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As an eliminationist strategy, “gluten free” is the flip side of the nutrient fetish, in which substances are added, rather than subtracted, on much the same grounds, notably Omega 3s, polyphenols, amino acids, electrolytes and amino acids.

The problem is that, as Dr. Freedhoff has found, when you try to tell people they are fooling themselves by, for example, buying bread with “vegetables” in it (as per a current marketing campaign), or that Omega 3s don’t make their eggs any healthier, they react as if a foundational belief has been threatened, not just a dietary preference.

“People treat food like religion, it’s really strange. I can’t think of many other areas of life where there’s so much personal passion. If you believe and buy into one of these particular styles of eating, often you end up becoming very zealous in your description of same, and your preaching of same, and you want everybody else to do what you’re doing,” he said. “People really want to be right when it comes to the way we eat.”

On this view, we are not too far away from answering the door to evangelical nutritionists, asking us if we have heard the good news. And woe betide the unfortunate skeptic who points out the absence of proof.

Other interpretations can be put on the numbers, however.

“Is it a fad, or is it that there’s an epidemic?” said Margaret Dron, organizer of the Gluten Free Expo, a popular national trade show in that offers everything from basic gluten-free flours and baked goods to imported African tribal products, curry spices, sausages, gourmet camelina cooking oil, chocolate flavours “that represent the seven main chakras in the body,” even cosmetics. (Glutinous rice is so called because it is gluey, not because it has a lot of gluten.)