We Don't Need No Stinkin' Gluten

I've learned a new swear word.

It's gluten.

Sounds pretty awful, huh?

It's better if you say the "glu" part while scowling and wrinkling up your nose and then bite down hard on the "ten" and swallow it meanly.

This terrible-sounding stuff has quite recently reached the top of the 10-most-unwanted list and all my friends are swearing it off. They are giving it up for lent, taking it out of their recipes, and spending more and more time talking about how to avoid it. No more crackers or biscuits or scones or bagels. And forget about bread, it's completely off the table, so to speak.

And the sneaky little stuff is in everything. It hides out in soy sauce and shows up in pasta. It slips into toothpaste and mustard and ham. It's even in lipstick and always in pretzels and don't even think about cake and cookies and pie.

Gluten has become the new villain, overtaking cantankerous calories, frightening fat, and scurrilous sugar. And, it has plowed right over the reigning bad guy called carbs. Restaurants are coming out with their g-free menus and the GF isle in the grocery store is getting longer.

It's not that I think this new craze is a bad thing, necessarily. It just reminds me so much of the others. Last year it was low carb, the year before it was low fat, and this year with the criminal gluten I'm just left confused. My list of things not to eat is getting so long that I sometimes have no idea where to start.

I'm pretty sure broccoli is still okay. As long as it's organic and locally grown and pesticide free and... Well, at least it doesn't have gluten.