Description: "Gluten Free for Life is the first book to apply social, cultural, and historical perspectives to celiac disease, a serious autoimmune condition affecting one percent of the population-three million Americans. Because celiac destroys the villi of the small intestine, it is considered gastrointestinal, but it can affect many of the body's systems. As a result, the symptoms are extremely various. The only therapy is life-long adherence to a gluten-free diet"--
Brief description: Emily K. Abel is Professor Emeritus at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She is the author of many books. The most recent are Elder Care in Crisis: How the Social Safety Net Fails Families and Gluten Free for Life: Celiac Disease, Medical Recognition, and the Food Industry, both published by NYU Press. In 2024 she received the Genevieve Miller Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association for the History of Medicine.
Review Quotes: "This important book is a rousing call for action--medical, dietary, social, and political--to protect people with celiac disease from the gluten proteins that make them sick. Emily K. Abel's analysis of the barriers to avoidance, from unaware doctors to food companies' lobbying against labeling to widespread ignorance of where gluten lurks in food, should convince us all to insist that gluten be labeled and products monitored to ensure they really are gluten free."-- "Marion Nestle, author most recently of Slow-Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics"