Not as hard as it looks

I just received my new, glossy ULTA advertisement . . . er, I mean my semi-annual makeover edition of InStyle. Among the myriad "articles" (indeed, the stories in the magazine are "articles" in the same way all of the Cadillacs in the FX show Damages are just modes of transportation) is a column suggesting ways to jumpstart your diet, based on approaches celebrities like Gwenyth Paltrow have used.

Naturally, most of the diets recommended require a lot of free time and access to complex food products -- raw "cleansing" soups, juices delivered by specialty companies, coconut water -- albeit apparently with successful if not sustainable outcomes.

All of that is to talk to you about Oprah's diet, which allows all foods as long as they're vegan and without sugar, alcohol, caffeine -- and gluten! In previous posts I've challenges the myth that gluten-free diets cause weight loss, but must admit that if you took out all of the other fun food ingredients it would probably work.

It's the one and only quote from the magazine's guinea pig that bothers me. "I read labels zealously and even bought gluten-free bread. But who cares? In just five days my stomach pooch deflated." YOU BOUGHT GLUTEN-FREE BREAD? Good for you. Wow. How did you survive? It must have been a struggle, since Safeway, Roth's, Target and Whole Foods all carry many, many varieties of gluten-free bread. Thousands of people -- even fat, ugly people wearing last year's lipstick -- each day figure this out. I'm glad that with the support of a multi-million dollar media conglomeration backing you, you managed this outrageous task.

A Thai-Turkish friend once clued me on that calling Gauguin's Polynesian paintings "exotic" effectively othered the non-white people he featured. Truthfully, by suggesting that gluten-free foods are part of strange and elite diets, that they require special resources and perform some kind of figure-fixing magic, actually others the millions of celiac patients in this country. Isn't it bad enough that celiacs have to question every item on menus, refuse birthday cake at office parties and wear buttons directing, "Please don't feed me unless you ask my mommy first"? Do skinny wealthy white women really have to pretend that this disease is harder than it actually is?

And, by the way, I'll believe that, ". . . in just five days my stomach pooch deflated" when my skinny jeans fit again.