Food Fads

[katy]

You may have noticed I am sceptical of all these miracle food cures/diets. I shall be proved right one day. It is now ok. to drink full cream milk and lots of other previous no no's. Are now thought to be harmless.

The amount of people now claiming food allergies as the cause of all their ailments is incredible. How did they manage for the previous 50+ years ok. I know there are genuine ones, Daughter is allergic to Kiwi fruit but it is the obscure ones I am referring to. One survey claimed that over 80% of people aren't allergic to the things they say upsets them.

I had my arm twisted to go to the local Rotary club fundraising quiz night. There was a fish n chip supper delivered in individual boxes from the local chippy. As far as I saw all 75 ate it and the wine and beer was flowing. Pudding time arrived, a choice of 5 made by some members. An announcement was made asking those who had ordered gluten free to collect theirs first....about 30 got up for their gluten free pud. I suppose it's me that is unfashionable.

[Devils Advocate]

Daughter is allergic to Kiwi fruit but it is the obscure ones I am referring to.

As obscureness goes that one must be the obscurest I've ever heard...........that has cheered me up after one quite annoying morning, I am in stitches in fact

[katy]

Yes fair point what I really meant is the non visible ones. People who have a real allergy that is visible, say eggs and their mouth and tongue swell up or you have breathing difficulties. I was referring to the hoards with wheat allergies etc where there is no visible effects.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1 ... 70,3539740

[Mowser]

I can't have eggs. If I do I have gut-ache for about 4 hours afterwards. Having said that, once in a while I decide to have fried eggs. It's worth the discomfort.

Re allergies - one of the worst here is the mango allergy - not the fruit, but the flower. Every March my face aches.

[Wicksey]

There was something on TV a week or two back about the rising 'fad' of being gluten intolerant, which is actually fairly rare. When they interviewed people, some said that they weren't eating gluten as they thought it was unhealthy or fattening, so obviously didn't understand what a real gluten intolerance is. In fact, many gluten free items have a higher amount of fat and sugar to make up for the lack of gluten.

I once made a gluten free cake for someone who really did have coeliac disease and it contained a huge amount of mashed potato instead of flour plus the usual quantities of sugar and butter and 4 eggs, so not low calorie (very tasty though - you'd never have known it was made with spuds).

[Trooperman]

Katy. Did the 30 "gluten free" pudding eaters have equally gluten free batter on their fish?......or have I just proved it's mainly a fad?