If you’re a parent of a food-allergic child, the phrase, “Let the buyer beware,” can’t
be more true. An alarming number of products sold as allergen-free actually contain harmful amounts of allergens, a Chicago Tribune investigation has found – and American children with food allergies end up suffering unnecessary reactions, including life-threatening reactions that send them to the hospital.

This news comes on the heels of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that found that food allergies among children in the United States are on the rise, having increased 18 percent from 1997 to 2007.

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Are you experiencing anxiety about the worldwide economic crisis and wondering how you can tighten your budget? One simple way is to slash the number and amount of gluten-free products you buy. Gluten-free foods aren’t available at most stores so people have to spend more money to drive to locations farther away to purchase them. Even worse, gluten-free products are two to three times more expensive than regular products, according to a 2007 study. That’s a hefty price to pay for people experiencing tough financial times.

Consider also that it’s not just the cost of gluten-free products – it’s the cost of those products to our health. Few people in the gluten-free community or natural food industry like to talk about it, but many gluten-free products are simply junk foods that happen to be gluten-free.

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If you like the against-the-grain information you receive in Nutrition News and Notes but are hungry for more, join the Going Against the Grain Group! By not yet being a member, here are topics you’ve missed:

How to Spring Clean Your Diet

Creative Vegetable Ideas

Eating Further Against the Grain – when a gluten-free diet isn’t therapeutic enough

Baking with Coconut Flour

Eating Gluten Free in Restaurants

Summer Vacation from Cooking

More Summertime Strategies

Recipes, including Filet of Sole Florentine, Greek Halibut, Cool Noodle Tabouli for One, and Banana Coconut Muffins

Helpful Convenience Products from Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and more

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Eat real food kind of goes without saying. But we need to get back to that and steer away from thinking of foods as carriers of nutrients that manufacturers can manipulate for the better for our health, keynote speaker and The New York Times best-selling author Michael Pollan told a capacity crowd at Natural Products Expo West last week.

Natural Products Expo West is the country’s largest natural, organic, and healthy products trade show. It was larger than ever this year: More than 52,000 retailers, manufacturers and industry professionals attended the show to see a record 3,392 exhibits in the Anaheim Convention Center. “Gluten-Free” was an extremely popular category of products – even hotter than it has been the past few years. There were a number of healthful, whole-food, gluten-free products at the convention. However, it is amazing how many companies offer highly refined gluten-free products that people think are healthy just because they’re gluten free. Pollan’s comments on the changes that have taken place with our food and the way we look at food offers some much-needed perspective so we can make smarter choices in the foods we buy.

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News Flash: I am now writing the monthly “Go Gluten Free” column for Better Nutrition, a complementary magazine distributed in natural food stores across the United States. You can look for it at a natural food store near you. The magazine ran my first column in its March issue – and I’ve already written the next several columns.

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