[lotides]

My son is extremely allergic to wheat and milk. We have to carry an epi-pen with us everywhere. He swells up, including his face and throat, when he comes in contact with these allergens. It's cost us thousands of dollars in hospital bills, missed work and is a constant worry. If people eat something, don't wash their hands and then touch him, he'll get a bad rash. Most gluten free food is free of wheat and some of that is free of dairy too. I'm thankful for the gluten free trend. Without it, my son wouldn't have much of a chance to eat many common foods. You wouldn't believe some of the things they put wheat in, sometimes for seemingly no reason at all. He can't even play with play dough. So I'll continue to pay 5x as much for a loaf of gluten-free bread because it gives my son a more normal life.

[jonnathanson]

+1

I'm gluten-free by medical necessity, though not nearly as bad as what is unfortunately afflicting your son. And gluten-free products are a) expensive, b) still pretty rare, and c) unlikely to be found outside of specialized sections in large supermarkets or online retailers.

If nothing else, gluten-free faddism creates market forces that increase the availability of gluten-free options while simultaneously reducing their (substantial!) cost. So in that sense, it has some positive externalities.

For example, you can actually get a gluten-free option on most airplane flights these days. That certainly wasn't the case 5 years ago (or at least it wasn't unless you went out of your way to arrange something).

Conversely, the one real danger is that a lot of products are coming to market very quickly, and not all of them are as gluten-free or wheat-safe as they claim. (For instance, a product not made with wheat, but processed in the same factory as wheat products, can get away with calling itself "gluten free," and you need to read the very, very fine print on the package to figure this out). The labeling standards need to catch up to the marketing.

[VLM]

"And gluten-free products are a) expensive, b) still pretty rare, and c) unlikely to be found outside of specialized sections"

Not true. Our whole family has been on the diet for a decade or so for medical necessity of our son. Yes if you "demand" something like gluten containing junk food its terribly expensive and frankly doesn't taste very good, usually. But a perfectly "normal" GF lifestyle isn't any more difficult or expensive than a G lifestyle.

Grilled chicken caesar salad with homemade tasty dressing... just hold the crutons.

Traditional steak dinner with all the fixings, just don't marinate in soy sauce based marinades and don't serve garlic bread on the side.

Beef pot roast with all the fixings except dinner rolls.

Meatloaf just use rice as a binder instead of wheat flour and thicken the gravy with off the shelf cornstarch instead of wheat flour.

For obvious "bun" reasons we tend to cook a heck of a lot more kebobs than burgers and brats. He have had cornbread burger buns and they're not as bad as they might sound... after all corn torilla and seasoned meat is not unheard of, so cornbread and somewhat less seasoned meat is pretty good too.

Lime garlic marinated chicken stir fried

Snack time tends a lot more toward corn chips and salsa or sliced up fruit than toward cookies and cake slices.

You'd be amazed what can be done with cornbread and cornbread batter, but you have to make your own from cornmeal, the mixes in the store use flour as a binder. No problemo homemade is about 1/2 the cost of boxed mix anyway.

I don't like eggs, but obviously for breakfast we do a lot more bacon -n- eggs than bacon -n- pancakes.

I do agree that for social reasons a GF cake costing $10 and tasting like instant potatoes and crunchy rice is kinda ridiculous. So unless there's intense social pressure we don't buy the "GF-products" and stick to naturally GF food instead. Very little baby spinach contains wheat, for example.

[jonnathanson]

All of this is fair and well stated. But:

"Yes if you "demand" something like gluten containing junk food its terribly expensive and frankly doesn't taste very good, usually."

I'm not talking about junk food, per se. For someone who's on the road constantly, or works crazy hours, and doesn't often have time to cook or prepare meals, packaged and restaurant foods are unfortunate necessities of life.

Now, I'm fully aware that there are people who'd consider all such food, by sheer virtue of being shelf-stable and packaged, to be junk food. And I try my absolute hardest to avoid packaged foods in general. But I'm not looking for gluten-free chips or donuts. I'm looking for gluten-free ready-to-eat meals, or gluten-free microwave meals, or gluten-free options on restaurant menus, or gluten-free breakfast bars, or gluten-free breads, etc. All of these things have become much more available in the last half-decade than they've been in my entire life preceding it.

[VLM]

Well... OK. You mention the expensive costs dropping with popularity, then when I point out a plate of fried eggs and bacon for breakfast at the diner has always been pretty cheap and nothing new, and they don't "need" GF pancakes or GF toast to serve naturally GF food, you turn it around and make it an availability argument instead...

As for ready to eat meals and such we've done "ok" with gourmet (aka non-noodle) soups and innumerable granola bars. Also sometimes you just have to try something else. Can't buy GF granola bars at this particular store today? Guess you're having (certain) trail mixes.

GF microwave meals sounds interesting. I'm guessing aside from specialty GF products, something rice based would be the best hope?

[jonnathanson]

"You mention the expensive costs dropping with popularity, then when I point out a plate of fried eggs and bacon for breakfast at the diner has always been pretty cheap and nothing new, and they don't "need" GF pancakes or GF toast to serve naturally GF food, you turn it around and make it an availability argument instead..."

The availability issue was part of my original post, as well (viz., my points "b" and "c"). You assumed I was talking about junk food, and I had to elaborate my position in response. That's a clarification, not a topical shift.

For what it's worth, I totally concede your point about produce and meat. To the extent that you believe that such things invalidate my point altogether, well, that's where I needed to add clarity.