A Prayer For Gluten
February 4, 2015 11:34 PM Subscribe
God, you sent gluten into this world as you sent your own Son, to save us, not to torment us with vague and possibly imaginary physical symptoms. So please help certain people to remember, gracious Lord, even as they shun and revile gluten, that it is still a creation of your own Almighty hand, and that, being God, you probably knew what you were doing when you created it. Enlighten those of us in your flock, O Lord, who go about slandering gluten with great authority and volume, even though they never heard of gluten until last year.
A prayer by Wendy Brenner
A prayer by Wendy Brenner
Wow, that was a tedious diatribe. Sorry, I have as little love for the "isn't gluten free a tedious fad, oh but not you, actually ill people" spiel as I do for the "oh, I'm gluten free, except where it's not convenient" types. Personally, unless I'm arranging to get food I can actually eat (an unpleasantly onerous and alienating task), I'd rather not talk about it at all, but I have to, because I'm barraged with people on the one side who want to ridicule woo, and people on the other side who use it as an identity.
posted by ambrosen at 11:51 PM on February 4, 2015 [27 favorites]
posted by ambrosen at 11:51 PM on February 4, 2015 [27 favorites]
A previous boss had a table that very specifically and tediously spelled out an off-menu order as they were all gluten-free (amazing!) and some minutes later asked the server for more of the bread that is dropped off to start the meal service.
On the restaurant employee side nothing is worse than people who fake allergies. Most likely we will bend over backwards to accommodate, but when things go from 2 requests a month to 5 a night, people become apathetic and somewhere someone's going to slip up and a reall allergy will become a problem. It is endlessly frustrating.
posted by efalk at 11:57 PM on February 4, 2015 [15 favorites]
On the restaurant employee side nothing is worse than people who fake allergies. Most likely we will bend over backwards to accommodate, but when things go from 2 requests a month to 5 a night, people become apathetic and somewhere someone's going to slip up and a reall allergy will become a problem. It is endlessly frustrating.
posted by efalk at 11:57 PM on February 4, 2015 [15 favorites]
Well, I've got a piece of anecdotal evidence here. My mother, who is 70 +, recently experienced a bunch of extremely unpleasant symptoms. After having met a number of specialists (stomach, heart) because she couldn't eat without being sick for hours and feeling that her heart was about to give up, she tried to discard gluten. She's perfectly ok now, except for the few times when she can't resist a cookie or some gluten laden sweet which leads to a day of suffering.
What I find troubling in my mother's experience is that she lived perfectly well 70 years without bothering once about gluten being in her food. And then, suddenly, the smallest amount induced tremendous symptoms.
posted by nicolin at 12:05 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
What I find troubling in my mother's experience is that she lived perfectly well 70 years without bothering once about gluten being in her food. And then, suddenly, the smallest amount induced tremendous symptoms.
posted by nicolin at 12:05 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
O Lord, let thy fad diet continue unabated, for it makes choices available to people with celiac disease who had very few choices before. Amen.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:09 AM on February 5, 2015 [48 favorites]
posted by a lungful of dragon at 12:09 AM on February 5, 2015 [48 favorites]
Well, I've got a piece of anecdotal evidence here. [...]
Good thing that's not data.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:33 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Good thing that's not data.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:33 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Praise Seitan indeed.
posted by CarolynG at 1:28 AM on February 5, 2015 [26 favorites]
posted by CarolynG at 1:28 AM on February 5, 2015 [26 favorites]
Well, I've got a piece of anecdotal evidence here. [...]
Good thing that's not data.
In the case of many food allergies, what nicolin described actually is data. An elimination diet is a proven method that is part of diagnosis. Granted it would be even more convincing with doctor feedback, but still. (nicolin it is more known now here in France, speaking as someone with a French-doctor-diagnosed gluten intolerance.)
posted by fraula at 1:38 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Good thing that's not data.
In the case of many food allergies, what nicolin described actually is data. An elimination diet is a proven method that is part of diagnosis. Granted it would be even more convincing with doctor feedback, but still. (nicolin it is more known now here in France, speaking as someone with a French-doctor-diagnosed gluten intolerance.)
posted by fraula at 1:38 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I used to eat at the Golden Lotus vegetarian restaurant in downtown Oakland pretty regularly. It featured faux-meat dishes that were mostly made out of...drum roll...gluten. Gluten was once considered to be a good thing.
posted by telstar at 1:39 AM on February 5, 2015
posted by telstar at 1:39 AM on February 5, 2015
My toilet bowl full of blood doesn't understand any of this.
posted by humboldt32 at 1:52 AM on February 5, 2015 [14 favorites]
posted by humboldt32 at 1:52 AM on February 5, 2015 [14 favorites]
It featured faux-meat dishes that were mostly made out of...drum roll...gluten
Hail seitan!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Hail seitan!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 2:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
But if gluten is bad, how can I cathartically beat up a bowl of sticky goop, ignore it, toss it in a fiery box, and then have a beautiful ball of carbohydrates?
And don't say rice flour, as that stuff doesn't form a gluten network that leads to a rad crumb structure.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:20 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
And don't say rice flour, as that stuff doesn't form a gluten network that leads to a rad crumb structure.
posted by mccarty.tim at 2:20 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
O Lord, let thy fad diet continue unabated, for it makes choices available to people with celiac disease who had very few choices before. Amen.Inflammatory bowel diseases too. A low FODMAP diet (pdf) is helpful to many people with IBD.
posted by mattbcoset at 2:25 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
My partner is coeliac and I can tell you, gluten does very bad things to her.
Diagnosis wasn't flippant. It took several years of toing and froing and eventually required a couple of endoscopies and a whole bunch of blood tests.
The gluten-free thing may be a fad but for my partner, it's a good fad. Coeliacs used to have to order food by mail but now there's a whole supermarket aisles dedicated to gluten free.
And to those who think they're clever and like to snigger whenever they hear someone request the gluten-free menu: Fuck. Off.
posted by popcassady at 2:32 AM on February 5, 2015 [19 favorites]
Diagnosis wasn't flippant. It took several years of toing and froing and eventually required a couple of endoscopies and a whole bunch of blood tests.
The gluten-free thing may be a fad but for my partner, it's a good fad. Coeliacs used to have to order food by mail but now there's a whole supermarket aisles dedicated to gluten free.
And to those who think they're clever and like to snigger whenever they hear someone request the gluten-free menu: Fuck. Off.
posted by popcassady at 2:32 AM on February 5, 2015 [19 favorites]
The gluten-free thing may be a fad but for my partner, it's a good fad.
But you may want to worry about the point where gluten-free becomes "gluten-free" because everybody assumes it's just a fad diet with no real consequences if accidently some gluten does slip through.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:44 AM on February 5, 2015 [17 favorites]
But you may want to worry about the point where gluten-free becomes "gluten-free" because everybody assumes it's just a fad diet with no real consequences if accidently some gluten does slip through.
posted by MartinWisse at 2:44 AM on February 5, 2015 [17 favorites]
wheat is neat and hard to beat
posted by scruss at 3:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by scruss at 3:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Disclaimer: I was diagnosed with Celiac 6 years ago, before all the cool kids were doing it. I won't even pretend that I understand the science behind this, but there is causal evidence that gluten has become a problem for increasing amounts of people because of glyphosate-based pesticides used on wheat, like Monsanto's Roundup.
But you may want to worry about the point where gluten-free becomes "gluten-free" because everybody assumes it's just a fad diet with no real consequences if accidently some gluten does slip through.
This. I appreciate restaurants trying to be helpful because I want to be social and get out to eat, but the reality is that for someone with Celiac, it's just way too dangerous. Cross contamination is serious business and while they may take the croutons off my salad and call it gluten free, that wheat dust has pretty much poisoned the food.
Me: (after carefully researching a restaurant has a Celiac menu): Wow! You have gluten free pasta! Is that Celiac-safe?
Server: It sure is!
Me: Is it prepared in a separate area, in a pot that hasn't been used recently to dunk regular pasta?
Server: No. But the pasta box says gluten free so it's safe. Is gluten-free a preference or an allergy?
Me (sighing): Neither; it's an auto-immune disease.
And you have NO IDEA how much I hate being that person. I blame Monsanto.
posted by kinetic at 3:08 AM on February 5, 2015 [32 favorites]
But you may want to worry about the point where gluten-free becomes "gluten-free" because everybody assumes it's just a fad diet with no real consequences if accidently some gluten does slip through.
This. I appreciate restaurants trying to be helpful because I want to be social and get out to eat, but the reality is that for someone with Celiac, it's just way too dangerous. Cross contamination is serious business and while they may take the croutons off my salad and call it gluten free, that wheat dust has pretty much poisoned the food.
Me: (after carefully researching a restaurant has a Celiac menu): Wow! You have gluten free pasta! Is that Celiac-safe?
Server: It sure is!
Me: Is it prepared in a separate area, in a pot that hasn't been used recently to dunk regular pasta?
Server: No. But the pasta box says gluten free so it's safe. Is gluten-free a preference or an allergy?
Me (sighing): Neither; it's an auto-immune disease.
And you have NO IDEA how much I hate being that person. I blame Monsanto.
posted by kinetic at 3:08 AM on February 5, 2015 [32 favorites]
Gluten is not bad. Humans have been consuming it for thousands of years. It is not the gluten that's the problem. The gluten is an indicator for something else. Perhaps pesticides or other additives.
The whole gluten-free thing worries me because gluten may be the canary in the coal mine. It is alerting us that something else is seriously wrong. It is sort of like choosing not to take a canary in the coal mine after all and see, we're ok now, because no dead canaries. This doesn't seem to me to be a practical way to address the problem.
posted by vacapinta at 4:03 AM on February 5, 2015 [18 favorites]
The whole gluten-free thing worries me because gluten may be the canary in the coal mine. It is alerting us that something else is seriously wrong. It is sort of like choosing not to take a canary in the coal mine after all and see, we're ok now, because no dead canaries. This doesn't seem to me to be a practical way to address the problem.
posted by vacapinta at 4:03 AM on February 5, 2015 [18 favorites]
Did you know they make gluten-free water now?
posted by double block and bleed at 4:05 AM on February 5, 2015
posted by double block and bleed at 4:05 AM on February 5, 2015
The time I went to a Whole Foods and found "GLUTEN FREE!" tags on the underarm deodorant shelf was the time I figured retail staff had their fill of customers' questions about gluten-free whatnots phrased in the form of personal life stories.
posted by ardgedee at 4:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 4:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Did you know they make gluten-free water now?
Yeah, my mom got me a case of Wegman's GLUTEN FREE SPARKLING WATER for Christmas as a completely serious present, bless her heart.
posted by kinetic at 4:40 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Yeah, my mom got me a case of Wegman's GLUTEN FREE SPARKLING WATER for Christmas as a completely serious present, bless her heart.
posted by kinetic at 4:40 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
i can't help but have noticed that gluten free products in the supermarket are godawfully expensive
posted by pyramid termite at 4:41 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by pyramid termite at 4:41 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
> Did you know they make gluten-free water now?
