What is gluten and what is its danger to human health?

What is gluten? With this difficult question, sooner or later, every young mother who cares about the healthy nutrition of her baby is confronted. To date, nutritionists have not yet come to a consensus on the benefits or harm of this substance. However, before making your own opinion about gluten, let's first determine what it is.

Gluten: what is this?

Gluten, or gluten, is a vegetable protein, which can be obtained from shells of cereal plants. In its pure form, gluten is a greyish, tasteless sticky mass of gray. It is formed when a mixture of two types of proteins: glutenin and gliadin.

Especially a lot of it is contained in the grains of oats, rye or wheat. For example, wheat is 80% gluten-free.

Gluten content is the main indicator that determines the quality of flour: the higher its content, the more elastic the dough will be. Moreover, gluten is a natural preservative that significantly extends the life of bakery products.

Now, having understood the answer to the question, what is gluten, we can talk about the benefits and harms of products that contain this substance.

The whole point is that for an absolutely healthy person, gluten does not present any danger. However, in a small child (especially at the age of up to 6 months), due to the use of gluten products , various unpleasant consequences can arise. This protein is poorly processed by the body, so often allergic reactions occur, there is an incorrect peristalsis of the intestine, as well as changes in the stool.

At the same time, the probability of occurrence of such diseases as atopic dermatitis, diabetes mellitus or bronchial asthma increases several times. Approximately 1% of cases show celiac disease or an individual intolerance to plant gluten.

Gluten is found in products such as pearl barley, barley, oatmeal, wheat and semolina porridge, pasta, baked goods and bread, so it is better not to feed them to avoid digestive problems for children up to ten months old.

Note that even some meat and dairy products may contain gluten. In particular, this applies to yogurts, sausages, as well as sauces - mayonnaise and ketchup.

In this case, if the baby is mostly breastfed, the mother can eat the above products without fear.

Knowing about what gluten is, you can pick up to yourself and your baby a full-fledged diet that will not cause harm to health.

Do not contain gluten porridge from millet, corn or rice.

However, in the composition of rice, gluten tracks can be found, since it is often processed with the help of universal equipment, which is designed to process a wide range of cereals.

As a result, many people, having studied the topic of gluten, completely excluded it from their diet. More and more popular are the so-called gluten - free diets. But you should pay attention to the fact that they are not suitable for everyone. With limited use of cereal crops, the body does not get the necessary amount of fiber needed to maintain normal functioning.

But what about patients who do not tolerate gluten? They can eat legumes, fish, meat, fruits and vegetables, as well as dairy products. Do not limit yourself to sweets, as marshmallows, marmalade and chocolate also do not contain gluten. If this substance is present in them, this must be indicated by the manufacturer on the package.

To date, the market can find foreign products without gluten. Some of the domestic producers also produce them, but so far there are very few of them.