Fanatics confuse the issues

"I feel very conflicted when I encounter a gluten-intolerant person." Heh.

Fanatics confuse the issues. True gluten-intolerant folks don't need to project their problems on you. But it is a problem. Like salt, peanuts, or MSG, gluten is everywhere, added for its glue-iness, mostly. That's the same factor that supposedly debilitates intestinal celia in those who are susceptible.

I'm old enough to remember when everything was heavily salted. A generation of food naziism later, it got so you couldn't taste anything in a restaurant. Works for me, since I just grab the salt shaker and add as much as I want, but such changes should percolate from expressed customer preference, and food providers' response, not Big Nan! I feel bad for all the people who think they have to "watch their salt intake" when they are probably not getting enough! Mark Twain: Beware of reading health books; you may die of a mistpring.

So, the Mrs was really gluten-intol. She baked such great wheat breads & everything, too! This was before we could get glu-free bread in the local grocery like today. What could we do? We had to make major changes. Since she's the world's greatest cook, we just had great non-gluten breads & everything. And she'd sneak her own bread into restaurants and relatives' dinner tables.

We not only adjusted, we found right away that we liked her non-gluten baking better, generally, than wheat (YMMV). Wheat is to the universe of flours as iceberg lettuce is to the universe of vegetables.

So the upshot is, you all have to eat exactly as we do just so that we can go out to eat and confidently order pasta and bread, knowing it's gluten-free. Say what? Whattaya mean, you don't have any salt here?

(Actually, we still avoid baking with wheat, but the doc says she's cured of the g-i blues. Therein lies a story.)

Another long drive-by commenting dump. I'm missing all the fun! Darn that real life....