That beats my previous fave, which was CONTAINS 0 GRAMS TRANS FATS on a bag of Jolly Ranchers hard candy.
posted by jfuller at 4:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
That beats my previous fave, which was CONTAINS 0 GRAMS TRANS FATS on a bag of Jolly Ranchers hard candy.
posted by jfuller at 4:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
The gluten is an indicator for something else. Perhaps pesticides or other additives.
No, it's pretty clearly the problem for those with coeliac disease. The fact a lot of humans have eaten it for thousands of years without problems (and I love some good glutenous recipes myself) doesn't mean that for some people it isn't actually a major issue. It's not bad for everyone, but it also doesn't mean it's "an indicator for some other problem".
posted by edd at 4:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
No, it's pretty clearly the problem for those with coeliac disease. The fact a lot of humans have eaten it for thousands of years without problems (and I love some good glutenous recipes myself) doesn't mean that for some people it isn't actually a major issue. It's not bad for everyone, but it also doesn't mean it's "an indicator for some other problem".
posted by edd at 4:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Actually vacapinta, I think I misunderstood what you were getting at, and you weren't claiming gluten was an indicator for something else in the food that was causing the problem, but that something else was causing gluten to be a problem. Like kinetic said further up. Sorry.
posted by edd at 4:55 AM on February 5, 2015
posted by edd at 4:55 AM on February 5, 2015
The only dedicated GF food that kicks the butt of its non-GF counterpart are Snyder's GF pretzels. Those are MONEY and my kids always steal them and I'm like "EAT YOUR OWN DAMN NORMALSAUCE PRETZELS," and they're like, "But these are so much crunchier and yummier," and then I grab a GF sparkling water and go sulk in front of the TV.
posted by kinetic at 5:11 AM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
posted by kinetic at 5:11 AM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
I wish I had jumped on the gluten-free fad when my woo-hoo friends were; I would have saved myself a couple years of incredible suffering. Now I'm FODMAP-free and eating out is a huge PITA - that pizza crust may be gluten free but I sure could use that sauce to be garlic free!
posted by _paegan_ at 5:12 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by _paegan_ at 5:12 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
found "GLUTEN FREE!" tags on the underarm deodorant shelf
Funnily enough, one of the pieces of evidence that convinced me my adult-diagnosed cœliac disease was something I'd always had was the fact that when I started cooking with gluten free flour, it was no longer an ordeal for me to touch the flour. I hated it so much growing up, even though I loved cooking.
posted by ambrosen at 5:22 AM on February 5, 2015
Funnily enough, one of the pieces of evidence that convinced me my adult-diagnosed cœliac disease was something I'd always had was the fact that when I started cooking with gluten free flour, it was no longer an ordeal for me to touch the flour. I hated it so much growing up, even though I loved cooking.
posted by ambrosen at 5:22 AM on February 5, 2015
The time I went to a Whole Foods and found "GLUTEN FREE!" tags on the underarm deodorant shelf was the time I figured retail staff had their fill of customers' questions about gluten-free whatnots phrased in the form of personal life stories.
No, it's because if you're gluten-sensitive enough, then gluten in deodorant would set you off, and there's wheat in an awful lot of stuff, including body care products.
Seriously, this is a real thing for very many people, and for some of them it's extremely serious.
posted by Slinga at 5:33 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
No, it's because if you're gluten-sensitive enough, then gluten in deodorant would set you off, and there's wheat in an awful lot of stuff, including body care products.
Seriously, this is a real thing for very many people, and for some of them it's extremely serious.
posted by Slinga at 5:33 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Gluten is not bad. Humans have been consuming it for thousands of years. It is not the gluten that's the problem. The gluten is an indicator for something else. Perhaps pesticides or other additives.
This is 100% false. Do some research. It's specifically the gluten that is the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
posted by Slinga at 5:34 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is 100% false. Do some research. It's specifically the gluten that is the problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coeliac_disease
posted by Slinga at 5:34 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
People have been consuming milk for thousands of years and for a percentage of the population they will nonetheless spend a very unhappy night on the toilet bowl when they try it.
People have been consuming peanuts for thousands of years and yet, for some, doing so will put them in the grave.
posted by maxsparber at 5:39 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
People have been consuming peanuts for thousands of years and yet, for some, doing so will put them in the grave.
posted by maxsparber at 5:39 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
The time I went to a Whole Foods and found "GLUTEN FREE!" tags on the underarm deodorant shelf
No but seriously, my wife has Celiac disease, and if she so much as kneads dough she will break out. So please don't dismiss this. THIS is the danger of the fad diet. Yeah it has opened up great options for my wife, but at the cost of people not taking it seriously for those that actually have issues.
posted by Twain Device at 5:41 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
No but seriously, my wife has Celiac disease, and if she so much as kneads dough she will break out. So please don't dismiss this. THIS is the danger of the fad diet. Yeah it has opened up great options for my wife, but at the cost of people not taking it seriously for those that actually have issues.
posted by Twain Device at 5:41 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
What if Oprah one day recommended the "Diabetic Diet" and that became a big fad. Would you smart-asses all go after diabetics with the same feverous vitriol and callus insensitivity?
I get really sick of this shit. I avoid Gluten because I spent 20 years feeling like crap and then I discovered what was causing it. And then it became a fad. And then a bunch of jerks decided to waste their time making jokes about my ailment to make themselves feel all superior and shit.
It makes me frustrated and sad.
posted by humboldt32 at 5:43 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
I get really sick of this shit. I avoid Gluten because I spent 20 years feeling like crap and then I discovered what was causing it. And then it became a fad. And then a bunch of jerks decided to waste their time making jokes about my ailment to make themselves feel all superior and shit.
It makes me frustrated and sad.
posted by humboldt32 at 5:43 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
"That beats my previous fave, which was CONTAINS 0 GRAMS TRANS FATS on a bag of Jolly Ranchers hard candy."
My favorite two are "FREE RANGE VEGETARIAN CHICKEN" which apparently meant the CHICKEN ate a vegetarian diet (I have questions about bugs), and I can't remember exactly what the phrasing was but it was something like "BGH-FREE CHICKEN!* ....*By law, chickens cannot be given BGH"
Celiac disease runs in my family (as it does, being genetic and whatnot), so I'm pretty alert to gluten-free stuff, and the gluten-trend people drive me NUTS. Specifically, the people who are so evangelical about it, who are like, "It'll make you so healthy! It cured all my things!" and then who are eating something I know has gluten in it and I say helpfully, "I think those pretzels have gluten in them ..." because I know these things out of a desire to not give my relatives colon cancer and all, and the Gluten Evangelist is like, "Oh, no, they're low-carb!" Uh, no, gluten-free and low-carb are NOT the same thing.
There's a mom in my PTA who "has celiac disease" and eats gluten ALL THE TIME and is constantly using her gluten-free status as a club to make people bring snacks she likes, basically. She was mentioning her kid was having digestive problems but the doctor refused to test him for celiac because it wasn't covered under insurance, and she didn't want to pay $400 to do it out of pocket (because obviously when your child might have a serious genetic condition that causes colon cancer, paying out of pocket is a silly idea (she can afford it)), and I said, "Well since you've been diagnosed, that test is absolutely covered under you insurance, you can call the state insurance ombuds--" (being as how I have several relatives who have it so I know exactly what degrees of consanguinity the state insurance regulators require for the celiac test to be covered) and, surprise, surprise, she's like, "Oh, no, I haven't been diagnosed, I just know I have celiac because I felt so much better when I gave up gluten!"
Anyway I've stopped pointing out when the things she's snacking on at meetings are full of gluten and I'm really pretty pissed off about the whole thing. I bring actual gluten-free snacks, AS REQUESTED, and she doesn't eat them because they taste bad. So glad your imaginary illness is making my relatives' serious illness seem trivial! You're a great person! Just tell people you're on a fucking diet!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:47 AM on February 5, 2015 [26 favorites]
My favorite two are "FREE RANGE VEGETARIAN CHICKEN" which apparently meant the CHICKEN ate a vegetarian diet (I have questions about bugs), and I can't remember exactly what the phrasing was but it was something like "BGH-FREE CHICKEN!* ....*By law, chickens cannot be given BGH"
Celiac disease runs in my family (as it does, being genetic and whatnot), so I'm pretty alert to gluten-free stuff, and the gluten-trend people drive me NUTS. Specifically, the people who are so evangelical about it, who are like, "It'll make you so healthy! It cured all my things!" and then who are eating something I know has gluten in it and I say helpfully, "I think those pretzels have gluten in them ..." because I know these things out of a desire to not give my relatives colon cancer and all, and the Gluten Evangelist is like, "Oh, no, they're low-carb!" Uh, no, gluten-free and low-carb are NOT the same thing.
There's a mom in my PTA who "has celiac disease" and eats gluten ALL THE TIME and is constantly using her gluten-free status as a club to make people bring snacks she likes, basically. She was mentioning her kid was having digestive problems but the doctor refused to test him for celiac because it wasn't covered under insurance, and she didn't want to pay $400 to do it out of pocket (because obviously when your child might have a serious genetic condition that causes colon cancer, paying out of pocket is a silly idea (she can afford it)), and I said, "Well since you've been diagnosed, that test is absolutely covered under you insurance, you can call the state insurance ombuds--" (being as how I have several relatives who have it so I know exactly what degrees of consanguinity the state insurance regulators require for the celiac test to be covered) and, surprise, surprise, she's like, "Oh, no, I haven't been diagnosed, I just know I have celiac because I felt so much better when I gave up gluten!"
Anyway I've stopped pointing out when the things she's snacking on at meetings are full of gluten and I'm really pretty pissed off about the whole thing. I bring actual gluten-free snacks, AS REQUESTED, and she doesn't eat them because they taste bad. So glad your imaginary illness is making my relatives' serious illness seem trivial! You're a great person! Just tell people you're on a fucking diet!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:47 AM on February 5, 2015 [26 favorites]
Yeah, I wish we thought the ridiculous thing here was that waitstaff at restaurants have decided they are medical professionals and know why somebody is making a diet request and that it is ridiculous.
I would rather we address the fact that, for some people, any additional request for customer service is treated as being worth mocking. I'd say the problem here isn't the people who have decided what they want to eat and what they don't, but the service professionals who think it's ridiculous that anyone would make those sorts of decisions.
You know, if you don't serve gluten free food, fair enough. But if you have a gluten free menu, don't roll your eyes when people make use of it.
posted by maxsparber at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I would rather we address the fact that, for some people, any additional request for customer service is treated as being worth mocking. I'd say the problem here isn't the people who have decided what they want to eat and what they don't, but the service professionals who think it's ridiculous that anyone would make those sorts of decisions.
You know, if you don't serve gluten free food, fair enough. But if you have a gluten free menu, don't roll your eyes when people make use of it.
posted by maxsparber at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'm sure the gluten free fad is tedious to many but as someone who cannot eat it and has many family members with Celiac disease we are glad to be able to eat out, buy decent bread and pasta and generally have more food options. And as Slinga said - gluten is used in all sorts of things where you wouldn't expect it to be - like injected into turkey, hiding in lip balms (wheat germ oil!), in deoderants, binder in all sorts of vitamins, in canned veggies.... the list goes on and on. We read all labels very carefully because a tiny amount of gluten will make my son very sick for a week and spaced out for a month. Try being in college and losing a month to illness! I'm luckier since I'll only be sick for a day or two. And there are long term serious results for people with Celiac disease who consume gluten like vastly higher rates of a bunch of cancers and other autoimmune ailments.
