Gluten: The Mystery

Katrina Addison

3-24-10

Unit Three Paper

Celiac Disease

Gluten: Behind Its Mystery's

Everyone in today's day and age has at some point or another come across a person with a food allergy. You may not be able to grasp the severity of it until you speak with them about it. One of my best friends has a food allergy that I found out about when we were only about 6 years old. He cannot eat peanuts. I didn't understand it much myself until I was going through testing to find out what was wrong with my stomach. We had tried everything. We even cut eggs and dairy out of my diet, but nothing worked. We had the doctor's stumped for over 2 years until my endocrinologist suggested me be tested for Celiac Disease. Lo and behold, that's what it was. I was immediately sent to a dietician and placed on a gluten free diet.

DQ α 5 -β 2 -binding cleft with a deamidated gli...

English: Endoscopic image of duodenum in individua...

Gluten free beer made from sorghum in an American ...

What was gluten though? I had no idea. I've never heard of such a disease, as I'm sure not too many others have either. So that's exactly why I'm writing this: so you can understand what millions of people are diagnosed with around the world.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat and other similar grains. It can also be found in other food that most people wouldn't expect it to be in such as a common preservative called Monosodium Glutamate, or even a common chocolate flavoring such as malt. Although, there are some issues in distributing many wheat free foods without the instance of cross contamination. This can be caused by something as simple as cutting wheat containing foods and then cutting non-wheat containing foods with the same knife or on the same board. Below is a chart of some other hidden foods that...