“The lavishing of attention on wheat alternatives is wonderful news to the sufferers of celiac disease, for whom any amount of dietary gluten can inflame and destroy the lining of the small intestine…. But diagnosed celiacs only account for a small fraction of the bloated and still-expanding market for gluten-free products.”

“The mere fact that someone who cuts out gluten feels better doesn’t mean that he has an autoimmune disease or a wheat allergy or some other medical condition. Any kind of restrictive diet can help alleviate gastrointestinal distress. If you’re paying more attention to what you eat, there’s a good chance your symptoms will lessen. That’s not because gluten or red meat or another food is damaging your small intestine; it’s because eating less makes it easier for your gut to recover. Then there’s the placebo effect of starting any treatment, which might well address some of the more abstract symptoms of gluten intolerance, like fatigue, mood swings, and depression.”

Having Celiac absolutely sucks and if I could eat gluten, I would. I’m worried about the “gluten free trend” as opposed to someone like myself who HAS to avoid it. A lot of people think gluten free is wheat free and, as Siel said, healthy.

Gluten free baked goods have way more calories than its gluten counter parts, so those on gluten free diets who consume pizzas, cookies, cakes usually gain weight and also gain new problems like Candida and Diabities because of the surgar overload. And this is often what people turn to when they’re going “gluten free.” What also concerns me, is that those who choose to go gluten free are often lax; they don’t realise that soft drinks, ketchup, some chocolate, that creamer, etc. can have gluten in it. They just think gluten=wheat. So being lax out of choice can make it harder on those of us for whom it’s life or death because they’re not going to be really vocal to servers, restaurants, grocers or the public about what is and isn’t gluten free. If people start to think gluten free or celiac is a choice or not real (and there’s a lot of US medical doctors who think this), then that hurts those with celiac in the end.

That all said, I’m thankful for all the new packaging, labelling and awareness because it’s so much easier for me to eat safely but really, if you’re going to live gluten free, you have to give up convenience, packaged food, condiments and buffets or open food. It’s a really hard lifestyle I wouldn’t wish on anyone.

However, gluten intolerance/sensitivity doesn’t have that risk. The same is true for most food intolerances (as far as I know), so I can choose to eat something with corn and know that at most I will have some reaction symptoms later but no bodily damage.

I am highly reactive to gluten, so I don’t have any temptation to “cheat”. The last time that I ate something that turned out to have gluten as an ingredient (unlabeled) was a little over 2 years ago. I was unable to consume any food for 4 days and missed almost a week of work. I have learned my lesson and am very careful whenever I introduce new food now. I only eat at most one new thing in a day and if possible, I don’t eat new foods multiple days in a row. This helps me to figure out where I might be getting cross-contamination gluten.

I say all of this just in case someone is reading this who hasn’t known a celiac. I know that some people that I have met are shocked to realize what life changes that I have made to live in a way that lets me be healthy.

Despite all of this, I think that my life is better now. I never liked cooking and had a very love/hate relationship with food. I had to learn to cook or be forced to eat highly expensive gluten-free packaged food, and I discovered that I enjoy cooking once I stopped eating meat. I have been a vegetarian for years now and am a vegan most days. I know a few other veg*n celiacs, and it is surprising how many celiacs think we should “get over it” and just eat meat. Sigh.

This is quite long again, but I think it is important speak out on legitimate cases of celiac. Especially with the growing fad, I would hate for people to get the idea that it is ALL hype. I think we have a lot of digestive problems in the US (probably due to our high consumption of processed food and other factors), so over the years there have been “in” reasons. I remember when everyone had acid reflux, then it was IBS, and now Crohn’s and celiac seem to be common diagnoses.

When you need to avoid some of these ingredients, the recent “fad” of marketing based on what is not in processed food is a blessing. I think many of these products are a response to the one size fits all food production systems we have. I wish that we could move to more local food production where local producers communicate with their customers to make prepared meals that satisfy the needs of both parties. Until that happens, I am happy that there are a dozen companies offering gluten-free pizza and marketing as such. If a bunch of people want to eat it too because they think they should avoid gluten I am all for it.

So please, for the sake of those us us that need to search for gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, trans fat-free, non-gmo, hormone-free, pesticide-free food, let these companies and delusional customers keep doing what they are doing….

As a lacto-ovo vegetarian, I wish the US were more into official food labeling in general. There should be symbols for gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, vegetarian, vegan and GMO ingredients, in my opinion. Sounds like a lot, but they can be easily places in a corner of a package, and people will only have to identify when they need to. For example, if you have a peanut allergy, you’ll only need to look for the peanut symbol.

In our case, it was a truly remarkable phenomena – both my wife & I were diagnosed with celiac – the chances of us both having it are quite amazing.
We believe that like peanut allergies, etc. there are degrees of intolerance. Some peanut intolerance individuals get very sick ingesting small amounts of peanuts, and some celiac people get very sick eating small amounts of gluten. While other people may have less severe allergies and can handle small amounts of peanuts or gluten with little or no allergic reactions.
Of course it goes without saying that if you have a food allergy avoid allergen foods, but all the info. on the Internet is only for the “worst case scenarios.”

Corn is also not considered one of the common allergens that have to be listed, so there are still times when I get sick but can’t completely determine what caused it.

The number that I have read (from NFCA, http://www.celiaccentral.org/, I think) of the prevalence of celiac disease is 1 in 133 which makes it about as common as autism.

I am glad that celiac disease (and gluten intolerance/sensitivity which is different) is getting more visibility. The vitamin deficiencies that I suffered from years of eating gluten are taking quite a long time to fully identify and correct, so I would be happy for others to not have to suffer for quite so long. My chronic migraines are finally starting to improve to the point where I might be off daily medication within the year. I will still have a higher than average risk of certain cancers, but I try not to obsess since there isn’t anything that I can do other than remain diet compliant.

However, I have recently encountered people that don’t “get it” and seem to think that avoiding gluten has some benefit for those who do not have celiac or gluten sensitivity. I have tried to explain that provides them with no benefit, but I don’t think that my words can overpower whatever marketing induced madness they had acquired.

I mostly eat foods that I cook myself from naturally gluten-free ingredients, but it is impossible to completely avoid processed food. Raw nuts, beans, and lentils can run on machines that also process wheat; and bulk bins are almost never safe from cross-contamination (personally, I don’t take the chance). Spices used to be a big hazard, but greater visibility has led to companies cleaning up their practices.

It is nice when something like frozen falafel that has no need to contain any gluten is identified as gluten-free just to save me the trouble of doing all of the research. And I like that I can eat a frozen pizza every once in a while.

I did see somewhere that there’s a new pepsi product out that has added “vitamins” and touts health benefits. But I rarely drink soda, except the occasional microbrewed rootbeer, so I wouldn’t really know. I also completely agree about the lack of taste and thirst quenching abilities in diet soft drinks. They taste salty to me. I’d much rather have REAL food in moderation, thank you. The kind of things people have been consuming for centuries if not millennia. Not something someone came up with in a lab during my lifetime.