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It's possible that strains of wheat that we have now are much higher in gluten than were
present in the past. One idea I heard is that until relatively recently, dough for bread
was long fermented, by a sourdough process or something even slower than that, and that
the fermentation process breaks down gluten in a way that makes it more digestible. And
now with instant yeast, that doesn't happen, so that's a possibility. But we don't know,
it's very curious. I was in China last fall and in China they eat gluten as a protein
- they make pure gluten from wheat. I used to do this in the seventies, you make a flour
and water dough and then you kneed it underwater. The starch dissolves out - the water looks
like milk and you keep throwing it off until it becomes clear - and the dough reduces to
about a third of its size and it looks like a massive rubber band. Then you can break
that off and deep-fry it or simmer it in gravy. So in Chinese restaurants you can get sweet
and sour gluten, gluten in black bean sauce, and I asked around and there's no gluten intolerance
in China - that's very interesting. We don't know but it's something real and it's certainly
worth testing for and any unexplained symptoms to see if it's there.