Why do people pretend they are allergic to gluten?

Why do people pretend they are allergic to gluten?

Add gluten to someone's meal without them knowing. If they eat it and nothing happens, it's psychosomatic. If they die, you get free meat.

some people are, but some people like being "disabled" for the attention, so they lie

I think it is because they get a blood test then a piece of their intestines removed and examined to determine if their vili are absorbing nutrients when gluten is present

The whole gluten-free fad has been a godsend for people with celiac or legit gluten sensitivity though. More variety (and quality) now than there's ever been before.

I've known several people who are, of those, all of them miss it, but know it made them sick.

It's one of those we couldn't tell before things. So it seems more common, when we used to just have more sick people.

You can always tell the fad dieting retards from the actual celiacs. Fad dieters don't even do the tiniest shred of research and will instead ask everywhere they go if things contain gluten
>UHMMMM.... IS THIS STEAK GLUTEN FREE? CAUSE I CAN'T EAT IT IF IT IS
>UHMMMMMMHHMHMHMHMM DOES THIS LEMONADE CONTAIN GLUTEN CAUSE I CANT HAVE GLUTEN YA KNOW?

I make some bad-ass chewy bagels. I love gluten...

Some folks are. I have a friend with Celiac disease. She suffered with it for years before it was diagnosed. Turns out it's what killed her father, but no one knew it at the time.

But you are right that a lot of people think gluten does them harm when there's no reason for them to think that. It's because plenty of folks suffer various aches and pains as they age, and doctors don't have answers for them as to what causes it. So all kinds of pseudoscience jumps in to fill the gap. People are particularly fond of simple solutions to what might be much more complicated problems. People like magic bullets. The idea that eliminating gluten from your diet might solve your problems is appealing to someone whose digestion doesn't seem right and suffers aches and pains. For many it seems worth a shot even if there isn't much science to back it up. Also there is money to be made in gluten free products, so the food industry has no reason to buck this trend.

>People are particularly fond of simple solutions to what might be much more complicated problems. People like magic bullets.
Yep, this right here.

People are always looking for the latest scapegoat to blame their problems on. And there's always one or more fads regarding this. Back in the 70's it was fat. In the 80's and early 90's you had the cholesterol scare. Then trans-fats, now gluten.

I just can't understand why someone would choose to self-diagnose something that is so important that it is potentially lethal. You'd think anyone concerned about gluten would go to the doctor and actually get tested for it & learn a proper course of treatment rather than be unaware of the real facts.

>has been a godsend for people with celiac or legit gluten sensitivity
Except that everything now costs 10x more because demand is higher.

gluten sensitivity isn't even a thing.
and only 1% of the population has celiac.

I had a morbidly obese roommate who cut out gluten and, surprise, they lost 20 lbs in a month.

They explained to me as "clearly, I was allergic to gluten!" rather than they stopped eating wheelbarrows of pasta every day.

Well elimination diets aren't all that difficult, and no one needs gluten to live, so it's a pretty harmless fad. Trans-fat is legit, though. No reason to consume that in any significant quantity if you can help it.

Yeah, I get that they aren't very difficult, but my point was really based on the seriousness of the condition rather than anything else. I can't speak for others of course but if I suspected that I had a serious and potentially fatal medical issue I would certainly want to visit a doctor and find out all the facts ASAP rather than rely on gossip and advertising.

Yes, I agree that the trans-fat issue is legit. I wasn't trying to say otherwise. My point was that some people would blame any and all health issues on that regardless if it was or was not the problem. Any time something "bad" becomes known, some people blame any problem on it regardless of whether it actually makes sense or not.

((( celiac ))) is like the ((( holocaust ))), it doesnt exist

It's actually the opposite, since there are so many fakers restaurants are starting to get less strict and a lot of faux shit is flooding the market

My aunt is celiac, 5'6" and was down to 80lbs when they finally discovered her problem. Now that she cut gluten she's around 150lbs...

Because they're attention whores. No other reason. They want people to acknowledge them as a special fucking snowflake.

why do people pretend they're allergic to peanuts
i mean it doesn't happen to me so it cant be real

I get your point, but the issue with gluten is that the number of people professing to have gluten problems is far greater than the documented rate of Celiac disease. This means, conclusively, that the majority of people who claim to need to be "gluten free" are in fact full of shit. And that's bad for the people who really do have celiac because they might get lumped in with all the idiots, hypochondriacs, and people with Munchausen's disease.

The symptoms for celiac are very similar to the catch all disease called IBS. It is estimated that 1 in 100 are celiac in the US, but most are undiagnosed. Few doctors screen for celiac and instead just give patients a diagnosis of IBS, essentially all that means is "somethings wrong with your guts and digestion but we dont know what". Millions of people have IBS, and some of those could be due to gluten allergy or celiac disease, or allergy to some other foods.

