Wednesday, September 20, 2017 // The Statement
6B
From a celiac: I don’t like gluten-free people either
I
wish this disease were as imagi-
nary as everyone thinks it is.”
Upon getting sick for the ump-
teenth time in the past six years,
I’m now going to have to spend the next
few hours not on my impending exam but
instead curled into a fetal position in bed.
People just don’t understand celiac dis-
ease and the medically required gluten-
free diet that accompanies it, and it’s not
entirely their fault. Many have started
to follow the diet because they believe
it will help them lose weight, and peo-
ple like me with a medical diagnosis get
grouped in with them. Recent popularity
of the gluten-free diet has paved the way
for a mass misunderstanding of what it is
and its actual medical purpose — utter-
ly indistinct in the public eye from the
Atkins diet. When I was diagnosed with
celiac disease my sophomore year of col-
lege, all my anxiety around my diagnosis
had nothing to do with the actual disease
or its management but rather how I’d be
perceived; how I’d go to restaurants, how
I could communicate the severity of my
dietary restrictions and not be imme-
diately mislabeled as a fad dieter, how I
could ask for the things I needed and still
save face. For the first year I refused to
say “gluten-free,” opting instead for “celi-
ac food” or other variations because I
hated how “gluten-free” sounded coming
out of my mouth.
For context: Celiac disease is an auto-
immune disorder in which my body,
instead of digesting the gluten protein
(aka wheat, barley and rye), develops anti-
gens that attack my small intestine. As
you can image, it’s not a fun process, and
the side effects are as numerous as they
are unpleasant. For me, it’s regular nau-
sea, vomiting, diarrhea, migraines, mouth
sores, weight loss due to malabsorption
of nutrients, severe cramping confin-
ing me to bed, lactose intolerance, two
years of consistent colds due to a depleted
immune system, hair loss, insomnia and
constant and very noticeable bloating.
And ingesting even the smallest bits of
it (anything over 20 parts per million,
literal bread crumbs) will set them off
again. Not to mention that long-term
disregard of celiac disease can lead to
infertility, permanent digestive damage,
malnutrition and a whole slew of other
nasty diseases including, but not limited
to, multiple sclerosis, lymphoma, diabe-
tes and epilepsy. Suddenly all that is good
and beautiful in the world (pizza, bread,
pasta) didn’t seem like too high of an ask-
ing price, considering the consequences.
Not that I particularly had a choice.
Reactions to the news that I have celi-
ac disease range from “you’re so lucky
you’re allergic to carbs” to “dude, you
can’t drink beer? That’s lame.” Trust me,
bro, I know. That I will never again taste
the sweet bliss that is a lukewarm can of
Rolling Rock keeps me up at night. When
I was first diagnosed I had a reoccur-
ring dream where I would stand outside
a Cinnabon and just look at the pretzels,
sitting there gloriously. But these faded
with time and made way for the deep and
burning hatred I harbor for those who get
giddy when I tell them because “OMG!!!!
I’M GLUTEN-FREE TOO!!!!” The most
aggravating comments I get are not from
mostly well-meaning sympathizers but
instead from people who elect to eat glu-
ten-free simply because they believe it
is healthier, or as I like to refer to them,
“fake gluten people.” These are not other
people with medical aversions to the pro-
tein. These are the people who voluntari-
ly shop at Whole Foods, the ones who lord
their salad-eating habits for all to see, the
ones who turn up their noses at a perfect-
ly good 50-cent piece of pizza because it’s
“dirty.” These are the people who love to
complain to me about how difficult eat-
ing gluten-free is, how they’re constantly
tempted, how they’re so excited to talk to
someone who actually “gets it” for once.
And I hate them, bitterly.