Nobody really knows why the rate of Celiac disease has soared but it has - and it's not just a case of more people being diagnosed. Here's one of many citations showing the increase.
posted by leslies at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Nobody really knows why the rate of Celiac disease has soared but it has - and it's not just a case of more people being diagnosed. Here's one of many citations showing the increase.
posted by leslies at 5:49 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
"No, it's because if you're gluten-sensitive enough, then gluten in deodorant would set you off"
I doubt that and I am not even sure what you mean with "gluten-sensitive". You are gluten intolerant or not and how things work, it is highly unlikely that you would see any effect by putting it on you skin except if you really have a gluten allergy - but a gluten allergy would be very different from being gluten intolerant. Trust me on that one. I have a super rare form of intolerance myself.
If gluten is a really good thing for people that are NOT intolerant, is up for debate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_exorphin
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/04/wheat-is-an-opiate/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/category/toxins-and-toxicity/wheat-grains/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/wheat-and-obesity-more-from-the-china-study/
posted by yoyo_nyc at 5:53 AM on February 5, 2015
I doubt that and I am not even sure what you mean with "gluten-sensitive". You are gluten intolerant or not and how things work, it is highly unlikely that you would see any effect by putting it on you skin except if you really have a gluten allergy - but a gluten allergy would be very different from being gluten intolerant. Trust me on that one. I have a super rare form of intolerance myself.
If gluten is a really good thing for people that are NOT intolerant, is up for debate:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten_exorphin
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/04/wheat-is-an-opiate/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/category/toxins-and-toxicity/wheat-grains/
http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2010/09/wheat-and-obesity-more-from-the-china-study/
posted by yoyo_nyc at 5:53 AM on February 5, 2015
There are the people who have celiac disease, and then there are the people who in some cases have had it specifically confirmed by doctors that they do NOT have celiac and still insist the trouble is gluten. I don't think there's any question that celiac is a real thing, but "gluten sensitivity" is not the same thing and you can question the one without questioning the other. I've never had any trouble with gluten and yet I have been told by people on a number of occasions that I ought to try going gluten-free because those people report how it has improved their depression/anxiety or other health problems. They just "feel better". But I've tried it without previously-existing faith in its effectiveness, and--nope.
There are two different problems here. The fact that some people have celiac does not mean that gluten generally is a thing that needs to be eliminated from the Western diet, and that is a real thing that some people really think should happen. As someone with mental health issues, I am really, really sick and tired of being told that the reason I have ADD is that I eat bread.
posted by Sequence at 6:01 AM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
There are two different problems here. The fact that some people have celiac does not mean that gluten generally is a thing that needs to be eliminated from the Western diet, and that is a real thing that some people really think should happen. As someone with mental health issues, I am really, really sick and tired of being told that the reason I have ADD is that I eat bread.
posted by Sequence at 6:01 AM on February 5, 2015 [9 favorites]
"But in MY case it's real, not just following a fad."
eye roll
posted by holybagel at 6:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
eye roll
posted by holybagel at 6:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
But you may want to worry about the point where gluten-free becomes "gluten-free"
Actually both the U.S. and the European Union have just put new food-labelling laws in place that standardize what it means to be "gluten free." If a food now has that label, it should be safe for people with celiac. The new laws have also made it easier to see if something contains gluten. In Europe, it seems like all gluten-ingredients are now in bold on labels, which is a relief, because it means I don't have to spend as much time standing in supermarket aisles trying to figure out if Food Starch No. 3 is made with wheat flour or corn starch anymore.
posted by colfax at 6:07 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Actually both the U.S. and the European Union have just put new food-labelling laws in place that standardize what it means to be "gluten free." If a food now has that label, it should be safe for people with celiac. The new laws have also made it easier to see if something contains gluten. In Europe, it seems like all gluten-ingredients are now in bold on labels, which is a relief, because it means I don't have to spend as much time standing in supermarket aisles trying to figure out if Food Starch No. 3 is made with wheat flour or corn starch anymore.
posted by colfax at 6:07 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have known people with celiac and gluten makes them really, really unambiguously sick. I find it interesting though that the wealthy northerners that hang out drinking a glass of wine after their morning tennis date at the cafe near my work at 11 am on a weekday seem to have a rate of gluten allergy wildly higher than the general population. I guess as some have said above it does give more dining options to people with serious medical problems. As long as I can still eat a giant hunk of sourdough bread with my vegetable stew, more variety of foods and better labeling seems a net plus. I'm not sure how I lucked out of having allergies to anything, but I seem to have.
posted by freecellwizard at 6:16 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 6:16 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
"But in MY case it's real, not just following a fad."
eye roll
This sums up why it's easier to never eat out.
posted by kinetic at 6:24 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
eye roll
This sums up why it's easier to never eat out.
posted by kinetic at 6:24 AM on February 5, 2015 [6 favorites]
Well, I've got a piece of anecdotal evidence here. [...]
Good thing that's not data.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:33 AM on February 5 [3 favorites +] [!]
After running wc on nicolin's anecdote, I've discovered that it actually contains exactly 683 bytes of data. Placing it in word counter.net determines that there are 116 words, 6 sentences, a mean sentence length of just under 20 words and 114 character, two paragraphs, and that the anecdote is 6% "gluten", making it a reasonable source of data for simple summary statistics. It also serves as medical diagnostic data, as fraula described, in a more formalized (physician supervised) context as a case study for a medical journal (assuming this topic hasn't already been case studied to death, which it has) or could be a perfectly reasonable point datum in a larger medical study on forms of gluten intolerance or a sociological study on internet perceptions of gluten. However, despite extensive study, I must regretfully conclude that the paragraph does not contain any Soongian-type androids.
In other words, I'm tired of the cut and paste oversimplification that anecdotes are not data. The only thing that appears to be true with certainty is that anecdotes are not Data.
posted by yeolcoatl at 6:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
Good thing that's not data.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:33 AM on February 5 [3 favorites +] [!]
After running wc on nicolin's anecdote, I've discovered that it actually contains exactly 683 bytes of data. Placing it in word counter.net determines that there are 116 words, 6 sentences, a mean sentence length of just under 20 words and 114 character, two paragraphs, and that the anecdote is 6% "gluten", making it a reasonable source of data for simple summary statistics. It also serves as medical diagnostic data, as fraula described, in a more formalized (physician supervised) context as a case study for a medical journal (assuming this topic hasn't already been case studied to death, which it has) or could be a perfectly reasonable point datum in a larger medical study on forms of gluten intolerance or a sociological study on internet perceptions of gluten. However, despite extensive study, I must regretfully conclude that the paragraph does not contain any Soongian-type androids.
In other words, I'm tired of the cut and paste oversimplification that anecdotes are not data. The only thing that appears to be true with certainty is that anecdotes are not Data.
posted by yeolcoatl at 6:53 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
Count me as someone who doesn't get the anger over this.
I don't have celiac. As far as I can tell, I don't have any other form of gluten sensitivity (though, you know, I could deal with eating less bread because belly, etc). I don't care that places have a gluten-free menu now. I don't care that there's a whole half aisle in my local grocery store filled with gluten-free substitute foods.
Why would I? It doesn't hurt me. And it helps at least 1% of the population. What's the harm?
Sure, maybe lazy restaurant servers will choose not to take gluten-free requests seriously because "fad," but the celiacs of the world already know that they need to be careful when eating in public -- at least now there is a chance that they'll be able to order straight off the menu.
This is so much different than the bogus "low-fat" trend, which actually removed a bunch of less processed foods from the market to replace them with a version that replaced the flavour from the fat with sugar and more industrial processing.
What's the point of policing what people who claim to be "gluten-free" actually eat? Unless it's your child, if someone wants to eat a pretzel (even if it will make them sick), let them go for it.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:58 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
I don't have celiac. As far as I can tell, I don't have any other form of gluten sensitivity (though, you know, I could deal with eating less bread because belly, etc). I don't care that places have a gluten-free menu now. I don't care that there's a whole half aisle in my local grocery store filled with gluten-free substitute foods.
Why would I? It doesn't hurt me. And it helps at least 1% of the population. What's the harm?
Sure, maybe lazy restaurant servers will choose not to take gluten-free requests seriously because "fad," but the celiacs of the world already know that they need to be careful when eating in public -- at least now there is a chance that they'll be able to order straight off the menu.
This is so much different than the bogus "low-fat" trend, which actually removed a bunch of less processed foods from the market to replace them with a version that replaced the flavour from the fat with sugar and more industrial processing.
What's the point of policing what people who claim to be "gluten-free" actually eat? Unless it's your child, if someone wants to eat a pretzel (even if it will make them sick), let them go for it.
posted by sparklemotion at 6:58 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
Yeah. I'm so glad I don't cook in trendy restaurants anymore. The whole gluten free thing was just starting to get out of hand when I left the business.
I still remember the lady who got incensed when we couldn't make gluten free arancini (breaded, fried rice) and insisted that it was gluten free because rice. That's why people don't take this stuff seriously.
Sorry 'actual' celiacs. Faddists are probably making it more difficult for you to eat out, because 'gluten free' on a check just means 'difficult, annoying customer' to kitchen staff (and waitstaff also).
posted by holybagel at 6:58 AM on February 5, 2015
I still remember the lady who got incensed when we couldn't make gluten free arancini (breaded, fried rice) and insisted that it was gluten free because rice. That's why people don't take this stuff seriously.
Sorry 'actual' celiacs. Faddists are probably making it more difficult for you to eat out, because 'gluten free' on a check just means 'difficult, annoying customer' to kitchen staff (and waitstaff also).
posted by holybagel at 6:58 AM on February 5, 2015
humboldt32: "What if Oprah one day recommended the "Diabetic Diet" and that became a big fad. Would you smart-asses all go after diabetics with the same feverous vitriol and callus insensitivity?"
Well, yes. Because OPRAH.
posted by kinetic at 7:00 AM on February 5, 2015
Well, yes. Because OPRAH.
posted by kinetic at 7:00 AM on February 5, 2015
Sorry 'actual' celiacs. Faddists are probably making it more difficult for you to eat out, because 'gluten free' on a check just means 'difficult, annoying customer' to kitchen staff (and waitstaff also).
You know, if you offer to address my food allergies, and yet the entire staff refuses to take it seriously, I'm going to get difficult and annoying too.
posted by maxsparber at 7:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
You know, if you offer to address my food allergies, and yet the entire staff refuses to take it seriously, I'm going to get difficult and annoying too.
posted by maxsparber at 7:04 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
And, let me point out, the refusal of a staff to take food allergies seriously is not the fault of faddists. Either you take it seriously or you don't, and a few irritating or seemingly mistaken customers should not change that.
posted by maxsparber at 7:07 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by maxsparber at 7:07 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
Why would I? It doesn't hurt me. And it helps at least 1% of the population. What's the harm?
