The idea of gluten free cooking came about to help people with celiac disease, which is an autoimmune disease that makes one hypersensitive to gluten. The sensitivity can affect multiple systems in the body, and switching to a gluten-free diet helps relieve the symptoms.
Gluten free cooking is not as difficult today as you may think. There are many specialty food companies that make gluten free food, and restaurants as a whole are becoming more aware of the need to cater to people who follow a gluten-free diet. Ironically, one of the foods heavily associated with gluten in its unmodified form is bread. However, it is also the simplest food to make gluten-free (you can easily find a gluten free bread recipe online) and is even easier now with high-tech bread machines that are out on the market today. One of these is called the Bready, which is an automated bakery for the home kitchen from Sweden. The precision and consistency of machines like this create breads and cakes that are much more palatable and resilient than the average gluten-free loaf.
For a person with celiac disease, gluten free cooking does not guarantee they will avoid the damage to mucosal membranes common with this disorder. The small amounts of gluten found in a variety of foods may add up to a sufficient amount to cause problems.
The best solution is to cook as much food as possible at home, and to carry out your gluten free cooking with products from a company that specializes in stocking ingredients for a gluten free diet. The list of gluten free recipes is extensive. There are numerous bread recipes, cake, recipes, and even delicious desert recipes with gluten free corn syrup that are safe for the person who needs a gluten free diet to eat.
The need for gluten free cooking is so prevalent that there are vast resources for gluten free diets on the internet.