gluten
dr. dolittle | February 20, 2017 Enzyme from pitcher plant helps mice digest gluten. Image by Mokkie - Praca własna, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Pitcher plants are a known enemy of insects, but perhaps beneficial for people suffering from celiac disease. Chemist Dr. David Schriemer at the University of Calgary was studying the pitcher plant Nepenthes x ventrata (shown above) in his search for an enzyme similar to pepsin for use in his experiments. Pitcher plants secrete digestive fluids with a pH similar to own digestive juices. Through his research he found the enzyme from pitcher plants could break down the…
oracknows | May 25, 2016One of the more annoying health crazes going around right now is the gluten-free diet. While it’s a boon to the very small proportion of the population who have real celiac disease and thus truly cannot tolerate gluten, at the same time gluten has become the health demon that is touted as the cause of virtually all health problems, be they major or minor, with the cure—of course!—being the now nearly ubiquitous gluten-free diet. The gluten-free diet has become so popular that restaurants and food manufacturers ignore it at their financial peril. Indeed, restaurants that don’t have some gluten…
oracknows | April 30, 2014
A couple of Sundays ago (Easter, to be precise), my wife and I were sitting around yesterday reading the Sunday papers and perusing the Internet (as is frequently our wont on Sunday mornings), when I heard a contemptuous harrumph coming from her direction. She then pointed me to an article in our local newspaper entitled Gluten-free beauty products in demand among some customers. Now, I must admit that I haven't been keeping up with the gluten-free trend, other than how easily it fits within the niche of "autism biomed" quackery, where, apparently, nearly every "biomed" protocol for…
sastyk | April 26, 2012Just about every sustainability magazine on the planet, much less the food ones seems obsessed with no-knead breads. No-knead is trumpeted by everyone on the planet as the easy, awesome way to make bread, the thing that will convert non-bread makers into converts. Now don't get me wrong - I don't really have a dog in this hunt - I'm certainly not opposed to no-knead, but I don't see it as the miracle that some do.
I've had some utterly delicious no-knead breads. I don't think they are bad - Kate at Living the Frugal Life demonstrated a lovely recipe that I've enjoyed a number of times. I…
carlyo | March 28, 2012By Joe Schwarcz PhD, Author, USASEF Expo Performer, AT&T Sponsored Nifty Fifty Program Speaker
The malt flavouring is gone! Celiac sufferers are no longer limited to listening to the snap, crackle and pop of Rice Krispies! They can actually eat the cereal that has been music to the ears of legions since 1928 but has been verboten for anyone with a sensitivity to gluten, the mixture of proteins found in wheat, barley and rye. Rice contains no gluten and is in general a staple for celiac sufferers. But malt flavouring, a standard ingredient in Rice Krispies, can harbour a trace of…
tsmith | April 19, 2010Student guest post by Ahn To
There are two separate philosophies regarding the relationship between life and food. There are those that believe we only eat to live. On the other hand, there are those that believe one of life's greatest pleasures is food. I am a firm believer of the latter, thus, you can imagine my horror when I first learned of celiac disease (CD). This is a disease with no treatment except for a lifetime on a gluten-free diet, thus people with CD cannot eat many types of food. I knew then that I had to find out more about causation of CD, which includes the complex…