Gluten Free - The 'Healthy' Diet?

Now, before all my fellow coeliacs leap down my throat for even suggesting that gluten free is a healthy diet (in keeping with so many of the famed celebrity 'fad' diets), hear me out.

While I'm sure there are confirmed coeliacs who are in the public eye, a great many more either claim to have 'difficulties with gluten' or state outright that they're following it for the purposes of maintaining a healthy diet. In a bid to avoid legal action, I should stress that the following names* are those who are rumoured to follow a gluten free diet because they consider it healthy:

• Gwyneth Paltrow
• Ryan Phillippe
• Victoria Beckham
•  Miley Cyrus
• Fern Britton

The truth, however, is very different. The majority of gluten free products, from bread and crackers to the 'naughtier' treats, tend to be far higher in both fat and sugar than their non-gluten free counterparts. 

 Doubting whether that's really true? Let's take a closer look.

Genius is one of the most popular gluten free suppliers out there. They were arguably the first manufacturer to produce gluten free that was considered edible by the general coeliac population (and if you knew what we had to put up with before that, you'd know why they became so popular!). So let's take a look at the largest loaf of brown bread they do. This is the nutritional info, taken from the Genius website, for their 535g loaf of Brown Sliced Bread:

And this is the nutritional info for a loaf of Hovis 800g medium-slices wholemeal loaf, taken from the Hovis website:

Notice anything there, did ya? Okay, let's just recap. Per 100g, the Genius bread contains 7.4g of fat. The Hovis, on the other hand, contains just 1.8g of fat. If you're looking at eating gluten free as a way to lose weight, you'd best steer clear of the bread because that stuff will stick to your thighs like glue!

So let's really blow the diet. Let's say you decide to really splurge and go for some cake. Nothing too big now, you don't want to look too podgy for that upcoming Christmas party. This is the nutritional info for Mrs Crimbles Bakewell Slices, taken from the Mrs Crimbles website:

 Wow! 30g of sugar per 100g? That's scary! But what about the non-gluten free version? Let's take a look at some 'normal' bakewell slices, and hey, just for kicks, let's look at Mr Kipling's, which even have a thin layer of icing on top:

Okay, so these ones have more sugar (that'll be the icing) but check out the fat content. While the gluten free ones have 24.5g of fat per 100g, the non-gluten free version by Mr Kipling have just 17.4g. But that's just the tip of the iceburg. Look at the saturated fat in both. While Mrs Crimbles' has 13.8g of saturated fat (my left ventricle closes just looking at that), Mr Kipling has only 7.8g.

 Even the least maths-capable mind can see that the gluten free version has almost exactly twice as much saturated fat as the non-gluten free version.

So what have we learned today, class? Well, if you're a celebrity looking for a bandwagon to jump on, you may have learned nothing more than that following this 'trend' would mean an extra 3k run every day. But if you've been thinking about going gluten free because it could help you lose weight, I hope you've learned that this probably isn't the diet for you. Almost every gluten free item contains more saturated fat and sugar than a 'normal' version. It's also up to five times the price! But if you're a coeliac, you'll have learned nothing because hey, we already knew all that.



*(Sources: Daily Mail, The Daily Scoop)