Last month, Senator Ted Cruz, one of the Republican candidates for President of the United States made waves by clumsily associating gluten-free with political correctness.
“That’s why the last thing any commander should need to worry about is the grades he is getting from some plush-bottomed Pentagon bureaucrat for political correctness or social experiments — or providing gluten-free MREs,” Cruz said.
Actually, I would tell Senator Cruz that gluten-free MRE’s are possibly the first thing every commander should worry about.
In 2007, I attended the American Dietetic Association’s annual conference in Philadelphia to promote our book, Recognizing Celiac Disease.
Our booth was approached by a dietitian who also happened to be a uniformed Lt. Colonel in the US Army. He asked me about gluten sensitive enteropathy (celiac disease) and was specifically interested in gluten-free rations for troops.
Intrigued, I asked him why. Read More »