Gluten is NOT nutritious

I feel a big rant coming on.  I haven't been able to run since Monday, due to a strained hamstring, and I'm seriously endorphin-deprived.  I can't get to my happy place, haven't had my moment of zen, and no longer possess inner peace. 

You have been warned.

(begin rant)

I hereby declare war on all doctors and dietitians!

No, I don't.  (They outnumber me.)  But I want to...

I just read again this morning, for the umpteenth time, a dietitian saying that following a gluten-free diet, if you don't need to, can lead to nutritional deficiencies.  I have read this (and heard this firsthand) from so many people in the medical profession over the past several years, and it boggles my mind each and every time.

Seriously, how effing stupid can they be?

Gluten is a sticky protein.  It makes breads elastic and causes things to better stick together.  Gluten is NOT necessary to human survival.  Human beings existed healthily for millions of years before wheat, barley and rye were first domesticated, and will continue to exist healthily for millions of years after the gluten industry lobby has finally been destroyed. 

If you do not eat gluten, you will not die.  You will not develop rickets, or scurvy, or shingles; beriberi, goiters, or the Heebie-Jeebies.

In fact, nothing bad will happen to you at all if you do not eat gluten.  Ever.

If you are developing nutritional deficiencies, then you are not eating foods that contain proper nutrition, regardless of their gluten content.  Period. And dietitians and doctors should know that.  Seriously, I would bet that most people who are gluten free eat far healthier than those who don't.  When you have to read every label on your food, you become much more discriminating about what you put in your body.

Frankly, if a medical professional ever tells you that eating gluten-free is bad for your health, I suggest you run away screaming.  Who knows what other falsehoods they believe?

(end rant)

By the way...

If I am wrong and gluten itself contains some nutritional substance without which the human race will not survive, please let me know.  Enlighten me!  I will happily proclaim my own ignorance and assert someone else's superiority in this very blog.