Gluten-free: A savory brew of fad and fear

On the freeway to good health and nutrition, so many offramps abound — organic vs. non-organic, food safety concerns, growing awareness of allergens — navigating the straight and narrow can seem impossible.

Consumers have gone from Quaker Oats to oat bran to no oats at all because they may contain a cereal protein called gluten. Among food trends, the surge in gluten-free products offers the best view of the collision of food's fads and fears. Industry number crunchers estimate sales of gluten-free products will reach $1.7 billion by the end of 2010, a sharp escalation from the beginning of the decade when the market was a mere $210 million.

Bolstering the gluten-free market are an estimated 2.2 million Americans who suffer from celiac disease, or an intolerance to gluten, which can be found in wheat, barley rye and some oats. The disease is incurable. It is controlled by eliminating gluten from the diet.

Celiac disease may have put gluten-free products on the map, but what has kept them there are consumers who are attracted to the hottest dietary option since the low-carb craze.

The Atkins and South Beach diets were touted as routes to a trimmer waistline.

Gluten-free products go beyond an appeal to vanity and home in on consumer fears over food safety: recalls of peanut butter and lettuce; an E. coli outbreak caused by tainted spinach; and the latest, sick and dying pets resulting from pet food labeled as wheat gluten but spiked with melamine, a banned chemical.

Fads can morph into good public policy. This is the case here. The FDA already requires food labels to note whether the product contains any of the foods that cause the most common allergic reactions: milk, tree nuts, peanuts, soy, wheat, egg, crustacean shellfish or fish.

The federal agency now proposes a simple definition for the term "gluten-free" that would be used voluntarily by food manufacturers.

Food product labels that don't require a degree in nutrition science would be welcome assistance to consumers driven by health concerns and food fads.