--- title: What Is Gluten: Video Explains Celiac Disease, Gluten Free Diets description: Plus: is being gluten-free really that good for you? canonical: https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/ author: Samantha Grossman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-05-15T18:21:44.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:09:42.533Z og:title: This Video Explains What Exactly Gluten Is og:description: Plus: is being gluten-free really that good for you? og:url: https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Video Explains What Exactly Gluten Is twitter:description: Plus: is being gluten-free really that good for you? twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # An Answer to the Question You've Been Too Afraid to Ask: What the Heck Is Gluten? by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 15, 2014 6:21 PM UTC by [Samantha Grossman](https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/) ## Samantha Grossman May 15, 2014 6:21 PM UTC If you had a quarter for every time you heard someone talking about gluten lately, you’d probably have enough money to buy yourself an entire gluten-free pizza or something. Clearly gluten — and talking about gluten and debating the merits of a gluten and then talking about gluten some more — is the cool thing right now, so if you don’t actually know what the heck gluten is, you’ve probably been too embarrassed to ask. But don’t worry! The folks of AsapSCIENCE have created this handy [explainer video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXjpb7SFi3s) to break it all down, beginning with what gluten is and why some people aren’t eating it. Spoiler alert: if you don’t have Celiac disease and you don’t suffer from symptoms like cramps or diarrhea after eating gluten, there’s no real health benefit to going gluten-free. In fact, there are even some risks to cutting it out. We can only assume that the fad will eventually fade out, leaving the gluten-free life to those who actually need to be living it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/"},"headline":"An Answer to the Question You've Been Too Afraid to Ask: What the Heck Is Gluten?","datePublished":"2014-05-15T18:21:44.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:09:42.533Z","description":"Plus: is being gluten-free really that good for you?","url":"https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","Food","Viral video","Gluten","gluten free","celiac disease","bread"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Samantha Grossman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/samantha-grossman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/101433/an-answer-to-the-question-youve-been-too-afraid-to-ask-what-the-heck-is-gluten/","name":"An Answer to the Question You've Been Too Afraid to Ask: What the Heck Is Gluten?"}}]}] ```