>glutenfags will never understand

I have Celiac disease. Eating gluten makes me constipated, extremely lethargic, and gives me ridiculously bad heartburn.

People who just say they're "gluten free" just because they on a diet really have ruined it for us who have a daily struggle with it. That gluten shit is in *everything*.

>that gluten shit is in everything
Cook more, faggot.
Also Celiac, saving money because I have the best excuse to not eat out (or not eat much when out with friends), cook my own food at home.
People who buy expensive special gluten free shit are chumps. Only gluten free substitute I occasionally buy is one particular pasta because it's inexpensive and surprisingly tasty.

What a surprise: people don't behave in a rational manner. This has been obvious to politicians, economists and those in marketing for a while now. Shouldn't really be a shock.
back to /pol/

The idea is that grains and the gluten they contain are a recent enough introduction to the human diet that nobody is fully capable of digesting them. Some people have extremely mild and unnoticeable reactions to consuming them, while at the other end of the spectrum, some people are bad enough that they can be diagnosed with Celiac disease. Inbetween is a large range of people who don't react badly enough to have Celiac but still don't digest gluten well, or have other various bad reactions to it.

I'm not saying that any of this is true, but this is the reasoning behind people who avoid gluten despite not having a diagnosable disease. That, and the expected population of idiots who have let the media implant the idea that "gluten=bad" in their heads and don't really understand why they're supposed to be avoiding it, but do so anyway.

Also, as people age, their bodies change, hormones, metabolism, all sorts of things. I had no apparent issues with gluten till my 30's and then it became an issue, which I eventually diagnosed via a blood test showing I was very sensitive to wheat and gluten. I have no idea if I was always allergic to it but my younger more stronger digestive system just dealt with it, or if it is something that developed later in life.

Another is that the continual refinement of wheat products have left them free of the "impurities" that helped people thrive on it for 12.000 years.
Wheat flour's pretty much like white sugar, so refined it hits the body hard.

some probley say they have it because there hipsters

Is there less refined wheat? Or does it have to do with the more modern wheat strains?

Oh there's loads, whole wheat (ACTUAL whole wheat not the fashion shit, that stuff can have as little as 1% actual whole grain and still qualify), unbleached, stone ground (makes the gut work much harder).

Loads of literature on it, that's just from what i remember and it's not really a interest of mine.

Also fermenting the bread does LOADS, not that quick rise franken-yeast, the oldshool low and slow sourdough yeast has been found to help a lot in breaking down and easing the digestion of breads.

TLDR: It's gotten too fast, too efficient and the system OD's on good stuff.

Man I sound like a hippie about this shit even though the closest i get to "legacy foods" is free range eggs, just because I prefer the taste.

I've heard some anecdotes from people who said they went to Europe and could digest the bread fine, but not in the USA. Never understood why that would be. Perhaps it has something to do with US bread being generally all over-processed.

Here "wonder-bread" is the anomaly rather than the norm, even out toast bread usually uses sourdough, you have to actively look for exceptions.

Out gluten allergics tend to fall into either the generally sickly or the ones that need something to blame categories.

some people shit blood when they eat gluten I wouldn't call that pretending

1% is a lot of people

her body was probably rejecting all food, and when she started to eat the right hings she went back to a healthy weight

The edge on this post is unreal

my sister is celiac and said she pooped a lot better after cutting gluten-y foods out of her life, but actually does miss them and is willing to have some bad sharts in exchange for non-vegan pizza or a proper plate of pancakes

what few other gluten allergy people i've met have been similar. its basically the same as a lactose intolerance both in attitude and how it seems to work

>our gluten folk are sickly or just larping
Not sure that's entirely true. Italy and Ireland both have a significant population of gluten intolerant or celiac, to the point that many people are knowledgeable about the problem and many restaurants offer gluten free menus. In fact I think Italy actually does widespread testing on kids when they are very young, and i have heard most restaurants there are very familiar with the gluten allergy issue due to the high prevalence there. These are just some things I've read, not sure how accurate that is.

>my sister is celiac and said she pooped a lot better after cutting gluten-y foods out of her life
If she actually had it she would've been diagnosed as a small child. And the reason she is "pooping better" is because she's eating less cake and donuts, and more vegetables instead.

Youre a fucking retard

You are so full of shit it is running out of your ears. I have lived in Sicily most of my life, and frequently visit Italy. No one gives a fuck about gluten allergies here. It is 100% western hypochondria nonsense.

