The old saying "be careful what you wish for" is often times really good advice to heed. For years, bloggers and people throughout the gluten-free community have been saying that having the gluten-free diet become too mainstream could possibly hurt more than it helps. Of course, it's wonderful that most servers in restaurants have at least heard the term gluten-free, even if they don't know exactly what it means. And gone are the days of running around to a dozen stores just to pick up your fave pasta, bread, frozen pizza and everything else! Well, in my case, I love Sprouts, Earthfare and Whole Paycheck - and our main store is Publix (with some Kroger and Ingles mixed in)...but I don't have to shop at all those places. I choose to because I'm particular and I can.
But with the good (plenty of amazing food to buy retail and when dining out), also comes the bad. As with anything, there are usually drawbacks, of some sort, when it comes to positive progress. While I appreciate the fact that very aware places tend to ask if I'm ordering gluten-free as a preference or if I have an allergy (or celiac), it's also frustrating because that means there are plenty of those pesky trendy dieters out there that wouldn't know if they were served gluten or not. And no matter which way you slice it, that is not a good thing.
Most everyone was so excited when certain companies started producing gluten-free items galore. However, some large companies are taking over and causing some fabulous products to be discontinued or are putting some small (beyond amazing) companies completely out of business. And that is certainly not a good thing.
Want to order a gluten-free pizza? No worries - order one from Domino's, Pizza Hut or your local pizzeria. The problem (no, it's not that the pizzas are cooked in the same oven as long as the gf pizzas are on a pan) is that some places will be hard pressed to tell you if their sauce or ingredients are gluten-free. And if they can do that, they can't seem to cook the pizza crust so that it's edible. It's often either soggy or so hard you can't cut it with a knife, let alone try to eat it! Again, this is not a good thing. I have a few places that do gluten-free pizza right, but I pass several places that do a bad job in order to get to the good ones.
I hope before we end up with nothing worth eating (in terms of replacement items) we all take time to think about what we really want the gluten-free market to look like. If we want it to resemble the mainstream market filled with tons of products made with unhealthy ingredients....well, we're well on our way to that. If we want great products, made with real ingredients, we need to support companies that are producing them.
#restinpeaceglutenfreedacookies (their signature gf product)
