听
听
A friend on Twitter recently shared a link听and declared听that 鈥渃ivilisation is over鈥�. It appeared that she might be correct: the site was听marketing with the strapline, 鈥渂ecause you can never be too sure鈥�.
Advertisement
The link had been shared with a number of commentators, and for a large part of that day we all indignantly retweeted our outrage at this absurd fad. (For anyone still wondering 鈥� no, water doesn鈥檛 contain gluten unless you cook pasta in it.)
I have no problem with brands marketing and selling gluten-free products. For those afflicted with coeliac disease, consuming even tiny amounts of gluten can have unpleasant health consequences. For them it is important that clear, unambiguous information about gluten 鈥� a mix of proteins found in some common grains 鈥� is available.
What does spark my ire, and that of the many people who commented on the water story, is the tendency of brands to imbue free-from products with a general halo of health and well-being, wrongly implying that the free-from option is somehow more healthy for everyone.
Even worse is when brands selling products that have no reason to contain gluten market themselves under a free-from banner in order to drive sales. That鈥檚 just cynical and exploitative. Gluten-free water is perhaps the worst example of this disingenuous trend.
But all was not quite what it seemed. Later that day, I returned to the website. As I read the information pages I became even more incredulous. The site is a festival of nutritional woo about lifestyle choices and freedom from toxic additives. However, when someone sent me a link to the , I started to think something might be afoot. I decided to get in touch with this brand.
Gluten-free water turns out to be a hoax. Which is a relief of sorts. It has been sparking flashes of indignant outrage and 鈥� incredibly 鈥� also attracting inquiries from around the world about how to buy the product since 2014. It has reached a number of news websites and Twitter feeds. Now, its creator, Canadian blogger Aaron Binder, is keen to draw a line under it.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 believe it fooled so many,鈥� he says. 鈥�It was really set up to explore how easy it is to manipulate people with headlines. This is especially true in food and health culture. Superfoods, toxins 鈥� they are a multi-billion industry based on vague claims.鈥�
I spend much of my time trying to expose pseudoscience in food and often criticise people for accepting simple narratives without checking the facts. Unfortunately, as the hoax shows, we all have a tendency to believe without thinking, especially when the simple story fits our view of the world. I had spent so long decrying wave upon wave of food fad pseudoscience, that I nearly didn鈥檛 stop to question the existence of gluten-free water.
Aaron has a number of hoaxes on the go, none of which he would reveal details of. I, for one, am glad听鈥� it might just keep us on our toes. Next time I am looking to retweet some clickbait headline, it might just pay to stop and think for a moment.
Anthony Warner听works as a food industry development chef by day, blogs about pseudoscience as听听by night and tweets at @One_Angry_Chef
听
听
