I have to say that we are living in a rather abnormal period of bread history; on one hand you have people like us trying to bake wholesome artisan bread using natural flour and sourdough, and on the other hand you have the Cronut (which is everything your arteries hate), and then you have the issue of gluten-free.

Before I go any further on the topic, you have to know that for us, bakers, the term “gluten-free” gives us goose bumps! Making bread without gluten is like painting without paint, if I may say. That said, there is a real movement out there and it has every right to exist as much as any other food. I found it rather interesting to look at figures and seeing that while 1.4 million people have been diagnosed with coeliac disease in the US, another 1.6 million of them are on gluten-free diet for no specific health reason, or simply because it is trendy.

But beyond fashion, there is a true cause in the elastic protein’s intolerance. There are different levels of gluten sensitivity – so much that its classification has never been truly scaled. It ranges from slight discomfort to highly sensitive grade in the coeliac disease range, a condition where the digesting system in the body can’t deal with so much gluten anymore. And then there are the allergies which also range from mild to severe. Another cause of the rise in cases of coeliac disease is the progress in medical diagnosis – indeed, over the last 20 years, the method of finding out about gluten sensitivity has tremendously improved.

In 1999, back when I was a young pastry chef at the famed Regent hotel here in Hong Kong, gluten-free was quasi nonexistent or, if we were to hear about it, it was almost like we had to call a doctor to find out how to handle it. Today, it’s almost a must on every menu as there are so many requests.

While we blame the increase of cases on medical testing improvement, the principal culprit lies elsewhere. With the industries wanting more output, faster and cheaper production, the food industries looked for solutions at the root of their businesses: the ingredients. And so wheat crops were genetically modified to obtain a higher gluten level in flours. It worked for the industries and, of course, if it worked for bread, it worked for many other foods and so the ratio of high-gluten produce increased in the everyday diet. In my opinion, this daring game industrials played with Mother Nature is most likely the source of everything. Creating levels of gluten that don’t exist in nature and, therefore, are never experienced by our humble human metabolism, thus creates hypersensitivity amongst those of us with more delicate systems.

A proper loaf of regular bread – fermented on sourdough, free from chemicals, and made using wholesome flours – is perfectly healthy and contains natural vitamins, minerals and acids obtained by the natural process of lacto fermentation. A wheat-based loaf of bread stands at a glycemic index of 70, which is fairly high on the GI table. But what is interesting is to know that a similar white gluten-free loaf reaches a GI of 80, meaning that the potential sugar intake, or carbohydrate, is proportionately higher than that in real regular bread –most likely due to refined rice or other flours used in gluten-free bread. So, you might escape gluten indeed, but you may move towards an increase in your insulin level – then are we looking at diabetes? I’m just wondering…

Then again, we could also lower the GI index by using buckwheat flour to make it more flavourful and a little healthier. I will probably repeat myself here, but having a balanced diet with wholesome ingredients and no processed industrial food is the way to go. I actually like to eat a slice of toasted gluten-free raisin bread with butter and honey – it makes me think of a cake rather than bread, but I like it as a different food item in itself. As long as it is made with the same care and passion, deliciousness is everywhere.