Among other things, as I mentioned, people who've decided that this is the problem will often extend it out to insisting it's the problem for all kinds of other people. It is hard enough to get people to take seriously the idea that care for mental health conditions and "invisible" illnesses like fibro need to be a priority; it is a significantly more uphill battle when you're talking to a person who now takes it as an article of faith that gluten causes these things. You're not allowed to be taken seriously with these sorts of problems until you've exhausted every possible treatment avenue, and now increasingly you run into this additional requirement that not only do you have to have tried every possible medication, but you have to have made the requisite list of dietary changes as well. Those evil gluten products include virtually all of the quick, easy things I keep in the house to make for when I'm having a bad day. But if I eat regular pasta or a sandwich--I have lost a friend because this evidently meant that I wasn't seriously trying to get better, and I've heard comments from others.
It's dangerous for people to go around acting like celiac isn't that big a deal. But it's also dangerous for people to go around talking about how going gluten-free will cure whatever laundry list of diseases that it's supposed to fix this week, because real people have those problems and need them to be treated like real things that can't be cured for most of the population simply by giving up macaroni and sourdough.
posted by Sequence at 7:08 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
Among other things, as I mentioned, people who've decided that this is the problem will often extend it out to insisting it's the problem for all kinds of other people. It is hard enough to get people to take seriously the idea that care for mental health conditions and "invisible" illnesses like fibro need to be a priority; it is a significantly more uphill battle when you're talking to a person who now takes it as an article of faith that gluten causes these things. You're not allowed to be taken seriously with these sorts of problems until you've exhausted every possible treatment avenue, and now increasingly you run into this additional requirement that not only do you have to have tried every possible medication, but you have to have made the requisite list of dietary changes as well. Those evil gluten products include virtually all of the quick, easy things I keep in the house to make for when I'm having a bad day. But if I eat regular pasta or a sandwich--I have lost a friend because this evidently meant that I wasn't seriously trying to get better, and I've heard comments from others.
It's dangerous for people to go around acting like celiac isn't that big a deal. But it's also dangerous for people to go around talking about how going gluten-free will cure whatever laundry list of diseases that it's supposed to fix this week, because real people have those problems and need them to be treated like real things that can't be cured for most of the population simply by giving up macaroni and sourdough.
posted by Sequence at 7:08 AM on February 5, 2015 [8 favorites]
And if you are one of 30 covers a night insisting your food be gluten free and that your cauliflower Au gratin in bechemel is ok because milk doesn't have any gluten you won't be taken seriously.
posted by holybagel at 7:10 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by holybagel at 7:10 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
When I've worked in kitchens I've had to on multiple occasions tell people that "No, I can't accommodate your gluten allergy" Especially during a rush.
Doesn't go over well but at least it's honest.
posted by Ferreous at 7:12 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Doesn't go over well but at least it's honest.
posted by Ferreous at 7:12 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
sparklemotion: "What's the point of policing what people who claim to be "gluten-free" actually eat?"
In my case, I actually thought I was being helpful -- the PTA mom was newly "celiac" and we'd been chatting about finding what you can eat and can't eat, and I'd been giving her the 411 on which local restaurants do a good job catering to gluten-free customers and what the best gluten-free stuff at Costco is ... and she grabbed a handful of pretzels and I was like, "Oh, wait, I think those are [whatever brand] which isn't gluten free --" and she was like "Oh, no, they're totally gluten free!" (They were not.)
It wasn't too long thereafter that I found out she was self-diagnosed, ate gluten all the time, refused to eat gluten-free food because it tasted bad, and mostly just used the "gluten free" thing to force other people to bring snacks she liked and to give her something to self-importantly talk about. I certainly didn't mention it after the first time when I genuinely thought I was helping her with unlabeled snacks!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
In my case, I actually thought I was being helpful -- the PTA mom was newly "celiac" and we'd been chatting about finding what you can eat and can't eat, and I'd been giving her the 411 on which local restaurants do a good job catering to gluten-free customers and what the best gluten-free stuff at Costco is ... and she grabbed a handful of pretzels and I was like, "Oh, wait, I think those are [whatever brand] which isn't gluten free --" and she was like "Oh, no, they're totally gluten free!" (They were not.)
It wasn't too long thereafter that I found out she was self-diagnosed, ate gluten all the time, refused to eat gluten-free food because it tasted bad, and mostly just used the "gluten free" thing to force other people to bring snacks she liked and to give her something to self-importantly talk about. I certainly didn't mention it after the first time when I genuinely thought I was helping her with unlabeled snacks!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:13 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
The best restaurant I ever worked at refused to accommodate food allergies with a rigid and unbending 'no substitutions or menu changes' policy. Worked wonders, and kept ownership from having to deal with the issue of allergies or (far more commonly) 'allergies'.
posted by holybagel at 7:14 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by holybagel at 7:14 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Do you really get 30 people a night who order cauliflower Au gratin in bechemel despite being gluten free?
I have a feeling that what we're seeing is confirmation bias. And it's a confirmation bias that makes it extremely difficult for people who actually are sensitive to gluten to eat out, because so many restaurant staffers think they understand the diners' diet better than the diner themselves. Almost everyone I know with gluten issues has been given gluten in restaurants that claim to offer a gluten free menu, either through incompetence or malice, and that's not the fault of our cauliflower eater.
posted by maxsparber at 7:15 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I have a feeling that what we're seeing is confirmation bias. And it's a confirmation bias that makes it extremely difficult for people who actually are sensitive to gluten to eat out, because so many restaurant staffers think they understand the diners' diet better than the diner themselves. Almost everyone I know with gluten issues has been given gluten in restaurants that claim to offer a gluten free menu, either through incompetence or malice, and that's not the fault of our cauliflower eater.
posted by maxsparber at 7:15 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
When you have one vegetable on the menu and are doing 250 a night yeah you could easily get that many or more. So we boiled or grilled whatever veg but yeah not unheard of to get that many 'special orders' at all. And this was a few years ago before it has gotten as bad as it is now.
posted by holybagel at 7:20 AM on February 5, 2015
posted by holybagel at 7:20 AM on February 5, 2015
The best restaurant I ever worked at refused to accommodate food allergies with a rigid and unbending 'no substitutions or menu changes' policy.
As a person with Celiac, I appreciate that honesty. I know how ridiculously hard it is to keep my own home kitchen gluten-free. I can't imagine the complexities involved when dealing with larger scale food preparation.
posted by kinetic at 7:23 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
As a person with Celiac, I appreciate that honesty. I know how ridiculously hard it is to keep my own home kitchen gluten-free. I can't imagine the complexities involved when dealing with larger scale food preparation.
posted by kinetic at 7:23 AM on February 5, 2015 [7 favorites]
Here's part of the problem, being kitchen staff or a server is an hard job. It's tiring, you're on your feet non stop, running around like a fucking maniac. In the case of servers, pay is inconsistent and variable. Suddenly a fad diet swings into town and the number of special orders and modifications people want increases exponentially.
Your job just got much harder with no uptick in pay. People expect modified items, things that throw you off of your line/system. New pans, boards, tools, all these things take time. You have a massive wrench thrown into your system on an increasingly common basis. Orders are taking longer, diners are unhappy, servers pay drops because of said diners.
That's why if you work in a restaurant that isn't specifically gluten free you're just waiting for the fad element of this to fade out.
Obviously none of this is reason why people should have their medical needs treated as a joke, but at least people can understand why there's so much vitriol from kitchen staff/severs on this front.
posted by Ferreous at 7:26 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Your job just got much harder with no uptick in pay. People expect modified items, things that throw you off of your line/system. New pans, boards, tools, all these things take time. You have a massive wrench thrown into your system on an increasingly common basis. Orders are taking longer, diners are unhappy, servers pay drops because of said diners.
That's why if you work in a restaurant that isn't specifically gluten free you're just waiting for the fad element of this to fade out.
Obviously none of this is reason why people should have their medical needs treated as a joke, but at least people can understand why there's so much vitriol from kitchen staff/severs on this front.
posted by Ferreous at 7:26 AM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
But the number of people whose jobs become more difficult (with no additional pay) because of a food fad is so much smaller than the number of people who complain about said food fad.
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:32 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by The corpse in the library at 7:32 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
That beats my previous fave, which was CONTAINS 0 GRAMS TRANS FATS on a bag of Jolly Ranchers hard candy.
I'm not sure anything will ever top my amazement this past Thanksgiving, when I glanced at the label of the Karo syrup I was using to make pecan pie and noticed its prominent disclaimer "0g high fructose corn syrup"
posted by Mayor West at 7:36 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure anything will ever top my amazement this past Thanksgiving, when I glanced at the label of the Karo syrup I was using to make pecan pie and noticed its prominent disclaimer "0g high fructose corn syrup"
posted by Mayor West at 7:36 AM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't have celiac disease - I have wheat intolerance aka non-celiac gluten intolerance. I've had it for years and have mixed feelings about this new trend. As I have seriously deadly, legit allergies (hello crab!) and also some that just cause rashes (soy) I sort of feel like that Fred Armisen character from Portlandia who declares his favorite bar/hobby/etc is "over!" when the normal moves in.
"I've been allergic forever! Get off my lawn!"
posted by fiercekitten at 7:43 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
"I've been allergic forever! Get off my lawn!"
posted by fiercekitten at 7:43 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I went to a taco place recently that offered a choice of flour tortilla or corn tortilla. The corn tortilla option had a little "gf" next to it on the menu. I ordered my tacos on corn tortillas, and the potential new friend I was getting to know lectured me about how people like me were the reason that no one took her celiac disease seriously. At no point did I claim to have a disease or allergy or food restriction or any kind of need to be gluten free. No one asked me why I wanted corn, and if they had, I would have said because I thought it would taste better with the filling I ordered. I was correct; it was delicious. Also, the potential friendship fizzled.
If this fad ends, there will be another. I'm remembering the former friend I lunched with regularly until her lectures about how I was eating too much fat and really should try lower fat options became tedious, and my current friend who has recently started ostentatiously ordering only an appetizer because she just can't possibly eat a whole meal (I eat a whole meal), and I just see no end to people being weird about food in ways that stop them from being kind to each other.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 7:55 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
If this fad ends, there will be another. I'm remembering the former friend I lunched with regularly until her lectures about how I was eating too much fat and really should try lower fat options became tedious, and my current friend who has recently started ostentatiously ordering only an appetizer because she just can't possibly eat a whole meal (I eat a whole meal), and I just see no end to people being weird about food in ways that stop them from being kind to each other.
posted by Bentobox Humperdinck at 7:55 AM on February 5, 2015 [5 favorites]
"Me (sighing): Neither; it's an auto-immune disease."