I think the problem for actual celiacs is that their intestinal lining gets slowly eviscerated over time due to their body's immune reaction against gluten. I know someone who is celiac who did not find out till they were over 40, and by that time, a huge amount of damage was done and now she has a hard time digesting any foods at all, since her intestinal lining is almost kaput.

if you have an allergy to gluten (but not actual celiac disease) then you will get similar nasty symptoms, but I don't think it fucks up your intestinal lining, except for inflammation.

Awfully defensive about your retarded fat sister, huh? Maybe if she didn't stuff her face with pizza all the time she would consistently poop.

Mamma mia! I just related what I had read, and made it clear that it was just something I read. Were you madly gesticulating when you wrote that post?

>make stupid claims about a place you have never visited
>I was only pretending to be retarded

>If she actually had it she would've been diagnosed as a small child.
that would imply we actually had a family doctor to do that kind of thing.

she says her doctor diagnosed it as actual celiac, and that sort of constant damage to her guts would explain her behaviour in high school -- on top of normal teenage angst, she genuinely did take a lot of days off and had anemia problems once despite eating a reasonable amount of meat.

>Awfully defensive about your retarded fat sister, huh?
that wasn't me but the brother-sister psychopath team is a classic that shan't be fucked with

Google Italy celiac if you are interested, otherwise stfu

Because it's super trendy OP are you some kind of hermit who doesn't understand what's fashionable

>It is 100% western hypochondria nonsense.
I think it's pretty reasonable. if something makes you feel bad after eating it, you should probably stop eating it.

italy probably has no celiacs because all the celiacs fucking died by literally shitting their gut lining out or simply moved to america

>a bunch of celiac blogs, NPR, and a single case study done back in 2001

>that wasn't me but the brother-sister psychopath team is a classic that shan't be fucked with
Do you fuck her on a normal basis, user?

>It is 100% western hypochondria nonsense.
just because you dont know anyone in Italy with celiac does not mean it doesn't exist in Italy, or is a made up disease.

Italy is considered a western country too btw or is that also something just made up?

gross

im pretty sure the only people into incest are only childs

Not if you shop at Aldi.

that's just food inflation, all food prices have gone up, not just gluten free food. the increased demand now makes gf food way more widely available that it was just 5 years ago, you still have to be careful to avoid misrepresentation or cross-contamination.

gluten free pasta used to be generally dogshit plus very expensive with few options, now it is reasonable priced and actually edible, if you find the right kind for your tastes.

I didn't say it was a made up disease. Just that "GLUTEN FREE IS EVERYWHERE IN ITALY" is anecdotal garbage spouted on american mom-blogs.

And sorry I'll correct myself, it's ameri*GLUTENFREE*burger hypochondria nonsense :^)

Around 1% of people who claim to have issues with gluten have ever done this.

Well, I would guess that your position that "no one cares about gluten or celiac in Italy and it is 100% hypochondriac nonsense" is because you have little to no experience of it yourself, and are completely ignorant about the disease, and you smugly assume only fat American housewives care about it. But I'm pretty sure the prevalence of celiac disease in Italy is probably similar to the US or other western countries, regardless of if you believe it's all hype or that Italians are somehow immune to it.

some of them aren't pretending

Most people who have issues with gluten do not have celiac disease. The test you talked about is for celiac, not gluten allergy. Celiac disease and gluten allergy are 2 different things. That test only makes sense if your doctor suspects you have celiac, which is an autoimmune disorder, not a food allergy.

>you smugly assume only fat American housewives care about it.
Because it's true. The only people I ever see bitching about gluten are fat american women in their 30's or 40's who somehow believe they discovered the key to eternal life by cutting fucking bread out of their diet. Americans have been at war with carbohydrates since the Atkins diet. It's no surprise this shit blew up, too.

I thought you lived in Sicily. Do you read a lot of US women's magazines to stay informed about issues?

>gluten sensitivity
reading this made me feel gay, and I'm not even gay

You're probably gay if you feel gay. Get an HIV test.

What is the test for gluten allergy?

A food allergy skin test or blood test

How do I make bagels chewy? Whenever they turn out chewy it's because I didn't let them rise long and they're too dense. And one time I managed to make them chewy and dense but the crust was bad and I don't rememeber how I tweaked the recipe to do it.

I'm not the guy you were responding to, chief.

oops i was being a dick anyway

>non-vegan pizza
what's this got to do with gluten? she knows that gluten is in wheat, right?

Aren't allergies just autoimmune disorders

can you read? I clearly said I'm NOT gay

>Aren't allergies just autoimmune disorders
Yes, but they behave in very different ways. Allergies are a histamine reaction, celiac has nothing to do with that.

The University of Naples is literally the top Celiac research facility in the world, and Italian schoolchildren are enrolled in widespread screening for it. Prior to its discovery in WWII, people regularly died of celiac disease. You have literally no idea what you're talking about.