Samuel Gee starched foods should be avoided. He forbids rice, sago, fruit and vegetables. Raw meat is recommended as are thin slices of toasted bread. Gee highlights particular success with a child "who was fed upon a quart of the best Dutch mussels daily". However, the child cannot bear this diet for more than one season. The cause of coeliac disease was eventually discovered to be an autoimmune reaction to gliadin, a gluten protein found in wheat, plus Secalin in rye and Hordien in barley. The lining of the small bowel is flattened, which interferes with the absorption of nutrients. Gee would
Rye bread "maslin" (or variants of the name) was the bread of the better-off peasants for hundreds of years, in contrast to the white manchet bread eaten by the rich, and the horsebread eaten by the poorer peasants, which was made of cheaper grains including oats, barley and pulses. Wheat-rye breads, particularly light rye (sissel) and American pumpernickel, but also a combination known as "marble rye", are very closely associated with Jewish-American cuisine, particularly the delicatessen. The bulk of the flour is white wheat flour (often a less-refined form known as "first clear"), with a substantial portion of rye mixed in for