Gluten is a buzzword on the internet among people who are “health conscious” and care about what they consume. Their consensus is that gluten is bad for you, but is that true? In this article, we will look at what gluten is and if it’s actually as bad as people say it is.
What Is Gluten?
Gluten is a common protein in grains like wheat, rye, barley, and triticale. You can also find it in vitamins, salad dressings, and lip balm because it sometimes acts as a binder. You can find some gluten in oats, but only because the manufacturers may have processed it with other foods with gluten.
Gluten is a natural substance, but you can extract and put it into other food products to add texture, flavor, and protein.
What Does Gluten Do to Your Body?
The human digestive system uses enzymes to break down the molecules in the food you eat. Protease is one of those enzymes. It helps your body process proteins, but its function is limited, and it cannot completely break down the molecules in gluten. As a result, your body passes undigested proteins to your small intestine for further processing.
The average person’s small intestine can take care of this undigested gluten. However, some people’s bodies react adversely to it by triggering an autoimmune response which can lead to other unpleasant symptoms.
Celiac disease is an autoimmune response to undigested gluten, and it can damage your small intestine. Even if you don’t have celiac disease, you can still get sick after eating gluten-free foods. You may experience diarrhea, skin rashes, bloating, and headaches. However, this may be a symptom that the carbohydrate in your body has yet to be fully digested, not just gluten. These carbohydrates ferment in your stomach, and you can experience discomfort from the fermentation.
Is Gluten Bad for You?
While many believe gluten is bad for you, that isn’t always the case. Humans have enjoyed bread, a centerpiece of gluten, for many years, and it has been very effective as a source of soluble fiber, protein, and other essential nutrients.
Gluten, especially from whole grains, is not harmful to people whose bodies can handle it. However, most companies strip down their wheat to the bare minimum to make snacks such as potato chips and crackers. As a result, these snacks have very little of the nutritious wheat plant. In addition, the manufacturers and things like starch and white rice flour.
Additionally, many people that migrate to a gluten-free diet to lose weight find that they still gain weight, get blood sugar swings and deal with other health issues because they eat processed
foods.