For “gluten-free” people do have a
choice. They don’t have violent reac-
tions that land them in a hospital on
their “cheat days” and they are allowed
the occasional “sometimes I’m bad when
I’m drunk and eat a slice of pizza! Tee
hee!” because there are no consequences
for them. But this attitude has very real
consequences for people like me, aside
from whatever (mountain of) personal
annoyance that it may bring. In claim-
ing our medically required diet for them-
selves, they group us — celiacs and other
non-celiac gluten intolerances — togeth-
er with them. The word “gluten-free”
now has a societal connotation with the
obnoxious trendy diet and nothing more.
Half the time the server at a restaurant
will roll her eyes when I ask about gluten-
free options, and for good reason — half
the time she encounters a request for
gluten-free foods it is most likely a volun-
tary one. But if a pan in the kitchen isn’t
washed well enough, I’m out of commis-
sion, while fake gluten people don’t have
to worry.
And however vocal all the fake gluten
people are, I am equally as quiet; people
with gastrointestinal diseases have dig-
nities, too, which is why most celiacs will
give you a very shifty answer when you
ask what happens when we eat gluten.
We don’t want to talk about our diarrhea
more than you don’t want to hear about
it. The problem is, our shiftiness mini-
mizes our experience. And I get it; my
senior year of high school, when a girl I
knew got diagnosed with celiac disease,
I thought she was a big giant phony. We
eat bread our entire lives and then one
day we’re severely allergic. It sounds
sketchy. But what everyone can’t see is
the years of chronic illness leading up
to the diagnosis — the endless, fruitless
doctors appointments where they tell you
to cut out whatever food and ask you if
you feel better a month later. The answer
is always sorta, I don’t know, maybe.
And the process starts over. All of this,
coupled with the aforementioned lovely
hipsters and bigorexic health nuts, have
de-legitimized the severity of our aller-
gies, downgrading an autoimmune dis-
ease to a fad.
Twenty-something yoga enthusiasts
around the country have since made a
gluten-free diet the next trendy weight
loss market, with the global gluten-free
market growing from $1.7 billion in 2011
to $3.5 billion in 2016. Overall consump-
tion of gluten-free foods by people who
do not have celiac disease in the U.S. has
more than tripled, from 0.52 percent of
the population in 2010 to 1.69 percent in
2014. This is all in spite of a slew of sci-
entific evidence that exposes real health
detriments associated with following a
gluten-free diet, that it will not help you
lose weight nor is it inherently healthier,
but instead is linked to a higher risk of
obesity. I actually gained about 20 pounds
after I went gluten-free. The reason peo-
ple may lose weight on the diet is that they
end up eating fewer carbs, not specifi-
cally gluten. Gluten-free substitute foods
are generally higher in saturated fats
and sugars, as they tend to be made from
starchier substances like white rice flour
or potato starch than their whole wheat
counterparts and rely on added sugars to
make up for differences in taste. Addi-
tionally,
already-expensive
substitute
grains like quinoa coupled with a sharp
demand spike make gluten-free foods an
average of 242 percent more expensive
than their gluten-filled complements. For
the people who elect the diet, it is a privi-
lege to give up most foods and replace
them with an expensive, tasteless substi-
tute. They have the option of buying the
cheaper wheat-filled version and instead
elect for the more expensive gluten-free
one. I do not have such luxuries. Think
you’re struggling with funds buying
69-cent packets of ramen noodles? You’re
right. Now imagine you have to pay $6 for
a loaf of bread. Worse, imagine electing
to do so.
“Oh, I don’t have any real reason, I just
feel better when I don’t eat it!” is one of
my least favorite sentences in the English
language. Contrary to popular belief, this
diet is not a choice. And the people who
do choose it for weight loss purposes or
whatever other stupidity only reaffirm
the “popular belief” that it is. So if you’re
considering “going gluten-free,” just cut
out carbs instead. Do all of us over here at
Sad, Tasteless Headquarters a favor and
stop going gluten-free for a week as a fun
challenge. It won’t do anything. And, for
the love of God, stop complaining about it
on the internet. Let us deal with our dis-
eases in peace.
by Elizabeth Dokas, Copy Chief
“
ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE PHILLIPS