Gluten Public Enemy
Gluten Public Enemy is one of the best documentaries we’ve seen so far on gluten sensitivity. Like everything in life, there is no single answer and it is not so easy to pinpoint a culprit. Will it be a fashion? Are people exaggerating? Will it be transgenics? Pesticides? I myself went two full years without eating anything that contained gluten, and the difference that that decision made to me was not negligible. lately I indulge myself once or twice a month in small amounts without suffering immediate effects, and in the face of complete ignorance of the mechanisms of evolution and involution of that sensitivity one can begin to doubt whether the symptoms I suffered before were psychosomatic, since the diet that the stars follow is not my concern at all.
Gluten Public Enemy
The documentary begins with that statement, a mantra of many channels that promote a healthy diet by turning gluten into the public enemy. With the question of whether we are going crazy with a fashion that has neither head nor tail or if a gluten sensitivity epidemic is really on the rise.
Gluten has become dangerous for the health of many people. In this documentary, scientists, activists and farmers are trying to discover the true properties of wheat to discover the origin of this intolerance.
The intestines that fell into oblivion
The intestine is an organ that has an inestimable influence on the functioning of our body. The intestine for us is what the roots are for the plants. The quality of the nutrients that reach our body depends in the first instance on the quality of food that passes through our gastrointestinal tract, and our ability to absorb the nutrients that it provides us. This in turn influences the functioning of our entire body, muscles, vision, nervous system, brain, skin, bones, and I can continue to infinity because EVERYTHING, absolutely everything in our body depends on this process.
Gluten Public Enemy a truth in expansion.
El documental empieza por un dato estadístico que muestra la existencia real de una dolencia infradiagnosticada, la sensibilidad al gluten y en caso extremo la celiaquía. Uno de los problemas para su diagnóstico es la variedad de sus síntomas, una variedad que se debe principalmente a que se está trastocando el equilibrio en ese órgano tan importante llamado intestino. Hinchazón abdominal, niebla mental, dolor de cabeza, de articulaciones, deficiencia de micronutrientes, insomnio etc… síntomas tan diversos y tan sutiles a veces, que es prácticamente imposible identificar una causa.
The growth of Gluten Sensitivity.
This is not about spoiling, as the full documentary is worth watching. The analysis offered by the documentary is very well structured and analyzes several points that may play an important role in the escalation of gluten sensitivity.
- Changes in wheat varieties in recent decades, changes driven mainly by the use of chemical fertilizers. A change that altered both the amount of gluten in the cereal and its nature. Taking into account the effect that this change produced in digestion.
- The changes in the way of growing wheat, caused by the intensive use of herbicides, whose use promoted transgenic varieties that allowed the crops to be fumigated in very early stages and finally even applying pesticides to wheat to force its maturation, especially in climates. where the heat and natural solar radiation is not enough to ripen the grains. All this entails a brutal amount of pesticides that we ingest every time we eat industrial cereals.
- Industrial processes to process grain prepare highly processed products that include bread that does not ferment long enough to pre-digest gluten, such as all products that are sold as alternatives to our breakfast, pastries, so-called breakfast cereals and many other products that fill more than half of the surface of our supermarkets.
Gluten free food. Is it a healthier alternative?
The easy way in a capitalist market logic is to create a business line, taking advantage of the imbalance created by the inertia of the mass consumer market itself. While it can protect consumers suffering from gluten sensitivity or celiac disease, most specific gluten-free products are lacking in fiber, micronutrients, and excess empty calories with a high glycemic index.
Gluten sensitivity and possible solutions.
The problem of gluten sensitivity agglutinates (sorry I am amused by the redundancy of the term) such a magnitude of factors with their economic interests behind the scenes that it paralyzes the legislative path and makes it highly difficult to offer solutions that were not a patch. It should be easy to prohibit systematically spraying our own food with poison, it should be easy to envision a change in the agricultural and food system. It would be easy if our health were a priority, but it is not.
Then the solution is in our hands. Consuming organic directly from the farmer is an easy and viable option, through consumer groups or directly online. The more organic consumption increases, the more supply there will be and the easier a massive conversion to organic production will be. It is less easy to change our eating habits, especially when they are not inherently harmful. But if we suffer from a sensitivity to gluten, perhaps we should choose to substitute our carbohydrate source for other gluten-free ones without sacrificing the nutritional value, opting for the use of other grains, such as buckwheat, quinoa, corn, rice and many others grown organically.
Gluten Public Enemy: Documentary Information:
Original title: Gluten, l’ennemi public
Country: France
Year: 2019
Duration: 55 min
Director: Patrizia Marani