What is Gluten?

AMBER WAVES OF PAIN

Gluten, a mixture of proteins found in wheat and other grains, can cause serious stomach ailments for people with celiac disease and with celiac-like responses to it.

Jon Bunting

There is a menace in our supermarkets. And it is nothing short of a dietary WMD: A Weapon of Mass Diarrhea.

Its name is gluten.

Gluten is a mixture of proteins found mostly in wheat, but also in barley, rye, and oats. These grains make up many of our breads, pastas, granolas, noodles, tortillas, and beers. That's trouble for several million Americans (about one percent of us) who suffer from celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder in which gluten causes the body to attack the small intestine. Several million more people (up to five percent of the population) suffer from “non-celiac wheat sensitivity,” in which gluten triggers celiac-like symptoms—such as stomachaches, diarrhea and depression.

For both groups, gluten is an intestinal bomb for reasons you'll see below. For the rest of us, it's benign.

Yet nearly a third of the country refuses to eat gluten. For some, the avoidance is trendy. Others think it will help them lose weight. Whatever the motive, millions are struggling to dodge gluten in everyday products. Non-gluten foods typically offer flavorless consolation; Because gluten is one of bread’s most important components—giving it a chewy texture—baking without it results in some dense and awful-tasting products.

Recently, Italian scientists created a new process that uses gluten-hungry bacteria to strip wheat of all its gluten, allowing them to make wheat-based bread that is gluten-free, and presumably fluffy and tasty. This process might offer a welcome choice to celiac- and celiac-like sufferers, as well as to the countless others who are merely gluten-averse.
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