A Good Example Of George Orwell's Concept of Doublethink

[tex]

Anyone see the recent article about gluten free beer containing gluten???? Anyone eating lots of GF products that contain alternative grains is probably getting far more gluten than they realize. The amount in meds is probably minimal compared to that I would suspect.

IMO, "gluten-free" is a perfect example of the concept of "doublethink", as originated by Orwell in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. As Orwell describes it in the book, doublethink is:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, ...

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

If that isn't a perfect fit for the way that the term "gluten-free" is used by the government, and the food industry, I'm a 's uncle.

Tex

[starfire]

Good post, Tex.

Love, Shirley

[Zizzle]

Regarding the recent article about GF beer containing gluten -- the record has been set straight. Apparently there are beers in other countries labeled "low-gluten" not "gluten free." They are made with barley but claim to have an advanced filtration process. Apparently they had as much gluten as regular beers. The US does not allow the "low gluten" label. It seems those beers are not sold here. The brands we know (Redbridge, Bard's, Green's, Daura, etc) are all made with alternative grains like sorghum, not barley, and they all tested fine. The only suspect I can think of is Mike's Lite Hard Lemonade. They claim to have this filtration process too. I hear it tastes gross and even uses artificial sweeteners, so I doubt most if us would even try it.

[tex]

The problem is that the U. S. gluten-free label is doublethink. It's not gluten-free - it's actually low gluten, (up to 20 ppm).

The biggest problem that I see, though, is the fact that there is no standard, (or even required), test for hordein, (the storage protein in barley). The manufacturers use barley malt to begin the malting process for whatever grain they choose to use for their beer, and then they claim to remove all of the barley malt by "filtration". For one thing, no filtration process is perfect, so you can be sure that at least some hordein peptides get through the filtration process. The other thing is, "how do we know that they filter it all out?" There's no standard test to determine that. The standard gluten tests are based on the detection of gliadin peptides, and they are very specific, so that they will not detect hordein peptides, or secalin peptides, (from rye), or any other gluten peptides, such as glutelins. So how do we know that they even know what they're talking about, let alone have their ducks all in a row?

Yes, they make their beer from sorghum, but they start the malting process with barley malt, and there is no physical way that they can filter out all of that barley malt. Yes, it's "gluten-free", (actually, low-gluten), but gluten in found in wheat, not barley. The question is whether it's hordein-free, and I haven't seen any evidence to substantiate that it is. And the reason is because it's not hordein-free. Do they even test it for hordein peptides? I doubt it, since that's not required by law, (the labeling law exempts barley, rye, and oats - only wheat gluten has to be listed on the label). The best we can hope for is that it might have a low-hordein content. Remember, they DO NOT have to list hordein content on the label, (thanks to the shortsightedness of our legislators and the FDA), so they don't. It's that simple.

The bottom line is that all beer is "low-gluten", not "gluten-free". This product is another great example of doublethink.

Tex