Using data from Mintel market research, Gallup and the ESHA nutrition database, HealthGrove, the health data visualization and analysis site from Graphiq, examined the rise of the gluten-free market, people's reasoning for eating gluten-free and the demographic trends of this diet in America.
In short, the data suggests a picture of a modern-day capitalist romance — the marriage of general consumer naivete with the food industry’s desire to make money from it.
According to Dr. Daniel A. Leffler, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard, “people who are sensitive to gluten may feel better, but a larger portion will derive no significant benefit from the practice. They’ll simply waste their money, because these products are expensive.”
People think gluten-free means healthier (it doesn’t always), and food marketers think those people will pay more for foods with a gluten-free label (they often do). This, in turn, has contributed to the massive growth of the gluten-free market.
