Bella Adams
Bye, bye, bread and pasta: Gluten-free followers avoid gluten from wheat and foods that contain it! Here is all the important information – and for you to try out the gluten-free daily plan!
The latest food fashion for losing weight fast, which has just reached us from the USA, is called “gluten-free” or “low gluten. It’s not just booming since tennis star Novak Djokovic joined in and promptly became number one. The idea is to avoid gluten, a gluten protein found in wheat.
This means no bread, no pasta, no muesli, no cake – in fact, anything made from wheat. The same applies to rye, oats, barley, and spelling. You can find a daily plan to try out further down this page!
Gluten-free diets actually come from disease diets. Anyone affected by celiac disease must avoid gluten at all costs – otherwise, there is a risk of damage to the small intestine. However, only one percent of Germans suffer from this serious metabolic disease. Sofia Beisel, ecotrophologist and scientific director of the German Celiac Society, says: “You have to distinguish exactly.”
Gluten-free diet: what proponents say
The gluten-free diet has many fans – including celebrities such as Lady Gaga, Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, Miley Cyrus, and Anne Hathaway. Hollywood is aiming for weight loss rather than a benefit for the intestines. In addition, giving up gluten-containing grains is also said to help with persistent fatigue, brain fog, and memory problems.
Best-selling books such as ‘Wheat Bummer’ and ‘Dumb as Bread claim that wheat makes you stupid, and sick and “destroys your brain” – contributing to the trend of voluntarily giving up gluten. In particular, they target highly cultivated wheat, which has a particularly high gluten content, to improve baking properties. Industrially produced wheat is also said to contribute to the development of diseases such as diabetes, osteoporosis, dementia, schizophrenia, and also premature aging.
However, an increasing number of people are following a gluten-free diet primarily because they suffer from irritable bowel syndrome and wheat products have an unpleasant flatulence effect on them.
Gluten-free diet: What the opponents say
Gluten-free diets may work if you have a hypersensitive gut and feel bloated frequently. But at best, the weight loss effect comes from the fact that you automatically eat much more consciously when you’re asked to give up something that’s in almost everything: cereal products, sauces, condiments, convenience foods, and sweets.
The list can be continued indefinitely. In fact, only foods that naturally contain no gluten and have not been mixed with any gluten-containing additives are guaranteed gluten-free (see also gluten-free foods).
Similar to the so-called “pudding vegetarians”, people imagine they are eating healthier because they do without a certain thing – without paying attention to what they are eating instead. In plain English, gluten-free brownies are still calorie bombs even without gluten. If you want to lose weight, you can’t avoid taking a critical look at your eating habits. So: In which situations do I eat? How often do I eat? How big are my portions? And: how wholesome is what I eat?
Healthy eating should still come before a gluten-free diet for anyone who does not suffer from celiac disease. Those who suffer from gluten intolerance, i.e. celiac disease as a variant of food intolerance, can combine low gluten and low carb perfectly by eating fewer grain products overall and instead adding more vegetables and legumes to the plate as a filling side dish.
Gluten intolerance: division into three groups
There is a group of celiac disease sufferers: who have a clear diagnosis from the gastroenterologist. Then there is a group of gluten-sensitive people, but they have not yet been clearly diagnosed. For the third group, it is a pure lifestyle to eat a gluten-free diet. In the USA, this is a real weight loss hype. But for the last two groups, the gluten-free diet currently lacks any scientific basis.”
Gluten-free to the desired weight?
Who wants to omit grain, must change in the everyday life quite beautifully: no muesli for the breakfast, no Pasta for the lunch, and no occupied Stullen in the evening. “If one reaches instead for much vegetable and fruit, natural dairy products, lean meat, and fish, one can lose thereby surely a few kilos, so nourishing psychologist Bürgel. “However, it would be even more important to limit sweets and sweet drinks in excess.”
Who omits only grain products, but other coal hydrate sources continue to consume unchecked, also on the balance no large successes will be able to obtain. Especially if one replaces the wheat-containing products with the countless gluten-free alternatives, which come at present on the market: Breads, cookies, cakes, pasta, cereals, baking mixes, muffins, pretzels … Of course, all significantly more expensive than the conventional products with gluten.