Thank you, kinetic. I hate being "that person" too. I only trust a handful of restaurants locally, including the one where my son is a cook (because he takes care of his mama).
posted by k_nemesis at 8:14 AM on February 5, 2015
Thank you, kinetic. I hate being "that person" too. I only trust a handful of restaurants locally, including the one where my son is a cook (because he takes care of his mama).
posted by k_nemesis at 8:14 AM on February 5, 2015
I ordered my tacos on corn tortillas, and the potential new friend I was getting to know lectured me about how people like me were the reason that no one took her celiac disease seriously. At no point did I claim to have a disease or allergy or food restriction or any kind of need to be gluten free. No one asked me why I wanted corn, and if they had, I would have said because I thought it would taste better with the filling I ordered. I was correct; it was delicious. Also, the potential friendship fizzled.
I feel for people that have real issues with gluten because of all the BS floating around. My sister has problems with it, as well as lactose, likely due to just generally having a big issue with her digestion that went untreated for many years. I'm aware of what real gluten issues looks like.
I recently changed my eating habits and in a nutshell went low carb. For the short term I not eating grains. There are reasons for this which have absolutely nothing to do with gluten. This new way of eating is working wonderfully for me. I'm in a groove, satiated and steadily losing weight as well as doing strength training.
People have noticed and asked what I've been doing. I give them the nutshell version. It's amazing how many people twig 'gluten' when I mention no grains and go on to comment about how it's so amazing what happens when you give up gluten because it's so bad and 'toxic' yadda yadda. I say that gluten has absolutely nothing to do with 'no grains', or my weight loss, or just general health improvements and that I can and will eat bread again. Nope, my success is apparently gluten, gluten, gluten or so I've been told.
I knew that gluten was a thing now but cripes I didn't realize just how much it's grabbed a hold of pretty average people. There also seems to be some sort mashing of carbs and gluten together going on as well.
posted by Jalliah at 8:28 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I feel for people that have real issues with gluten because of all the BS floating around. My sister has problems with it, as well as lactose, likely due to just generally having a big issue with her digestion that went untreated for many years. I'm aware of what real gluten issues looks like.
I recently changed my eating habits and in a nutshell went low carb. For the short term I not eating grains. There are reasons for this which have absolutely nothing to do with gluten. This new way of eating is working wonderfully for me. I'm in a groove, satiated and steadily losing weight as well as doing strength training.
People have noticed and asked what I've been doing. I give them the nutshell version. It's amazing how many people twig 'gluten' when I mention no grains and go on to comment about how it's so amazing what happens when you give up gluten because it's so bad and 'toxic' yadda yadda. I say that gluten has absolutely nothing to do with 'no grains', or my weight loss, or just general health improvements and that I can and will eat bread again. Nope, my success is apparently gluten, gluten, gluten or so I've been told.
I knew that gluten was a thing now but cripes I didn't realize just how much it's grabbed a hold of pretty average people. There also seems to be some sort mashing of carbs and gluten together going on as well.
posted by Jalliah at 8:28 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
> The only thing that appears to be true with certainty is that anecdotes are not Data.
No, anecdotes are L/lore.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:30 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
No, anecdotes are L/lore.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:30 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
What's the point of policing what people who claim to be "gluten-free" actually eat?
There's no point in "policing" anyone, but the reason the fad (as opposed to the very real and very serious problem for people with celiac disease) pisses people off is that if you have one of those people among your friends or family they become a constant source of irritation. Would I mind altering what I cook and how I cook it and where we choose to eat out and so forth to accommodate a friend or family member's genuine illness? No, of course not. But having to put up with those things for someone who will break their supposed "diet" at the slightest temptation with no ill effects whatsoever is really annoying. You end up in this constant game of second-guessing yourself about whether or not said person is going to be actually abiding by their "rules" on any given occasion or not. You end up driving to three different supermarkets to get all the "gluten free" options you need for the dinner you're putting together--and then they decide they really prefer the gluten-rich dish you made for the other guests and the carefully planned and made gluten-free option sits untouched. They make a big fuss with the waiters when you dine out to ensure that X or Y dish is gluten free, and after the waiter has run back and forth to the kitchen and ensured that yes this is definitely, truly 100% gluten free, they go ahead and order the gluten-laden dessert because "I just can't resist it."
It really does come to seem like a form of Munchausen syndrome--they like the idea of themselves as "sufferers" of some sort, and they like the ability to generate a fuss (and the ability to make you feel like a schmuck if they drop in and you don't have any gluten-free options to offer). So, yes, it leads to eye-rolling and an immense temptation to just serve them gluten until the cows come home, all the while saying "oh no, it's definitely gluten free." And that is where the genuine danger to people with celiac disease comes in.
posted by yoink at 9:17 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
There's no point in "policing" anyone, but the reason the fad (as opposed to the very real and very serious problem for people with celiac disease) pisses people off is that if you have one of those people among your friends or family they become a constant source of irritation. Would I mind altering what I cook and how I cook it and where we choose to eat out and so forth to accommodate a friend or family member's genuine illness? No, of course not. But having to put up with those things for someone who will break their supposed "diet" at the slightest temptation with no ill effects whatsoever is really annoying. You end up in this constant game of second-guessing yourself about whether or not said person is going to be actually abiding by their "rules" on any given occasion or not. You end up driving to three different supermarkets to get all the "gluten free" options you need for the dinner you're putting together--and then they decide they really prefer the gluten-rich dish you made for the other guests and the carefully planned and made gluten-free option sits untouched. They make a big fuss with the waiters when you dine out to ensure that X or Y dish is gluten free, and after the waiter has run back and forth to the kitchen and ensured that yes this is definitely, truly 100% gluten free, they go ahead and order the gluten-laden dessert because "I just can't resist it."
It really does come to seem like a form of Munchausen syndrome--they like the idea of themselves as "sufferers" of some sort, and they like the ability to generate a fuss (and the ability to make you feel like a schmuck if they drop in and you don't have any gluten-free options to offer). So, yes, it leads to eye-rolling and an immense temptation to just serve them gluten until the cows come home, all the while saying "oh no, it's definitely gluten free." And that is where the genuine danger to people with celiac disease comes in.
posted by yoink at 9:17 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
And, let me point out, the refusal of a staff to take food allergies seriously is not the fault of faddists. Either you take it seriously or you don't, and a few irritating or seemingly mistaken customers should not change that.
I'd argue that it is at least to some degree the fault of the faddists. They have poisoned the waters for those with the genuine allergies. Or as someone has already pointed out in this thread (and speaking of L/lore), The Boy Who Cried Wolf does apply here.
I posted this piece because I thought it did a pretty good job of skewering those whose tendency was to do the crying wolf thing. My serious apologies to those with genuine celiac concerns whose days I may have made just that little bit more painful/annoying.
posted by philip-random at 9:24 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
I'd argue that it is at least to some degree the fault of the faddists. They have poisoned the waters for those with the genuine allergies. Or as someone has already pointed out in this thread (and speaking of L/lore), The Boy Who Cried Wolf does apply here.
I posted this piece because I thought it did a pretty good job of skewering those whose tendency was to do the crying wolf thing. My serious apologies to those with genuine celiac concerns whose days I may have made just that little bit more painful/annoying.
posted by philip-random at 9:24 AM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
This question may have only occurred to me due to this FPP's close proximity to the anti-vac one, but I wonder if the people who refuse vaccines without having a valid diagnostic reason are the same people who decry gluten personally without documented symptoms or diagnosis.
Of course, public perception of these are vastly different. Going without vaccines can affect acquaintances, and getting one takes a call and one or two appointments. Preparing GF food affects service workers constantly but not acquaintances (who aren't cooking for you), and it's also much easier to spot false gluten allergies.
I'm glad that at least here, this issue inspired a discussion we can learn from.
posted by halifix at 9:29 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
Of course, public perception of these are vastly different. Going without vaccines can affect acquaintances, and getting one takes a call and one or two appointments. Preparing GF food affects service workers constantly but not acquaintances (who aren't cooking for you), and it's also much easier to spot false gluten allergies.
I'm glad that at least here, this issue inspired a discussion we can learn from.
posted by halifix at 9:29 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
The only thing that appears to be true with certainty is that anecdotes are not Data.
No, anecdotes are L/lore.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:30 AM on February 5
Touché. I have been bested. Well done, good sir or madam.
The corn tortilla option had a little "gf" next to it on the menu. I ordered my tacos on corn tortillas, and the potential new friend I was getting to know lectured me about how people like me were the reason that no one took her celiac disease seriously. At no point did I claim to have a disease or allergy or food restriction or any kind of need to be gluten free. No one asked me why I wanted corn, and if they had, I would have said because I thought it would taste better with the filling I ordered. I was correct; it was delicious.
I like me some gluten, but I'll be the first to agree that flour tortillas are an abomination.
posted by yeolcoatl at 11:42 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
No, anecdotes are L/lore.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 8:30 AM on February 5
Touché. I have been bested. Well done, good sir or madam.
The corn tortilla option had a little "gf" next to it on the menu. I ordered my tacos on corn tortillas, and the potential new friend I was getting to know lectured me about how people like me were the reason that no one took her celiac disease seriously. At no point did I claim to have a disease or allergy or food restriction or any kind of need to be gluten free. No one asked me why I wanted corn, and if they had, I would have said because I thought it would taste better with the filling I ordered. I was correct; it was delicious.
I like me some gluten, but I'll be the first to agree that flour tortillas are an abomination.
posted by yeolcoatl at 11:42 AM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I love cooking, and I don't want to make anyone sick, or even cook meals that people know they won't enjoy. I consider gluten-free cooking an enjoyable challenge when someone I know is gluten-averse due to disease, or just because they are enjoying a harmless fad diet. I now know new recipes - hooray!
If I may derail to discussion of the deliciousness of gluten, canned mock duck you can fry in really-hot sesame oil and it will crisp up in a very satisfactory way for mock peking duck.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:30 PM on February 5, 2015
If I may derail to discussion of the deliciousness of gluten, canned mock duck you can fry in really-hot sesame oil and it will crisp up in a very satisfactory way for mock peking duck.
posted by Cookiebastard at 12:30 PM on February 5, 2015
Would you smart-asses all go after diabetics with the same feverous vitriol and callus insensitivity?
You think this doesn't happen already?
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 12:34 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
You think this doesn't happen already?
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 12:34 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
The FODMAPS issue is a tricky addition to this. Eating low FODMAPS is an increasingly well-supported, research-based method of ameliorating irritable bowel symptoms and wheat is a huge source of fructans in your average Western diet. And while gluten isn't in fact an issue, gluten-free is a fairly reliable fill-in for also-wheat-free and therefore low (or at least lower) FODMAP. It's not an easy diet to eat, especially to eat out, so sure, I will take advantage of a gluten-free menu. Further complicating it is that it is not necessarily a complete elimination diet - not all nutrient classes affect all people the same and an individual may tolerate even a problem class of nutrients if held at low levels overall in the diet.
