Ten years ago 1 in 2500 people were estimated to be gluten intolerant.  Today, that figure is 1 out of 133. We seldom heard of gluten allergy until about twenty years ago; now one frequently has to cater to guests who have the problem.  Why now?

It turns out that a large number of wheat varieties have been developed since World War II.  The public seems to like white, fluffy bread, which you cannot achieve with the traditional varieties, (einkorn, emmer and spelt). This is bad news for diabetics and pre-diabetics.  The newer varieties cannot take up minerals from the soil like the old varieties do.  The culprit is a particular peptide strand in the gluten molecule, only present in the newer wheat.  Traditional sourdough needs long, slow fermentation, which severe the bond of the peptide, while still allowing the bread to rise.  This lacto-fermentation takes up up a month before baking. a fact presumably inconvenient to large brand bakers, who have pushed breads using the new wheats.

On top of this the widespread use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides is thought to be a factor in celiac disease, less widespread that gluten intolerance, but still attributable to wheat production.

We should be confident that what we put in our mouths is nourishing and safe. Too many processed foods do not meet this standard.