The "Morality" of Gluten

The gluten-free diet is becoming increasingly popular, not only for those with with celiac disease or other obvious health problems, but even for those simply trying to optimize energy and longevity. I will comment in my next post on some of the reasons why such a diet might actually be healthy, but first I want to look at possible ideological motivations behind the diet.

Wheat, barley, and rye are the grains of Western Civilization, and there is no better way to ally oneself with the noble savages of the pre-civilized (or even modern) world than to reject the material basis of one's own society. No doubt there is also satisfaction in the diet's abstemiousness, which people tend to enjoy from time to time even though there are relatively few opportunities for it in our post-Christian culture.

Anti-civilization sentiments are often bundled in non-systematic ways and emerge subtly (or not so subtly) in movies like Avatar or Dances With Wolves, modern religions like Wicca and environmentalism, and "health food". The motive for rejecting gluten may not be explicitly ideological, yet still bound up in a system of mental binaries that ties it with the wrong set of associations. Such binary systems are essential to human thought and often conceal unexpected assumptions about the world.

Good - Bad
Moral - Immoral
Peaceful - Violent
Native - Imperialist
Victim - Oppressor
Aboriginal Culture - Western Culture
Pagan - Christian
Freedom - Slavery
Communitarian - Capitalist
Family Farms (or even Gathering) - Corporate (or Feudal) Agriculture
Raw - Cooked/Pasteurized
Unmilled - Milled
Whole - Refined
Wild Game - Cows, Chickens, and Pigs
Raw Fruits/Vegetables - Bread
Healthy - Unhealthy
Natural - Artificial

Not everyone will share the same set of binaries, but the dietary code among educated, left-leaning white people is obvious and very similar to a set of religious strictures. These dietary practices include restrictions like vegetarianism, veganism, raw foodism, and "whole" foodism, semi-ascetic practices like food combining and calorie counting, and purity standards such as organic fruits and vegetables, free-range meats, and various "fair trade" products. These eating practices not only establish one as moral, but also have advantage of distinguishing one as part of the educated class. The typical moral rejection of McDonald's has a lot to do with it being where poor people like to eat. The right dietary restrictions can allow one to be both morally correct and high status at the same time.

Gluten-free eating is only making its entrance onto this scene, but I predict it will become more and more popular. It is anti-civilization, difficult, and unlikely to become popular with the lower classes.

Of course, there ARE non-ideological reasons for avoiding gluten and many people have improved their health by avoiding it--although they may be mistaken that it is the gluten itself that is causing their health problems. I'll look at this topic in my next post.

ADDENDUM: I was thinking about the natural/artificial dichotomy, and it occurred to me that the Latin root of the word "artificial" means something like "to my make by art/skill". Of course, etymology is not always the best way to understand a word's present meaning, but it does seem striking that art and skill should be consider bad, and I can hardly imagine a more derogatory term than "artificial".

If nature is held to be benevolent and morally good, then it must be wrong for mankind to alter it with technology. No matter how many of such modifications are genuine improvements to human life, this assumption requires that "artificial" remain by default evil and "natural" by default good.