Fred's Ramblings

A little over 4 years ago, I was diagnosed with Celiac disease. I certainly wasn’t expecting it and I didn’t really know what that was. Here is how Beyond Celiac defines it…

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that’s triggered by consuming gluten and results in damage to the small intestine. When a person with celiac disease eats gluten, the immune system sees gluten as a threat and mounts an attack. However, it ends up damaging the villi of the intestines, which help to digest food. Damaged villi make it nearly impossible for the body to absorb nutrients, leading to undernourishment and a host of other issues.

I was having some stomach issues and lots of diarrhea which seemed to last longer than I thought it should. It took quite a while to finally get the diagnoses…an endoscopy and blood work finally confirmed the diagnosis and all of a sudden, the way I ate and specifically what I ate became a big deal. Until you deal with this issue, you have no idea how many foods contain gluten. Wheat, barley and all of their derivatives all contain gluten. Such foods as pasta, bread, beer all contain gluten and as such are no longer on my list of edible foods. Whenever I buy anything new, I always check the ingredients to make sure that I don’t get glutened eating something I shouldn’t. There are applications out there that will tell you if a product contains gluten…it is one of the most used applications on my phone. Granted, finding gluten free foods is considerably easier today than it was 5-10 years ago, but there is no cure for the disease, so I am stuck with it.

What has also happened is that I can’t go out to a restaurant and feel comfortable that I won’t be affected, even though they will carry menu items that are “gluten free”. The problem is that at a restaurant, the preparation of their menu items are all done in the same general area and for a celiac patient, that is a problem due to the cross contamination that is almost assuredly happening. I understand…the profit margin at a restaurant is quite small so having a separate prep area for gluten free items does not make sense. Therefore, a night out is most likely going to end up with at a minimum, a stomach ache and likely also many trips to the bathroom. On the positive side, I have just confirmed that I can drink Scotch because all of the gluten has been distilled out of the wheat used in most Scotches.