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Comment by jchrisa | Hacker News Reader

It's not like skipping gluten is a major hardship. Basically empty calories anyway. Why defend it?

The point is not defending gluten per se. This is defense of sane eating, not allowing fear mongering, and killing dieting fads.

Well, lactose intolerance and gluten intolerance aren't dieting fads. I silently sneered at those labels, until I realized 6 years ago that I might have been lactose intolerant for the prior 10 years. (Now I know so.) And I felt the same way about gluten intolerance, until... 1 month ago. Now I realize that I have gluten intolerance. My intolerance for lactose is fairly strong, and for gluten, it's fairly weak, but now I know why I get stomach cramps and breakouts on my lower face. 75% of the world has at least some degree of lactose intolerance.

Maybe because people have been eating wheat based products for the whole extent of human history without having health issues ?

I hate the words "empty calories". It's an oxymoron. Calories cannot be "empty", they are fuel for the body, they always have been.

Only years of fad-diets and food industry advertising could have turned a staple of human evolution as bread as something "evil".

Bread (and others) have provided the fuel to build civilization, true. However, they are man-made foods. When was the last time you saw a chimpanzee or caveman enjoying a loaf of bread, plate of pasta, etc?

As it has only existed since the dawn of agriculture, your tying of it to evolution is incorrect.

When was the last time you saw a caveman or a chimpanzee flying on an airplane or using a computer?

I was speaking of evolution in broad terms (as in, social and technological evolution as a race) not strictly in terms of darwinian evolution.

It's a major hardship if it's important for you to be able to participate in social situations that revolve around food.

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