Global wheat and rye prices have been doubling on an annual basis for the last few quarters, and U.S. exports of wheat and other gluten grains has shot up to all-time records. The price of food going up generally isn’t a good thing – but for Celiac sufferers, the fact that gluten-free substitutes are rising in price more slowly means that more and more U.S. food producers are likely to use the cheaper and naturally gluten-free alternatives.
I’ve seen a few brands and stores trending toward this already: Wal-mart and Publix each offer generic brand choices for their products and they tend to label items “gluten-free” more often than more mainstream brands. Wheat starch seems to be less common in everything across the board, from soups to bbq sauce (I’m usually using Cattleman’s, although it might just be a regional brand).
Corn is also going up because of increased consumption but also because of the increased use of federally subsidized ethanol. What I’ve actually seen is more potato and bean starches – is wheat’s global popularity as a cheap filler suddenly going to backfire?
Considering how often gluten ends up in foods that could honestly do without it, I’ve often speculated that wheat was extremely under-priced to the point of a market distortion tending toward over-supply. I don’t think wheat is particularly healthy regardless of an individual’s specific level of gluten sensitivity, and its main value to society has been its low cost ability to feed the masses. If its not low cost, the only reason left to use it would be in bakin.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Where did you get information on the price of rye? I stumbled on your blog because I was searching for rye prices to no avail. Wheat is easy to find.
In our family we are gluten intolerant. Barley makes us very uncomfortable; even more so than wheat. I cannot fully account for or explain it, but rye does not appear to create problems. There are some 100% rye breads available. These are the ‘black breads’ and when toasted, a slice takes some heavy duty chewing.
I know that rye has about 8% gluten and there’s a slight difference between wheat and rye glutens. I notice that rye does not seem to give an exorphin kick. It’s just not a satisfying food as wheat bread can be.
May 1st, 2008 at 4:18 am
I don’t remember the exact article I saw, but the link was posted by someone in a forum I visit. Really should have included the link on that, it was a very interesting story about a baker’s union working together to grab up the supplies of rye flour as soon as they could.
From what I’ve seen, it looks like rye prices are going up in a similar proportion to wheat flour
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/suffolk/ny-libake305668382apr30,0,6559436.story
I might have to give rye a second try. over the years my sense of smell turned against wheat and my tastes naturally developed to favor the gluten-free version of two competing brands long before I knew what gluten or Celiac was. Rye is the opposite story, its always been one of my favorite flavors. Seems like my health is an on-going experiment anyway, so why not give it a shot? Will make good fodder for another post 😉
June 4th, 2010 at 9:44 am
Where did you get information on the price of rye? I stumbled on your blog because I was searching for rye prices to no avail. Wheat is easy to find.
In our family we are gluten intolerant. Barley makes us very uncomfortable; even more so than wheat. I cannot fully account for or explain it, but rye does not appear to create problems. There are some 100% rye breads available. These are the ‘black breads’ and when toasted, a slice takes some heavy duty chewing.
I know that rye has about 8% gluten and there’s a slight difference between wheat and rye glutens. I notice that rye does not seem to give an exorphin kick. It’s just not a satisfying food as wheat bread can be.