Gluten Free Museum

A friend shared a link with me from Buzzfeed and asked me what I thought of it. It referenced a Tumblr post titled Gluten Free Museum which was meant to show how prevalent wheat is in our culture. I didn't really read anything the first time I looked at the link on Buzzfeed, so all I saw were pictures like these:

 Photos courtesy http://glutenimage.tumblr.com/

My first reaction was that it wasn't necessary to remove the majority of the items. I liked the wheat field best because they at least replaced the wheat with grass, but those tools could have been used for the grass too, so removing those made no sense. When it came to pictures like the woman pouring water with the basket of bread, I figured they could have used gluten-free bread. The portrait of Andy Warhol with a cheeseburger could have been on a gluten free bun--or they could have at least left the ketchup in the photo as that should be gluten free although a portrait of a person with a bottle of ketchup would be quite odd. 

I voiced my concern about the fact that items don't cease to exist if everything needs to be gluten free. There are gluten-free breads, cakes, beers, etc, etc, etc. Why did they need to remove these items instead of replace them???

She responded with the following: 

I think it's to make people who don't have to think about gluten every day, every meal look at how important gluten is, how prevalent it is in our culture.

I felt a little foolish. Mrs. Positivity (me, if you weren't sure who I was referring to) had immediately jumped on the defensive. I'll admit I may have taken a different stance if I had actually read what the page said (that was the whole point of it) instead of simply looking at the pretty pictures. I think it's a good reminder to myself (and others) to look at all sides before making any snap decisions.

With that being said, I highly recommend checking out the links below to see all of the photos. 

Tumblr Link

Buzzfeed Link

Dangerous Minds Link