If you’re wondering how such a thing can even be, it’s been a long time coming. Since 2002, a team of Italian researchers has been working to degrade the gluten in wheat flour through the process (or should we say magic?) of sourdough fermentation: By exposing wheat flour to Lactobacilli bacteria and fungi, the hungry bugs work to eat up and digest the flour’s gluten proteins. The result: a type of wheat flour in which the gluten has already been predigested, so the digestive systems of people with celiac disease don’t have to do any of the work. The flour—called hydrolyzed wheat—contains just 12 parts per million of gluten, compared with regular wheat flour’s 75,000 ppm. That means that the FDA, which says that a gluten-free food must contain fewer than 20 ppm of the protein, would consider the new bread A-OK if and when it hits the United States. Clinical trials back up the flour’s safety, too: Celiac patients underwent multiple 60-day trials of eating baked goods made with the gluten-free wheat flour, and everyone tolerated the foods. Biopsies of the patients’ intestinal tissue, which becomes damaged when exposed to gluten, also proved healthy. Still, not everyone is convinced that gluten-free wheat is ready for the big time. “I am skeptical about the safety of this food for people with celiac disease. Even if the clinical trial showed promise, further research is absolutely warranted,” says Federico Biagi, a gastroenterologist at the Celiac Center of University of Pavia’s San Matteo Hospital in Italy. What’s more, the wheat still doesn’t meet the threshold for some third-party gluten-free verifiers, such as the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness or the CSA Seal of Recognition, which demand fewer than 10 and 5 ppm of gluten, respectively. Still, you never know what the future might bring, right? Maybe one day we’ll all be eating gluten-free wheat bread—while talking with our dogs about how delicious it is.