So nobody knows how much this is a "fad", how much is actual celiac sufferers (despite the incessant assurance from those irritated by others' dietary choices that we are being inundated by people with fake celiac, according to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness an estimated 83% of those affected are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed), how many are people like me making a medically sound dietary choice (as an individual with medically diagnosed IBS and ulcerative colitis eating with the advice of a doctor-referred nutritionist) who doesn't actually feel like I need to explain or justify my decision to get the gluten free bun while maybe also actually taking the thing that has a tablespoon of flour in its sauce, and people who maybe don't know why the eating choices they are making are helping them feel better but if we could know all the facts indeed do have some reasonable factor making the gluten free option preferable for them.
posted by nanojath at 12:40 PM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
So nobody knows how much this is a "fad", how much is actual celiac sufferers (despite the incessant assurance from those irritated by others' dietary choices that we are being inundated by people with fake celiac, according to the National Foundation for Celiac Awareness an estimated 83% of those affected are undiagnosed or misdiagnosed), how many are people like me making a medically sound dietary choice (as an individual with medically diagnosed IBS and ulcerative colitis eating with the advice of a doctor-referred nutritionist) who doesn't actually feel like I need to explain or justify my decision to get the gluten free bun while maybe also actually taking the thing that has a tablespoon of flour in its sauce, and people who maybe don't know why the eating choices they are making are helping them feel better but if we could know all the facts indeed do have some reasonable factor making the gluten free option preferable for them.
posted by nanojath at 12:40 PM on February 5, 2015 [10 favorites]
Now I'm wondering how adding vital wheat gluten to gluten-free baking flour would affect its dough-forming properties...
posted by nanojath at 12:47 PM on February 5, 2015
posted by nanojath at 12:47 PM on February 5, 2015
I'm not sure anything will ever top my amazement this past Thanksgiving, when I glanced at the label of the Karo syrup I was using to make pecan pie and noticed its prominent disclaimer "0g high fructose corn syrup"
Why is that amazing? Regular corn syrup is almost pure glucose. My daughter has fructose malabsorption disorder (and, oh boy, if the gluten people are irritating, us fructose people must be CRAZY irritating) and so glucose syrup, corn-based or otherwise, is our sweetener of choice.
posted by KathrynT at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Why is that amazing? Regular corn syrup is almost pure glucose. My daughter has fructose malabsorption disorder (and, oh boy, if the gluten people are irritating, us fructose people must be CRAZY irritating) and so glucose syrup, corn-based or otherwise, is our sweetener of choice.
posted by KathrynT at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
Or as someone has already pointed out in this thread (and speaking of L/lore), The Boy Who Cried Wolf does apply here.
The boy who cried wolf did not poison the waters for every boy who ever cried wolf, just for himself. So that's not the way that story works.
Okay, you want to boy who cries wolf? The faddist who gets it wrong and clearly doesn't have celiac has cried wolf. The next person who comes in and asks for gluten free has not.
They don't deserve the get eaten by a wolf because there is some sort of sense in the food industry that because one person got it wrong, everybody must be lying.
posted by maxsparber at 1:33 PM on February 5, 2015
The boy who cried wolf did not poison the waters for every boy who ever cried wolf, just for himself. So that's not the way that story works.
Okay, you want to boy who cries wolf? The faddist who gets it wrong and clearly doesn't have celiac has cried wolf. The next person who comes in and asks for gluten free has not.
They don't deserve the get eaten by a wolf because there is some sort of sense in the food industry that because one person got it wrong, everybody must be lying.
posted by maxsparber at 1:33 PM on February 5, 2015
They just "feel better"
They feel better because they're paying attention to what they put in their bodies. (I am talking about faddists, not people with actual medical problems.)
Pretending you have a medical problem when you don't causes significant problems for the people who actually do.
They don't deserve the get eaten by a wolf because there is some sort of sense in the food industry that because one person got it wrong, everybody must be lying.
Certainly they don't, and personally when I get a ticket that has any allergy on it I will do everything I can to make sure they get their food prepared in a clean way--though like holybagel above, I will roll my eyes right out of my fucking head when they specifically order things contraindicated by their alleged medical problem at the same time they're claiming they can't have X. These special snowflake requests wreak havoc in kitchens, and it's only getting worse. And the problem with these liars is that they inculcate "eh, close enough" as an MO for the people preparing the food, which does cause serious effects for the people who actually honestly can't have X. That's how you get "yeah we'll just pick the croutons off the salad," because after a certain point you just cannot expect people making shit wages for shit hours to magically be perfect for every special snowflake that belches out the latest stupidity coming from some airhead celebrity.
I mean, I have actual documented by a doctor allergies and have to carry an Epi-Pen. So I know to an extent (because nuts aren't as prevalent as wheat) what it's like on both sides of the story, and I've had my mouth start tingling and had to say to a server "Hey so when I said I was allergic to nuts, I mean I'm actually allergic so could you let your chef know their team needs to use CLEAN cutting boards next time?"
Partly this argues for more formal instruction about food allergies being needed in culinary schools--but not everyone who cooks goes to school, so that's going to take time to percolate. It's a difficult problem that needs multiple prongs of attack, and the simplest one to hit first is getting people to stop making up bullshit about their diets so the people who do need special care don't run into difficulties.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:02 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
They feel better because they're paying attention to what they put in their bodies. (I am talking about faddists, not people with actual medical problems.)
Pretending you have a medical problem when you don't causes significant problems for the people who actually do.
They don't deserve the get eaten by a wolf because there is some sort of sense in the food industry that because one person got it wrong, everybody must be lying.
Certainly they don't, and personally when I get a ticket that has any allergy on it I will do everything I can to make sure they get their food prepared in a clean way--though like holybagel above, I will roll my eyes right out of my fucking head when they specifically order things contraindicated by their alleged medical problem at the same time they're claiming they can't have X. These special snowflake requests wreak havoc in kitchens, and it's only getting worse. And the problem with these liars is that they inculcate "eh, close enough" as an MO for the people preparing the food, which does cause serious effects for the people who actually honestly can't have X. That's how you get "yeah we'll just pick the croutons off the salad," because after a certain point you just cannot expect people making shit wages for shit hours to magically be perfect for every special snowflake that belches out the latest stupidity coming from some airhead celebrity.
I mean, I have actual documented by a doctor allergies and have to carry an Epi-Pen. So I know to an extent (because nuts aren't as prevalent as wheat) what it's like on both sides of the story, and I've had my mouth start tingling and had to say to a server "Hey so when I said I was allergic to nuts, I mean I'm actually allergic so could you let your chef know their team needs to use CLEAN cutting boards next time?"
Partly this argues for more formal instruction about food allergies being needed in culinary schools--but not everyone who cooks goes to school, so that's going to take time to percolate. It's a difficult problem that needs multiple prongs of attack, and the simplest one to hit first is getting people to stop making up bullshit about their diets so the people who do need special care don't run into difficulties.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:02 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Actually I think if we are going to address this as a social problem, the issue is that kitchen and wiegh staff are underpaid and overstressed and people who want more from the food industry should support better pay both at thepolicy and individual level (choose restaurants that are known to pay staff very well)-- rather than people who are eating low gluten innately be shamed just for existing.
posted by xarnop at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by xarnop at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'm pretty comfortable with shaming people who are making stupid faddish diet decisions for reasons other than actual health--see the twit EmpressCallipygos was talking about upthread.
My personal opinion doesn't affect my professional conduct, however. So even if in my head I'm screaming "screw you, if you have celiac any gluten is bad for you, 'a little is okay' isn't something anyone with celiac ever says, stop making my job harder because you're so precious," I'm still getting a clean board and knives and communicating with the server that I'll endeavour to make it gfree but we're not a gfree kitchen so can't make any guarantees. Most chefs, and I'd argue that number increases with how close you are to fine dining, behave the same.
But most people don't eat in fine dining restaurants, they eat at cheaper places that aren't hiring people to care, they're hiring people who just want to make their shit money and go home. Which is how you get gfree pasta being dunked in regular pasta water (a disturbing number of people don't get why that's a problem).
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:37 PM on February 5, 2015
My personal opinion doesn't affect my professional conduct, however. So even if in my head I'm screaming "screw you, if you have celiac any gluten is bad for you, 'a little is okay' isn't something anyone with celiac ever says, stop making my job harder because you're so precious," I'm still getting a clean board and knives and communicating with the server that I'll endeavour to make it gfree but we're not a gfree kitchen so can't make any guarantees. Most chefs, and I'd argue that number increases with how close you are to fine dining, behave the same.
But most people don't eat in fine dining restaurants, they eat at cheaper places that aren't hiring people to care, they're hiring people who just want to make their shit money and go home. Which is how you get gfree pasta being dunked in regular pasta water (a disturbing number of people don't get why that's a problem).
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:37 PM on February 5, 2015
And most of my jobs have been food service and I get how bizarre it seems to people who can't even afford to eat gluten free if they need to to be asked to do a bunch of extra work for people who are spending more on each of their meals than many people make in multiple hours of work. I also know that I have been sick all my life and am much healthier when I reduce certain allergen exposures in my foods and where a face mask through cedar season. I have been told I am a wimp, exaggerating, pretending, just need an attitude adjustment and my months of sinus infections and swollen aching gut would just disappear and listened to people rant about people like myself all over the place and it hurts. Seeing the movie "safe" made me feel like a freak and listening to people talk about how silly and wrong people with chronic health problems are is really painful.
Before we knew about many many chronic conditions currently documented, sufferers were shamed, mistreated, claimed to not be sick or making it up and all the rest under the sun. Medicine and science have not uncovered every mystery about health and it's possible that sometimes people are sick and we don't know why, or something makes them feel better and they are right even if they can't prove it with science. That doesn't require hate, just letting them exist and believing maybe you don't know everything about what they need could work just as well.
Proselytizers of any stripe are frustrating, particularly when they are clearly not well informed and claiming they know what everyone else should be doing, so by all means be angry about that, but don't let that become a rant at people who simply exist on a spectrum of reducing wheat or grains/sugars or whatever in their diets and find health benefits or smear them all as "haha woo".
I would personally wonder if many people with learning disabilities and chronic health problems that prevent them from mastering educational attainment would be much healthier with a healthy diet of freshly prepared foods and attention to whether they have food allergies or sensitivities. This is not accessible, either the assesments OR the diet even if you found out you have some problems to people working intense stressful jobs with minimal pay and so it makes the animosity about having to do extra work for these people understandable if potentially inaccurate in the way in manifests (they are all wrong about what works for them!).
posted by xarnop at 2:40 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
Before we knew about many many chronic conditions currently documented, sufferers were shamed, mistreated, claimed to not be sick or making it up and all the rest under the sun. Medicine and science have not uncovered every mystery about health and it's possible that sometimes people are sick and we don't know why, or something makes them feel better and they are right even if they can't prove it with science. That doesn't require hate, just letting them exist and believing maybe you don't know everything about what they need could work just as well.
Proselytizers of any stripe are frustrating, particularly when they are clearly not well informed and claiming they know what everyone else should be doing, so by all means be angry about that, but don't let that become a rant at people who simply exist on a spectrum of reducing wheat or grains/sugars or whatever in their diets and find health benefits or smear them all as "haha woo".
