Wheat Glutton, er, Gluten

CHICAGO (SNARKY) -- My grandmother, bless her heart, asks too many questions. (She also doesn't read my blog so I can get away with this post. Shhhh!)

Nearly twenty-five years ago this past Thanksgiving, my parents, brothers, sisters and I played a joke on Grandma's inquisitiveness. We knew that she would always ask her daughter-in-law, my mother, just what was in the dishes being served. Grandma didn't do it to be nosey and she was probably just making polite conversation but it infuriated Mom to no end.

So, in advance of my grandmother's arrival that year, each family member memorized a different ingredient to that magical foodstuff, Wonder Bread. This way when Grandma, herself a glutton for punishment, asked the inevitable question we could have a unified family response. The trap was set.

And it didn't take long after we sat down to dinner to spring it on her.

Receiving a passed casserole, Grandma looked down, scrutinized the dish in her hands, and asked: "Ooooh, what's in this dish?"

Without missing a beat, my father began, "Enriched flour."

My mother: "High fructose corn syrup."

My oldest sister, Julie: "Yeast extracts."

My brother, Edward: "Dicalcium phosphate."

My sister, Kathy: "Monoglycerides."

My brother, Jeff: "Vinegar."

My brother, Michael: "Soybean oil."

Myself: "Salt."

My youngest sister, Caroline: "And wheeeeeeat gluten!"

The way Caroline, a three year-old, lingered on and relished that one joyous syllable; it was the coup-de-grâce. Grandma never asked what was in another dish.

That wonderful childhood memory is so vividly etched in my mind that it seems like it happened only yesterday. So it's with more than passing interest that I read about the growing brouhaha over McDonald's french fries and the disclosure that they contain wheat gluten.

Apparently, there are more than two million Americans who suffer from celiac disease which is an intolerance for glutens, institutional violence and wearing white slacks after Labor Day. And they eat the french fries.

Reading up at celiac.com, it appears that diarrhea is about the most severe side-effect that could befall people with this "illness" and already dozens have filed suit against the Arches. Some are asking for unspecified damages but is there an injury beyond some ruined white slacks?

The people filing suits are greedy. There's no real injury here. It's not as though they could have died from ingesting a french fry. Well, they could possibly if they ate copious amounts of them and developed heart disease but that's a different story. No, these people are greedy bastards their greed is analogous to gluttony.

Come on, aren't there more pressing diseases that need to be litigated through the courts first? I vote for that new condition they've just started running commercials for: Restless Leg Syndrome. (I swear it exists. Supposedly.)

# # #

Technorati: McDonald's, French Fries, Snarky, Lukateake