I agree with most of the rest of your post, but your vilification of gluten is pure nonsense. You have drank the Kool-Aid on this one and I doubt anything that I tell you will change your mind.
http://www.livescience.com/37855-gluten-free-craze.html
Traditionally no industry spends more money trying to convince us to buy products through advertising containing misinformation than the processed food industry. Think about all the Captain Crunch and other sweetened cereal commercials you watched growing up. It seems odd that these same corporations are now trying to vilify a basic protein found in healthy whole grains to sell more products. But it is all smoke and mirrors brought to you via the great minds from advertising agencies in big cities on both coasts. They think that you will be willing to buy and pay more for rice and corn based products if they advertise them as "gluten free". To do this they have worked hard to convince you that wheat "gluten" is bad.
Anyone who believes this rubbish is hopefully only hurting themselves, but it still is a little scary to read statements like the one you just made about gluten.
It’s true. Your body doesn’t need wheat. There are other grains you can enjoy, some with great function, like white rice - zero nutrients for US, but lots for our gut bugs. With just white rice and potato starch (great resistant starch if uncooked) you can make a ton of baked goods if you “want” them. Culturally we do want our birthday cakes and holiday treats. And there are more nutrients in teff and other unfamiliar grains than in wheat.
I went off gluten when I got into the early paleo craze but a year later I thought I could have a birthday treat that was made with wheat. I was up all night with indigestion. Haven’t eaten wheat willingly since (I realize it may have been in small amounts in restsurant food). My gut bugs no longer desl,with it well, and that is fine with me.
It’s not healthy nor good to eat much processed grains. A lot of the problems can be mental, as well. There’s so much research coming out. However, I’m not zealous - my family members eat wheat because they want to. People should eat what they want.
And when you think of why you love wheat, it’s for foods that hold stuff, mostly. And an addiction to bread is often bad gut bacteria and yeasts BEGGING you for it, and you might want to take two weeks and starve them out, and replace the bread addiction with baked potatoes. I know people,who did this and their brain fog (that they didn’t know they had) lifted afterwards!