warning potentially offensive rant coming, if you identify yourself as an environmentally and politically aware counter-culture individual who is easily offended, please do not read the following.
I’m concerned about America’s Celiac Disease epidemic. Originally this disease only affected roughly 1% of the population, but apparently Celiac Disease is running rampant because you can’t go anywhere without being sold on some sort of product that is Gluten Free.
Either that, or every dumb shit who follows every Oprah fad is too stupid to use their freaking brains to understand that “Gluten Free” is another label that corporations have found people will pay premium for. Even foods that are naturally gluten free are now being marked up because they are combating the epidemic that is Celiac’s Disease.
What gets me the most is how every fad in the “hippie” community or the “burners” or any one who proclaims they are rising up against mankind’s tyranny against nature or basically many of the people who think they are counter-culture, every fad comes from Oprah. It’s like she’s the unrecognized anti-critical thinker that is unintentionally leading the ‘movement’.
The best way to pacify any counterculture movement that doesn’t support profits is to provide them with misinformation and fear.
He who controls the spice, controls the universe :-p
Fun fact for those of you who buy into this whole Gluten Free fad.
Wheat production in the U.S. continues to decline as we rely more on imported wheat and subsidies for wheat have been reduced.
If you were in the business of selling food and one of your staple ingredients cost more to obtain, would you eat that cost or would you pass it along to the customer?
Second question. If you choose to pass along the cost to the customer, how do you combat declining sales? It is sometimes natural that sales decrease when you increase the cost of your product. What if you knew that marketing has been proven as an effective tool to increase sales, would you use it?
Third question. If you chose to use marketing to cover the price gap between paying more for your product and asking your customer to pay more in return in order to increase sales, how would you market your product if your product used to contain wheat but no longer contains it?
Why would somebody be willing to pay more for something if you are removing an ingredient? How could you convince your customer that you’re providing a valuable service to them?
http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/wheat/YBtable05.asp
Take a look at the last item in the list from the pdf linked below and remember that the U.S. population is not static, it is also growing so remember to take into account that as the population grows, so does the demand for wheat. Wheat production has been in decline since the late 90′s.
http://www.ndwheat.com/uploads%5Cresources%5C549%5Cndhistwhtacresdurum.pdf