Last night, I bought my first loaf of gluten-free Great Harvest bread from the Great Harvest in McMinnville. I shouldn't be so pleased about something I merely consume -- not produce -- but the fact that the local Great Harvest has started carrying gluten-free bread on Mondays heralds two things:
1. The return of the Great Harvest bread run, which also means a free slice of whatever they just baked, and
2. Greater understanding and acceptance of celiac disease by the larger commercial market.
I have to admit that the gluten-free bread (this week, a version of their Dakota Bread, which I love) is not indistinguishable from glutenized bread. Nor, honestly, would it make good sandwiches. However, it is completely edible, does not weigh fourteen pounds, and slices without squishing down into un-spray-butterable chunks. The best part is that Great Harvest has an email list of people interested in gluten-free products and produces a different gluten-free bread every Monday.
Three rice flours for the very public effort, Great Harvest.
1. The return of the Great Harvest bread run, which also means a free slice of whatever they just baked, and
2. Greater understanding and acceptance of celiac disease by the larger commercial market.
I have to admit that the gluten-free bread (this week, a version of their Dakota Bread, which I love) is not indistinguishable from glutenized bread. Nor, honestly, would it make good sandwiches. However, it is completely edible, does not weigh fourteen pounds, and slices without squishing down into un-spray-butterable chunks. The best part is that Great Harvest has an email list of people interested in gluten-free products and produces a different gluten-free bread every Monday.
Three rice flours for the very public effort, Great Harvest.
My excitement about this new frontier belies an area of concern, though. Outside of FDA lobbying groups, are we forced to spread the gluten-free doctrine only through consumerism? I suppose that the truth is that celiac impacts our lives only as we purchase food -- not through any great disenfranchisement or social injustice -- so solutions must be consumer-related as well. But I feel slightly uncomfortable when I am excited about being allowed to purchase safe food at crazy prices.
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