Your gluten free diet is killing the wheat industry

Bread just makes me bloat

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Your kale, mason jar, and soy latte brunches might be healthy and Instagrammable, but they’re fucking up the UK wheat industry.

Instead of the few actual coeliacs who have historically ruined group restaurant experiences for everyone, more and more people are now self-defining as “gluten free” — like all of these blonde women who live in Surrey. And leaving gluten-based foods behind could be having a damaging effect on the UK industry according to an insider.

Gluten is the main protein found in wheat and the cause of coeliac disease, but apparently the trend has gone too far.

Martin Savage, trade policy manager at the National Association of British and Irish Flour Millers (NABIM) told The Tab: “There has been a growth in gluten-free products which is far beyond the volume of gluten-free products required by coeliacs.

“More and more people are self-diagnosing as gluten intolerant.”

The effects of coeliac disease are very real, but self-diagnosis is a growing problem apparently

He added: “UK flour millers use approximately five million tonnes of wheat each year to produce about 4.0million tonnes of flour. Around 55 per cent of our production is flour that will be used for breadmaking.

“But most gluten-free products rely on rice flour, oats or sometimes barley – not wheat”

Despite the trend of ditching gluten, it’s not just allergy products which are having a negative effect on the wheat industry.

Martin said: “Flour sales have shown a slight downward trend over the past ten years due to a range of factors such as the recession, consumers wasting less bread, more wraps being consumed and the advent of ‘thins’ which are generally sold in small pack sizes.

“We spend quite a lot of effort trying to educate consumers and medical professionals about the difficulties of self-diagnosis and the benefits of wheat in a properly balanced diet.”

But being not being able to eat gluten-based good isn’t all fun and games, as not everything is available in non-wheat form yet.

If you don’t eat gluten, post-night out food can be a problem

Manchester languages student Yasmin said: “I went to the doctors and they were like ‘yeah, you’re slightly coeliac’ – and that’s when life started going downhill.

“I can’t have a massive bowl of pasta, I can’t have pizza. Sometimes I’m just like fuck it, I eat a pizza and it means I’ll end up rolling around in pain for a bit.

“On a night out it’s just the worst. Everyone’s getting great drunk food and my choices are totally limited.”