Roxaboxin and the Rise of the Glutards

Let’s start with Roxaboxin.  Child Harbat is at the perfect age to write fiction.  She hears and absorbs enough real-world information to have the good basis for a story but then mixes in her own thoughts and interpretations, sprinkles with pure fabrication, and then forgets some of the facts.  What’s Roxaboxin, you ask?  [inhales] Okay, here we go.

Out in the desert there’s a place called Roxaboxin.  The people there used to live in wood boxes with holes in them but now they don’t.  They live in cardboard boxes.  Or they make cardboard boxes.  But their houses aren’t regular, but they are.  And EVERYBODY knows about Roxaboxin.

I will find out more details from Roxaboxin and share them as I can pry them from the wild swamp of CH’s mind.  I will not, however, research Roxaboxin online because I don’t want the truth, I want this great story as filtered through my daughter.  I am not going to let fact or research get in my way.  Which leads me to the diet craze that’s sweeping the nation:  gluten-intolerance.

Oh boy!  I love this subject because it inflames self-proclaimed amateur researchers, diet fashionistas, and meta-liberals who like to grind their own quinoa flour.  Before we begin I want to separate the very real affliction of Celiac’s Disease which, according to a study in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, affects 0.71% of the population.  As found in the study, most people on a self-prescribed gluten-free diet did NOT have Celiac disease.  Alright, so settle down and let’s chronicle the rise of the glutards.

Remember when the Atkins diet was The Thing that would rid us of our addiction to processed foods?  In the logic-free faith-based world of diets, someone thought that a diet of proteins and fats would be just the thing to lose weight.  I get to eat as much bacon and cheese as I want?  Great!  I already do that!  Except.  Except your intestines and heart will have to beef up to handle this crazy diet or die trying.  See many Atkins-Approved ™ frozen dinners in the stores these days?

Remember Dexatrim pills from the 1980s, those futuristic capsules filled with tiny spheres of either Styrofoam or pure cocaine?  How about the Scarsdale Diet?  Grapefruit and cayenne pepper?  Slimfast chocolate shakes in a can?  All these fads line the litter bin on top of which are piled empty Cheetos bags after someone falls headfirst off the diet wagon.

Now enter gluten, the 2010s culinary strawman.  Is there a lick of medical evidence that anyone without diagnosed Celiac Disease can be intolerant to glutenin or gliadin, the two proteins that form to make gluten?  No.  Does this stop self-diagnosis?  No.  There are lots of really nifty theories which share in the brotherhood of complete avoidance of pesky “science” and “research” and “facts”.  The Flat-Earth Society meets every third Sunday at the park, brother.

And now the festering corpse of gluten intolerance has decomposed and congealed into the paleo diet, which dons a tinfoil hat and takes another giant leap away from common sense.  The paleo diet treats science like a hooker:  used when you have needs but once Amber calls up asking for a loan and a place to crash you’re all, “Don’t come to my house again, the wife will SEE YOU.”  Does logic prevent people who adhere to the paleo diet from asking themselves WHICH paleo they refer?  Because you could be paleo Pacific Islander and just eat taro and fish.  Or paleo Australian and eat bushmeat and grubs.  Or paleo far Northern and eat seal blubber and snow.  In fact, most of the paleo devotees come from First-World liberals of European stock who have been eating grains for thousands, TENS of thousands of years.  Now the gluten-free paleo diet has brought us this new abomination:

It weighs as much as, and likely has the gut-sagging capability of, a concrete block.  And the food industry is only too happy to get a ride on the diet craze as long as it lasts so they can sell off the stuff they sweep from the factory floor each day and call it “Free Trade Colon Cleanse Wonder Bars”.

Let’s say you went to a car dealership with very specific demands.  It might go like this:

“Hi there, what can I do for you?

“I want a car, but I’m totally against the global gas hegemony.”

“Okay, we’ve got our electric model and some hybrids—“

“—and I don’t like motors of any kind.  Electromagnetic fields cause brain tumors.  And it has to be light.  I need to carry it up to my third-story walk-up.”

“Umm—“

“—and ideally it would be human-powered.  Or love-powered.”

“Sounds like you want a bicycle.”

“DON’T TRY TO OPPRESS ME!”

Look, if you want bread, make bread.  If you want spelt hand-milled by blind peasants in Guatemala, vegan cruelty-free hay oil, and fair-trade carob droppings, good for you.  But don’t call it a chocolate croissant.

Here’s the solution:  all the paleos, glutards, and diet faddies can move to Roxaboxin.  I hear they have really nice organic cardboard houses.  Which you can eat.