Celiac Controversy

May 4th has come and gone.  "What?" You ask was so special about May 4th? (Reminder).

Controversy is surrounding Elisabeth Hasselbeck's new book The G-Free Diet: A Gluten-Free Survival Guide  (Click Here to Read an Excerpt).  To look at the book in depth, we suggest a trip over to its website.  We're going to leave it up to you to decide how you feel about this book, and would love for you to comment.  Below you will find several viewpoints so you can piece together your opinion.  

From Gluten-Free Bloggers:

• The Crispy Cook
• The Savvy Celiac
• Strawberries are Gluten Free
• Sure Foods Living

Book Reviews from Paid Editors and Unpaid Readers

• Ali M. Shapiro, a reader from Philadelphia
• Nancy Franklin, a reader from Kentucky
• Nancy Lapid: About.com
• Nutrition Unplugged
• People.com

From the Medical Community:

Celiac Colleagues:

I am writing to call your attention to the current publicity surrounding the new book, The G-free Diet:  A Gluten-Free Survival Guide by Elisabeth Hasselbeck, co-host of The View.  While it is important to call attention to celiac disease, the information must be accurate - the inaccuracies in this book are potentially dangerous and detrimental to celiacs and to those yet to be diagnosed if people self diagnose and start eating GF.  Our mission is to assist in getting people accurately diagnosed and the message in this book could defeat this mission.  It appears that this book is being marketed as a fitness diet - eat g-free and feel so much better.  Celiac is incorrectly referred to as an allergy not an autoimmune disease.

The GF diet is the medically mediated prescription that controls the condition for a diagnosed celiac.  Several items in the book are misleading and inaccurate and place further limitations on the GF diet.  The gluten-free lifestyle is a lifelong commitment for the diagnosed celiac, not an option, not a fad diet - adhering to the GF lifestyle requires patience and persistence.  This lifestyle can not be trivialized.

Thank you.

Elaine Monarch

Founder & Executive Director

Celiac Disease Foundation

Elizabeth Hasselbeck discusses G-Free on Good Morning America:

So what do you think?