going to help you lose weight."

People do lose weight though and this might be because; “Gluten-free dining can seriously limit the number of foods you can eat. With fewer choices, you're a lot less likely to overeat”, says Shelley Case, R.D., author of Gluten-Free Diet: A Comprehensive Resource Guide and a medical advisory board member for the Celiac Disease Foundation.

Giving up gluten may sound as basic as cutting out bread or eating less pasta, but this isn't just another version of the low-carb craze. Because gluten makes foods thick and tasty, it is added to everything from salad dressing to soy sauce to seasonings. One of our single biggest challenges here at Total Diet Food is to source ingredients and recipes that avoid gluten are low fat and tasty. Lucky we’ve had years to do it!

So, should you give up Gluten?

As this brilliant article in Women’s Health magazine succinctly put’s it – “If you have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, the answer is easy: Yes, you have to. But if you just want to give the diet a spin, know this: It's a giant pain in the butt.” Or you could just call Total Diet Food on 020 86778265 and we will deliver a full and balanced Gluten Free plan to you, 7 days per week.

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