I would personally wonder if many people with learning disabilities and chronic health problems that prevent them from mastering educational attainment would be much healthier with a healthy diet of freshly prepared foods and attention to whether they have food allergies or sensitivities. This is not accessible, either the assesments OR the diet even if you found out you have some problems to people working intense stressful jobs with minimal pay and so it makes the animosity about having to do extra work for these people understandable if potentially inaccurate in the way in manifests (they are all wrong about what works for them!).
posted by xarnop at 2:40 PM on February 5, 2015 [1 favorite]
As leslies' excellent Mayo Clinic link makes clear, there is very good evidence that the incidence of celiac disease in the population has increased by a factor of four since the '50s, to its current level of about 1 in 100, and no one knows why. The authors assert that the "genetic background" for developing CD is the same as for developing diabetes, and is common to about a third of us.
That sounds like a possible major public health crisis in the process of emerging to me, and makes the desire to dismiss people's concerns about gluten unless they have an actual diagnosis of CD look foolish, in my opinion -- and celiac disease is not an allergy, by the way.
And there appears to be an association between gluten and schizophrenia:
More recent studies seem to show that schizophrenics can have a pattern of reactions to gluten which is distinct from CD and not associated with GI problems:
In short, I don't think we're excessively concerned about gluten.
posted by jamjam at 4:23 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
That sounds like a possible major public health crisis in the process of emerging to me, and makes the desire to dismiss people's concerns about gluten unless they have an actual diagnosis of CD look foolish, in my opinion -- and celiac disease is not an allergy, by the way.
And there appears to be an association between gluten and schizophrenia:
A study of circulating gliadin antibodies in schizophrenia among a Chinese population.Gliadin is the fraction of gluten which is toxic to people with CD.
Abstract
The present work measured circulating antibodies against native gliadins, deamidated gliadin-derived epitopes, and transglutaminase 2 (TGM2) in 473 patients with schizophrenia and 478 control subjects among a Chinese population. The results showed that 27.1% of patients with schizophrenia were positive for the IgA antibody against native gliadins compared with 17.8% of control subjects (χ(2) = 11.52, P = .0007, OR = 1.72, 95% CI 1.25-2.35), although this significant difference appeared to be due mainly to low IgA gliadin antibody levels in female controls. A total of 27.6% of female patients were positive for IgA gliadin antibodies compared with 13.9% of female controls ...
...
This study suggests that specific gliadin-derived epitopes may be involved in schizophrenia.
More recent studies seem to show that schizophrenics can have a pattern of reactions to gluten which is distinct from CD and not associated with GI problems:
Novel immune response to gluten in individuals with schizophrenia.I found one of the cases of remission referred to in the last sentence especially interesting:
Abstract
A link between celiac disease and schizophrenia has been postulated for several years, based primarily on reports of elevated levels of antibody to gliadin in patients. We sought to examine the proposed connection between schizophrenia and celiac disease by characterizing the molecular specificity and mechanism of the anti-gliadin immune response in a subset of individuals with schizophrenia.
...
These findings indicate that the anti-gliadin immune response in schizophrenia has a different antigenic specificity from that in celiac disease and is independent of the action of transglutaminase enzyme and HLA-DQ2/DQ8. Meanwhile, the presence of elevated levels of antibodies to specific gluten proteins points to shared immunologic abnormalities in a subset of schizophrenia patients. Further characterization and understanding of the immune response to gluten in schizophrenia may provide novel insights into the etiopathogenesis of specific disease phenotypes.
A gluten-free diet in people with schizophrenia and anti-tissue transglutaminase or anti-gliadin antibodies
Dear Editors
Celiac disease is an immune-mediated disease involving a reaction to gluten, presenting with diarrhea, weight loss, abdominal complaints and a range of less common associated neurologic and psychiatric symptoms. Several epidemiologic studies have linked celiac disease to schizophrenia, however only recently have direct antibody assessment for the detection of celiac disease (anti-tissue transglutaminase (anti-tTG) and anti-endomysial antibodies (EMA)) become available (reviewed in Kalaydjian et al., 2006). Antibodies to gliadin (AGA) and not anti-tTG suggest an immune-mediated reaction distinct from celiac disease, gluten sensitivity. Gluten sensitivity is thought to be associated with neurologic and psychiatric manifestations, but free from the gastrointestinal symptoms seen in celiac disease (Jackson et al., 2012), however this separation has only recently been recognized. In a previous study by our group, we identified the prevalence of gluten-related antibodies in people with schizophrenia.
...
Seven clinical trials have been conducted to test the assertion that a gluten-free diet (GFD) may improve remission of schizophrenia symptomatology. These early studies had mixed results because they included schizophrenia patients not tested for antibodies (reviewed in Kalaydjian et al., 2006). However, there are cases of gluten removal and complete resolution of schizophrenia symptoms (Jansson et al., 1984; De Santis et al., 1997; Kraft and Westman, 2009).
Schizophrenic symptoms and SPECT abnormalities in a coeliac patient: regression after a gluten-free diet.because poorly functioning frontal and prefrontal regions of the brain are mentioned so often as causes of adolescent behavior problems.
...
Abstract
A 33-year-old patient, with pre-existing diagnosis of 'schizophrenic' disorder, came to our observation for severe diarrhoea and weight loss. Use of single photon emission computed tomography, (99mTc)HMPAO SPECT, demonstrated hypoperfusion of the left frontal brain area, without evidence of structural cerebral abnormalities. Jejunal biopsy showed villous atrophy. Antiendomysial antibodies were present. A gluten-free diet was started, resulting in a disappearence of psychiatric symptoms, and normalization of histological duodenal findings and of (99mTc)HMPAO SPECT pattern. This is the first case in which, in an undiagnosed and untreated coeliac patient with psychiatric manifestations, the (99mTc)HMPAO SPECT demonstrated a dysfunction of frontal cortex disappearing after a gluten-free diet.
In short, I don't think we're excessively concerned about gluten.
posted by jamjam at 4:23 PM on February 5, 2015 [2 favorites]
From experience, if you're hosting gluten-free relatives, the best possible thing to do is e-mail or call (mid-afternoon) locally-owned restaurants and say, "Hey, I have guests coming in from out of town and I really want to take them to your restaurant, but my relative has celiac disease and can't have gluten -- can you accommodate him? On which dishes? Great!"
When you call in advance, they're pretty up-front about, "Unfortunately, our kitchen is only set up for gluten-having breading of all our fried stuff" or else, "Yeah, we do that all the time!" or else, "What time do you want to come in? We don't usually but we can plan in advance!" (Also Outback Steakhouse has a gluten-free menu and they train their waitstaff on it, it is by far the best choice among chain restaurants IMHO.)
I've also e-mailed places after the fact to be like, "WHY IS YOUR GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA SO GOOD MY UNCLE REQUIRES THE RECIPE" and they always share it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:08 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
When you call in advance, they're pretty up-front about, "Unfortunately, our kitchen is only set up for gluten-having breading of all our fried stuff" or else, "Yeah, we do that all the time!" or else, "What time do you want to come in? We don't usually but we can plan in advance!" (Also Outback Steakhouse has a gluten-free menu and they train their waitstaff on it, it is by far the best choice among chain restaurants IMHO.)
I've also e-mailed places after the fact to be like, "WHY IS YOUR GLUTEN-FREE PIZZA SO GOOD MY UNCLE REQUIRES THE RECIPE" and they always share it.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:08 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
kinetic: Snyder's GF pretzels
OMG, these are really good. They're crunchy hollow shells, but it can't just be air inside because they're too good, it has to be air perfumed with unicorn tears. I wish I hadn't learned of their existence.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:48 PM on February 5, 2015
OMG, these are really good. They're crunchy hollow shells, but it can't just be air inside because they're too good, it has to be air perfumed with unicorn tears. I wish I hadn't learned of their existence.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 6:48 PM on February 5, 2015
Here's the thing. When I eat too much wheat, I get bad acne. Or at least there's a massive correlation. Which I started noticing back in the mid-nineties.
I have no fucking clue what this means.
posted by feral_goldfish at 6:53 PM on February 5, 2015
I have no fucking clue what this means.
posted by feral_goldfish at 6:53 PM on February 5, 2015
the best possible thing to do is e-mail or call (mid-afternoon) locally-owned restaurants
This goes for basically any request that isn't "table of four, ordering from the menu."
Calling ahead makes restaurant staff love you. And! For people who do have medical problems and aren't hopping on some stupid fad bandwagon, it means we can move our attention to detail further up the chain--even to the point of sequestering product that's going to end up on your table. (Done that!)
And and, depending on the circumstances, it lets us play. I worked for a year or so at a steakhouse. One day this very nice young lady calls chef and says "Hi, I'm coming in for my birthday next week. It'll be just me and my boyfriend, I want him to have a great meal and he loves steak! But I'm vegan. Can you accommodate?"
Chef spent two days coming up with dishes for her and making sure she had a motherfucking birthday feast while her boyfriend happily nommed his steak. She got like four courses or something, of delicious food, that looked like jewels on the plate. (And Chef invited them both back to the kitchen for a happy birthday drink and to say hi).
When you're making your reservations, definitely let the person know about any special requests. My first restaurant job, chef actually turfed the person we had answering the phone during the day because my station was close to the phone and I'd have to answer it whenever she wasn't around. Standard script: "Thank you for calling Conviction, how may we help you? Six, for Saturday at 7:30? Of course. Does anyone in your party have any dietary restrictions the kitchen should know about? Thank you, not a problem. And will you be celebrating a special event with us that night? Lovely, we look forward to seeing you at 7:30 on Saturday for your birthday."
The key pieces of information that are useful to communicate when making a reservation are:
- time & number of people (obvs)
- any restrictions on diet; this lets us delve into our bags of tricks if it's something really outside what the restaurant usually does, it lets us monitor the pipeline from raw product to your table more carefully, and it also lets us know that at 7:15 or so we're going to get an order that will require clearing the decks and ensuring uncontaminated utensils and surfaces, so we can have them ready to go for you.
- special occasions (because basically every restaurant on the planet that takes reservations will do something special if it's a birthday/anniversary/engagement/whatever, and if it's something we do ourselves as opposed to being asked, it's going to be free)
- TIME LIMITS. If your reservation is at 7 and you have tickets for the show down the street at 8, tell us when you make the reservation. This will get you seated and attended-to faster, the kitchen will know to prioritize your tickets as much as possible, and the server will know not to dawdle over bringing you the bill.
The most important, though, is restrictions. If we know ahead of time that you can't have X, there's time for the FOH staff to let you know what we can and can't do, and the kitchen knows ahead to prepare. Which makes things safer for you!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
This goes for basically any request that isn't "table of four, ordering from the menu."
Calling ahead makes restaurant staff love you. And! For people who do have medical problems and aren't hopping on some stupid fad bandwagon, it means we can move our attention to detail further up the chain--even to the point of sequestering product that's going to end up on your table. (Done that!)
And and, depending on the circumstances, it lets us play. I worked for a year or so at a steakhouse. One day this very nice young lady calls chef and says "Hi, I'm coming in for my birthday next week. It'll be just me and my boyfriend, I want him to have a great meal and he loves steak! But I'm vegan. Can you accommodate?"
Chef spent two days coming up with dishes for her and making sure she had a motherfucking birthday feast while her boyfriend happily nommed his steak. She got like four courses or something, of delicious food, that looked like jewels on the plate. (And Chef invited them both back to the kitchen for a happy birthday drink and to say hi).
