I believe Gwyneth Paltrow was the first big celebrity to bring it to the attention of the mass public. Gluten free is supposedly the new rage diet of those settled in the film industry. But I ask you, what do they know? These people are the same dum-dums that gave us The Human Centipede and still allow Owen Wilson and Diane Keaton to collect a paycheck. Ask anyone with celiac and I bet you they would prefer to go back to a normal diet instead of that no wheat crap. So if you’re gluten free by choice, I have to say you are a tool with a glutton for punishment. Is it hip to say you choose to have herpes? Neither is it cool to say “I’m choosing to be gluten free” moron.

Eating and being afflicted with celiac is akin to that one bad relationship we all get ourselves into. You know where the sex is good but you have to put up with the needling snipes, the roll of the eyes, and the hours of arguing only to be followed by steeping oneself in cheap gin and tonics. As an aside, I will tell you that I was lucky because my comic book collection shielded me from many intimacies. You could say I was a connoisseur of scrambled porn. In fact, I watched so much of it in college that Picasso’s figures appear normal to me. (I lurve you channel 68!)

Celiac is the awful curse of being allergic to anything with wheat and my wife has it (Yes, I still have my comic books but she needed a green card). Seeing her bowled over in pain when she accidentally eats something with wheat is awful. Yet even with the stomach pangs and crippling discomfort that she suffers, my wife still misses eating a real slice of pizza or twisting her fork in a bowl of noodles. As a lark, I sometimes secretly toss flour in my wife’s food when she and I have a disagreement. Score one for the passive aggressive psychopathic behavior.

Amongst the quinoa pastas and breads made with tapioca flour, I have the misfortune of trying many things that are gluten free. A lot of them taste terrible or weird and some are passible. Now I have to admit, most gluten free versions suck but I have to believe when Marie Antoinette said let them eat some damn cake, she meant people who have celiac too.

So like most couples do on a mundane Sunday morning, we were shopping at our local supermarket hoping to beat the crowds and old people who leave their carts in the middle of the aisle looking for foot ointment.

Perusing the cereals, my wife let out a scream I haven’t heard since she got her said green card for our sham marriage. She stumbled on a box of the fabled Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Gluten Free. Leery of the cereal, I had to try it for myself. I was suspicious as Snap, Crackle and Pop had a fake smile on the box, but most elves do, right?

Upon opening the package, I noticed the corner was stamped “Whole Grain Brown Rice” in a cartoony font. Now all my friends know my extreme loathing for brown rice so this gave me a slight dramatic pause. We went ahead and tossed it in our cart and scurried home to try it.

I reached in the box and grabbed a handful of kernels to examine. They looked like the real stuff, felt like the real stuff but I was unsure if they would taste like the real stuff. Munching on a few, the familiar toasted rice flavor was immediate. The cereal was not too sweet like the normal version. So yes, despite using brown rice, they taste just like the ordinary Rice Krispies. I ate a bit more just to make sure because I couldn’t believe it was made from brown rice and they were gluten free.

I poured some in a bowl with milk, still not convinced they would still taste the same. I usually use skim milk but I selected the 2% in anticipation that it would taste bland. Like alchemy, the cereal let out that nostalgic popping once the milk touched the rice. Spoonful upon spoonful, it was hard to believe but these things tasted exactly like Rice Krispies. The cereal held up in the milk too, retaining that crispness.

These are a summer release and hopefully will be a part of Kellogg’s regular offerings. I am sure that if someone switched the cereals on me like those old Folgers coffee commercials, I would not be able to tell the difference. This was a winner in my opinion and for a gluten free option to taste like the real thing…well it’s rarer than me getting lucky in college.

I was excited because the back of the box has a recipe for Rice Krispies Treats. There is a shortage of really good tasting sweets that are wheat free so I’m sure this will be a godsend to my wife and others who have celiac. I plan on making a batch of these since we bought so many boxes.

This cereal is an example that gluten free is not synonymous with repulsive. I hope other manufacturers can take a page from Kellogg’s and give people suffering from celiac a delicious option. You truly do not appreciate great tasting gluten free choices until you’ve eaten a pretzel devoid of wheat or downed a sorghum beer. I think I would rather eat exactly what those girls did in The Human Centipede, which is probably gluten free too when you think about it.

(Nutrition facts – 1 cup is 120 calories, with ½ cup of skim milk, 160 calories, 1 gram of fat – none being saturated, trans, polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats, 0mg of cholesterol, 190 mg of sodium, 90mg of potassium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, less than 1 gram of sugars, 25 grams of other carbohydrates, 3 grams of protein and NO WHEAT)

Item: Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Gluten Free
Price: $2.99
Size: 12 ounces free of wheat
Purchased at: Publix
Rating: 9 out of 10 (if you like Rice Krispies)
Pros: You cannot tell they are gluten free. They still snap, crackle, and pop. Being able to tell if those are boobies or legs.
Cons: May be hard to find right now. Sham marriages. Choosing to be gluten free. Celiac sucks too.