The Look. The Judgement. The Fad.

Whenever I’m forced to admit that yes, I eat gluten free, you can immediately see The Look come across the person’s face. No matter how quickly I explain I have Celiac Disease, not a gluten intolerance, their opinion of me has irrevocably changed. They shut off, their eyes get tight, and you know I’ve lost them. I get it. We all know those people who are “gluten free” because they think they’ll lose weight, or because it’s popular. People who eat gluten free one minute and then scarf down a box of doughnuts the next. People like that make it hard to admit that yes, I do eat gluten free.

Inevitably after I’ve told someone I eat gluten free, I’ll start getting the questions. Do you even know what gluten is? Yes. It’s the stretchy protein found in wheat, barley, and malt that helps bread to rise. Did you have the test where they stick a camera down your throat while you’re unconscious? No, I was one of the luck few who was able to take the blood test, where they could see the markers indicating that my celiac disease is active. Do you always eat gluten free? Or do you cheat sometimes? Always. There is no cheating with Celiac disease, ever. Okay, but…It’ll go away eventually, right? No, Celiac Disease is a hereditary issue that, once symptoms start presenting, will never go away.

But, the questions aren’t the worst. In fact, I appreciate when people take the time to ask the questions instead of making assumptions. The worst is the well-meaning people who know better than me. The people who tell me I don’t have Celiac Disease, it’s all in my head. Or Oh, you would be able to eat gluten if you ate non-gmo flour. I’ve had people hand me something they claim is gluten free, and swear it's gluten free as I’m getting sick, all the way until I find the box of pasta in the kitchen. Teachers, friends, coworkers… it’s amazing the number of people who feel like they know better than you.

You also have to deal with the judgement. Even if they don’t tell you, many people begin judging you the moment they hear the word gluten. They watch what you eat, what you do, what you say. I once told a professor in passing about my Celiac as part of a conversation. Months later, while talking about something completely irrelevant, my professor told me that I don’t get to have an opinion on the subject, because I believe in gluten… what?! It boggled my mind that she had been sitting on that and stewing for the entire semester, judging everything I said. My Celiac has nothing to do with any aspect of my life except my health. It doesn’t negate my opinion and it doesn’t mean I’m unintelligent. It just means I have to be careful with what I eat.

I know people who have been diagnosed with Celiac for 50+ years, who have had this problem since before anyone had heard the word gluten. Most of them would rather the world still not know about it. A lot of the time I feel the same way. Because as hard as it was to find bread and flours, you didn’t have to deal with the fall out of turning down a piece of pizza. Every time I hear the word gluten in a song, or on a TV show I cringe, wondering how much more damage it’s going to cause. Shows like Jimmy Fallon, who ran a segment that made it seem like people who eat gluten free don’t even know what it is, make it that much harder to tell people. While skits and interviews like that are made in fun, subconsciously people begin believing it. And with every mocking lyric thrown out into the internet, people start forgetting it was a joke and taking it as fact.

I get it. Completely and totally get it. Most people give you the look and start judging you because they don’t have enough information or because they’ve been misinformed. I’m going to admit something to you: before I was diagnosed, I thought it was all a hoax. I had an uncle whose “doctor” had diagnosed him with Celiac Disease by having him hold his hand above a picture of bread and using a “clicker." If my uncle’s hand dropped while his hand was above a picture of something that contained gluten, he had Celiac… HUH?! No way was I going to believe in something like that. So instead of getting informed, I scoffed and refused to eat the cookies he brought to Christmas.) But then something happened. After months of getting sick every time I ate I went to the doctor, and my metabolic panel showed I was positive for Celiac Disease. So what did I do? I got informed, and have been working to share what I know with others. The best thing you can do is get informed, so that people don’t need to be afraid to tell you they eat gluten free.

So what is Celiac Disease? Celiac Disease is a genetic auto-immune disorder that can present itself at any point in your life. An auto-immune disorder is a condition where your body see’s something perfectly normal, such as gluten, as an invader and attempts to get rid of it. During the process your body begins attacking itself. With Celiac disease, your body cannot process the protein gluten (and other similar proteins) and so when the gluten attaches to the villi in your digestive track, your body begins attacking and wears away at the villi. These villi are how your body absorbs nutrients and water, and are vital to staying healthy and strong. As these villi begin wearing away, your body begins to show outward signs of distress. In fact, after consuming gluten, people with Celiac generally experience flu like symptoms for 3-5 days after. If the short term effects aren’t bad enough, people with Celiac also have to worry about vitamin deficiencies, hair loss, infertility, cancer, and an increased risk of developing other auto immune issues.

What about those myths that are floating around out there?

• Nobody should eat gluten, it’s bad for you. This myth is rooted a little bit in truth, but also in a lot of fiction. All of our bodies naturally struggle to digest gluten, to some extent or another. However, for people who do not have Celiac disease, as soon as your body begins to process the gluten, it recognizes that this is not something bad, and your body digests the gluten the way it is supposed to.
• Eating Gluten Free is a healthy choice. If only it were that simple. Generally gluten free items contain less preservatives and are non-gmo, but that’s just because that’s how the companies that create these products make them. They are still processed and full of carbs, calories, and sugar. You’re just trading out one flour for another. Wheat for rice (or some mix of a million flours)
• You’ll lose weight if you eat gluten free. Uhhhhh, only if it’s because you hate the food so much that you never eat. In which case, you are eating the wrong gluten free food darling. Cutting out all processed foods would be a much better choice.
• Most people choose to eat gluten free. At $5 for a cheap loaf of bread and $8 for an individual tray of lasagna, it’s hard to believe that anyone would willingly choose to eat this way. I’m sure that there are people out there who are doing this by choice, but trust me, most of us would much rather being eating those breadsticks.
• There is no such thing as a gluten intolerance. Okay, first of all, the medical term is “non-celiac gluten sensitivity”, but it’s the same thing. This one is harder to pin down, because there is no concrete testing out there for gluten intolerance. Most major universities and medical centers recognized gluten intolerance, and in fact there is a university that believes it has found the protein in the gut that causes gluten intolerance. People who have gluten intolerance experience a lot of the same outward symptoms of Celiac Disease without the intestinal damage. And yes, many of them do eat gluten every once in a while, despite the discomfort. But I know more people who regularly eat cheese with a lactose intolerance than people who eat gluten with a gluten intolerance.

The best thing you can do is go to Celiac.org or another reputable website and get informed. That way next time someone tells you their gluten free, you don’t give them The Look.