Food is an essential part of life. Lets be honest; if we didn't eat we would die. For 19 years of my life I could eat everything and anything I wanted. And I did––pizza is bae and pasta is side bae. I have a love for food that I cannot explain with words. But when the thing I loved the most tried to kill me, I got pissed. It's been five years since I was diagnosed with celiac disease and I'm still pissed. For those of you who don't know, celiac disease is a genetic disorder with which a person cannot digest gluten. Gluten is wheat, rye, and barley; in short, it’s in basically in everything! Yeah, my life was over.
Here are all the reasons why having celiac disease sucks.
1. Cross contamination is, like, eating a bread crumb.
Gluten is in everything. Avoiding it is harder than avoiding the sun. If a piece of bread or anything that contains gluten touches my gluten-free food I'm done for. I might as well eat a piece of bread at that point.
2. I have to deep clean the kitchen before I even make food.
I am the only member of my family who has celiac disease. That said, some of my family members still don’t understand the magnitude of my gluten allergy. There are constantly bread crumbs, cookie crumbs, and other forms of gluten on the counters. I have to clean and re-clean everything before I can even start making a sandwich.
3. Going to restaurants gives me anxiety.
As if avoiding cross contamination wasn’t hard enough at home, a restaurant is like cross-contamination station. It takes about two hours for the gluten to travel to my intestines where it kills them so I have two hours to get home from the restaurant and to the bathroom.
4. Speaking of bathrooms, I’ve become BFF with mine.
I spend more time in the bathroom than I ever thought humanly possible. No one should spend that much time in the bathroom, except for a plumber because it’s his or her job to be there. My toilet seat has molded around my butt.
5. Eating fast food is nearly impossible.
I can’t just run to McDonald's and get something to eat late at night. Nor can I go to Taco Bell after a night out with my friends. They need to make a gluten-free fast food place so I can get a greasy burger or a taco without having to explode afterwards.
6. A regular loaf of bread costs $2, gluten-free bread costs $5.
The prices of gluten free food are ridiculous. I didn’t choose the celiac life––it chose me! I shouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg just to be able to eat and not die. Being charged extra to eat something less tasty is not something I had looked forward to about growing up.
7. It doesn't just cost more; it also tastes like cardboard.
Who decided that cardboard was edible? The people who made gluten-free food, that’s who! The bread is denser than a brick, the cookies crumble into sand, and the pretzels will break your teeth. The only good gluten-free food I can count on is Chex.
8. Reading labels gets super annoying and tedious.
Not everything is labeled as gluten free. This means I have to read the ingredient labels carefully before I buy or eat anything I haven’t already had before. Manufacturers like to use different words for gluten so while reading the labels I also have to remember the long, and what I think are made up, words for gluten.
Having celiac disease is hard. Eating gluten free is sometimes impossible but it helps me to feel like I’m not dying or in the bathroom for three hours. It’s not all bad though. I have my own food that no one else in my family eats so there is more for me! Plus, peanut butter is naturally gluten free!
