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

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ILLUSTRATION BY MICHELLE PHILLIPS