For gluten-free food, look to other cultures around the world | Letters

Letter: Kathryn Monk says nutritious, naturally gluten-free food is widespread in cuisines of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America

Your article on the rising cost of gluten-free foods highlights a genuine problem (Gluten-free basics ‘now a luxury’ as price of a small branded loaf nears £4, 30 May). However, I was struck by how narrowly the discussion was framed.

Much of the article focuses on the affordability and availability of gluten-free versions of bread, biscuits, breakfast cereals and other wheat-based products. Yet for much of the world’s population, diets have traditionally been based on rice, maize, millet, cassava, pulses and other naturally gluten-free staples.

Having spent two decades living and working across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and South America, I have seen how diverse, nutritious and affordable such diets can be. This is not to dismiss the challenges faced by people with coeliac disease in a society whose food culture is built around wheat, nor the social importance of being able to share familiar foods with loved ones.

But I wonder whether we are so accustomed to seeing bread and similar products as essential that alternative culinary traditions scarcely enter the conversation. In today’s multicultural Britain, foods and recipes from around the world are widely available and already form part of many people’s diets. Alongside making specialist products more affordable, perhaps we should also place greater emphasis on culinary education and the many naturally gluten-free cuisines that have sustained communities around the world for centuries.
Kathryn Monk
Bristol

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