Gastric dramas been getting me down. Last year I went a month without eating any meat, had a month with no dairy and one of gluten-free. The vegetarian and limited lactose running regimes had little effect but the gluten-free program was a revelation – real life changing – transcendental! Within three days my world became lighter, brighter, sharper, more sweet; no bloating, farting, heavy belly lethargy; turned all playful, power positive, sleeping like a child through the whole night long. And that toilet action? No more fretting at your Bristol Stool Chart; we’re solid Type 4, the ideal turd; firm, smooth and chocolatey brown. Does it really make sense to pay five quid for a sliced white loaf and save 20p on toilet paper?
  Darnedest drawback is the coarser consistency of gluten-free bread – means your egg-salad sandwiches keep falling apart. The rice flour, linseed, maize starch product is only toothsome when toasted twice and soaked in heart-attack inducing butter. To compensate for this flavour deficiency cooks will add sucrose – which kind of defeats the ultimate object – like those fat-free yogurts with fourteen grams of sugar sifted in? The pasta and cereals are fine for taste although likewise saccharine and ever over-priced. Yet, if you want to evade the global wheat complex, gliadin proteins are easily abstained as there is no gluten in rice or soya, potato or corn – the last of which we’re advised is detrimental as a syrup sweetener, in a whole other argument going on.
  A baker once told me that the major reason for exorbitant pricings of gluten-free grub is that any work surface, however remote, must be clinically cleared of wheat material before they start mixing the non-gluten goods to comply with health service regulations when catering for sufferers of coeliac disease. They can’t even use the same oven, apparently – it’s always about the lagged labour time. To also illustrate a tacit truth: that most of our vain lifestyle fads have a medical significance, with deadly consequences for anyone who is actually affected by whatever evil element or poor procedure.
  Gets another paradox: why does all boutique ‘FREE FROM’ foodstuff come with five layers of polymer bumph? By quarantine directive? Hipster hypocrites as celluloid scammers? The problem with lamenting our overuse of plastic is its serviceability: as cheap, available, easily moulded, clear or coloured for promo pomp; sterile, lightweight, nonconductive, multi-mixable, lasts a lifetime; the ideal packaging for meany-miney, cost-cutting capitalists. Shame about the planet. As our middleclass media keep cant crowing in pointless, patronising cyber crusades for biodegradable cocktail straws and cardboard composite coffee containers. Lecturing from their Bloomsbury bubbles. Double wrapped? It’s surely about the numbers consumed, not what PETE or PET is used.
  The next great change to the western way of life will be our implementation of an inexpensive, room-temperature-functioning, superconductive energy supply. Proving plastic problems immaterial as we fly around the world on our sea-water-sourced silicon scooters; sending ugly offcuts up to Mars on a railroad rocket, robot-built with polymer-ceramic carbon compounds?
  I wanted to dismiss the gluten-free agenda as a load of deluded, bourgeoise crap; especially when I heard those South Park geezers both banging on. But, if I'm honest it’s pretty damned good. Stick it for a month. You will be amazed.