When you're making your reservations, definitely let the person know about any special requests. My first restaurant job, chef actually turfed the person we had answering the phone during the day because my station was close to the phone and I'd have to answer it whenever she wasn't around. Standard script: "Thank you for calling Conviction, how may we help you? Six, for Saturday at 7:30? Of course. Does anyone in your party have any dietary restrictions the kitchen should know about? Thank you, not a problem. And will you be celebrating a special event with us that night? Lovely, we look forward to seeing you at 7:30 on Saturday for your birthday."
The key pieces of information that are useful to communicate when making a reservation are:
- time & number of people (obvs)
- any restrictions on diet; this lets us delve into our bags of tricks if it's something really outside what the restaurant usually does, it lets us monitor the pipeline from raw product to your table more carefully, and it also lets us know that at 7:15 or so we're going to get an order that will require clearing the decks and ensuring uncontaminated utensils and surfaces, so we can have them ready to go for you.
- special occasions (because basically every restaurant on the planet that takes reservations will do something special if it's a birthday/anniversary/engagement/whatever, and if it's something we do ourselves as opposed to being asked, it's going to be free)
- TIME LIMITS. If your reservation is at 7 and you have tickets for the show down the street at 8, tell us when you make the reservation. This will get you seated and attended-to faster, the kitchen will know to prioritize your tickets as much as possible, and the server will know not to dawdle over bringing you the bill.
The most important, though, is restrictions. If we know ahead of time that you can't have X, there's time for the FOH staff to let you know what we can and can't do, and the kitchen knows ahead to prepare. Which makes things safer for you!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:28 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Three things:
a) I am gluten-intolerant. I may well be celiac, but when I was tested my idiot doctor didn't tell me that I needed to have eaten gluten to get true results. So I tested negative, my toilet and the people who live in my house know that my eating gluten does bad things to my mood, my bodily functions, and my weight. (Anyone who cares to argue is welcome to sit outside for the toilet for the next sixteen hours after I eat gluten and see/hear/smell what happens.)
b) Our small country town doesn't have a heap of dining options. Instead of waltzing into somewhere I'll be eating a meal and announcing that I'm gluten-intolerant and you all MUST cater to my 'fad diet', I ring them a day or two before (mid morning or aftenoon when they're not busy), tell them apologetically that I'm one of those annoying people who must stick to a gluten-free menu, and ask if they can accommodate me. Every single time, at each restaurant/pub/club/winery, they have gone out of their way to ensure my meal is not only gluten-free, but equally as delicious as the gluten-encrusted meals.
c) My daughter works at a classy cafe. The French-trained chef is very understanding and always has truly gluten-free options on the menu (and occasionally sends my daughter home with a g-f muffin or slice of cake for me). She served a woman once who asked if the coffee was g-f. My daughter explained that all their coffee was g-f (because she couldn't think of a nice way to say, "you idiot, there is no gluten in coffee"). The customer didn't believe her, and insisted on seeing the coffee packaging. It is ground on-site from beans in plain packaging, there is no list of ingredients. Eventually my daughter explained that her mother is gluten-intolerant and she drinks the coffee so the woman reluctantly agreed to try it.
Then the woman ordered a sandwich. And when my daughter said, "With our homemade gluten-free bread?", the customer replied that she doesn't like g-f bread, normal bread would be fine.
It's people like her who make eating out difficult for people like us, and also for the people who serve us.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 7:50 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
a) I am gluten-intolerant. I may well be celiac, but when I was tested my idiot doctor didn't tell me that I needed to have eaten gluten to get true results. So I tested negative, my toilet and the people who live in my house know that my eating gluten does bad things to my mood, my bodily functions, and my weight. (Anyone who cares to argue is welcome to sit outside for the toilet for the next sixteen hours after I eat gluten and see/hear/smell what happens.)
b) Our small country town doesn't have a heap of dining options. Instead of waltzing into somewhere I'll be eating a meal and announcing that I'm gluten-intolerant and you all MUST cater to my 'fad diet', I ring them a day or two before (mid morning or aftenoon when they're not busy), tell them apologetically that I'm one of those annoying people who must stick to a gluten-free menu, and ask if they can accommodate me. Every single time, at each restaurant/pub/club/winery, they have gone out of their way to ensure my meal is not only gluten-free, but equally as delicious as the gluten-encrusted meals.
c) My daughter works at a classy cafe. The French-trained chef is very understanding and always has truly gluten-free options on the menu (and occasionally sends my daughter home with a g-f muffin or slice of cake for me). She served a woman once who asked if the coffee was g-f. My daughter explained that all their coffee was g-f (because she couldn't think of a nice way to say, "you idiot, there is no gluten in coffee"). The customer didn't believe her, and insisted on seeing the coffee packaging. It is ground on-site from beans in plain packaging, there is no list of ingredients. Eventually my daughter explained that her mother is gluten-intolerant and she drinks the coffee so the woman reluctantly agreed to try it.
Then the woman ordered a sandwich. And when my daughter said, "With our homemade gluten-free bread?", the customer replied that she doesn't like g-f bread, normal bread would be fine.
It's people like her who make eating out difficult for people like us, and also for the people who serve us.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 7:50 PM on February 5, 2015 [4 favorites]
And when my daughter said, "With our homemade gluten-free bread?", the customer replied that she doesn't like g-f bread, normal bread would be fine.
Those are the people who cause the problem, not people with actual medical contraindications. Those are the people who make foodservice staff say "eh, good enough."
Those are the people we hate. And also, you don't need to be apologetic when calling! You have a real medical issue!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:59 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
Those are the people who cause the problem, not people with actual medical contraindications. Those are the people who make foodservice staff say "eh, good enough."
Those are the people we hate. And also, you don't need to be apologetic when calling! You have a real medical issue!
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 7:59 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
malibustacey9999: "my idiot doctor didn't tell me that I needed to have eaten gluten to get true results. So I tested negative"
This is not how coeliac testing works. Even for the old tests, the half-life of gliadin ab IgA is around 120 days, so for a typical responder would take 1-2 years for the IgA to return to close to baseline. Nowadays, you can test more sensitively for tissue transglutaminase antibodies (IgA), quantitative immunoglobulin (IgA) or deamidated gliadin peptide (IgA or IgG). Sometimes we check anti-endomysial antibodies (IgA) - almost 100% specificity and it takes the best part of a year for this to decrease to near baseline in the complete absence of gluten.
These tests are exquisitely sensitive. If you're concerned about a false negative, most of them typically get run as a panel so the combined false negative incidence rate is literally 1 part of several tens of thousand. And we can always run a colon biopsy, which is pretty pathognomonic. Not eating gluten for a few days or weeks is very unlikely to affect the outcome.
If you want to spend more money, there's even genetic haplotype testing. Among biopsy-confirmed coeliac, >90% have HLA-DQ2.5, so that's something to watch for. Widespread genotyping is probably key to demonstrating the population prevalence of coeliac sprue. This paper demonstrates a 1.3% prevalence in an Australian sample with northern European ethnicities over-represented (one of the higher risk populations for the mutation).
posted by meehawl at 10:30 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
This is not how coeliac testing works. Even for the old tests, the half-life of gliadin ab IgA is around 120 days, so for a typical responder would take 1-2 years for the IgA to return to close to baseline. Nowadays, you can test more sensitively for tissue transglutaminase antibodies (IgA), quantitative immunoglobulin (IgA) or deamidated gliadin peptide (IgA or IgG). Sometimes we check anti-endomysial antibodies (IgA) - almost 100% specificity and it takes the best part of a year for this to decrease to near baseline in the complete absence of gluten.
These tests are exquisitely sensitive. If you're concerned about a false negative, most of them typically get run as a panel so the combined false negative incidence rate is literally 1 part of several tens of thousand. And we can always run a colon biopsy, which is pretty pathognomonic. Not eating gluten for a few days or weeks is very unlikely to affect the outcome.
If you want to spend more money, there's even genetic haplotype testing. Among biopsy-confirmed coeliac, >90% have HLA-DQ2.5, so that's something to watch for. Widespread genotyping is probably key to demonstrating the population prevalence of coeliac sprue. This paper demonstrates a 1.3% prevalence in an Australian sample with northern European ethnicities over-represented (one of the higher risk populations for the mutation).
posted by meehawl at 10:30 PM on February 5, 2015 [3 favorites]
'a little is okay' isn't something anyone with celiac ever says,
This not true. Most people with celiac do not adhere perfectly to their diet at all times. Many celiacs do not immediately get sick if they eat gluten and some take that to mean that 'a little is okay'. Here's one study about adherence which mentions that only 44% of celiac's was found to have "excellent" adherence. It quotes another study: Rates of strict adherence to a GFD in adults have been found to vary between 17% and 45% [16, 17, 25, 26]. Fewer than 50% of adults with CD studied in France and Belgium strictly adhered to a GFD for more than one year after being diagnosed [27].
posted by blub at 12:06 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
This not true. Most people with celiac do not adhere perfectly to their diet at all times. Many celiacs do not immediately get sick if they eat gluten and some take that to mean that 'a little is okay'. Here's one study about adherence which mentions that only 44% of celiac's was found to have "excellent" adherence. It quotes another study: Rates of strict adherence to a GFD in adults have been found to vary between 17% and 45% [16, 17, 25, 26]. Fewer than 50% of adults with CD studied in France and Belgium strictly adhered to a GFD for more than one year after being diagnosed [27].
posted by blub at 12:06 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
Isn't it true that in the last few years wheat has been hybridized to contain nearly double the amount of gluten proteins as it had in the past, with dramatically increased crop yield and even dwarf plants - which should require less water, less fertilizing, less pesticides, but the crops are actually being fertilized and pesticides and herbicides applied at nearly the same rate as on the older varieties? I think I've read that Monsanto created this new "super wheat" but there are loopholes which allow them to skirt the "genetically modified" label. Now I could be in error - to some degree - here, but I'm certain that the doubling of the gluten proteins in the new wheat was a seriously concerning issue and I haven't read anything about that here, so I'm just throwing the idea into the fire to see who knows the story and if it has any credibility that might explain the huge increase in gluten sensitivity.
posted by aryma at 2:15 AM on February 6, 2015
posted by aryma at 2:15 AM on February 6, 2015
I think I've read that Monsanto created this new "super wheat" but there are loopholes which allow them to skirt the "genetically modified" label.
My very limited understanding (and believed to be accurate by the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston where I've been a patient for years) is that this is probably the real issue for many. The wheat that is now produced is not the same as the wheat produced in earlier generations, and our bodies have not yet adapted to this food. We treat it like poison wheat.*
*I claim Poison Wheat as the name of my new imaginary band.
posted by kinetic at 3:01 AM on February 6, 2015
My very limited understanding (and believed to be accurate by the Celiac Center at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston where I've been a patient for years) is that this is probably the real issue for many. The wheat that is now produced is not the same as the wheat produced in earlier generations, and our bodies have not yet adapted to this food. We treat it like poison wheat.*
*I claim Poison Wheat as the name of my new imaginary band.
posted by kinetic at 3:01 AM on February 6, 2015
blub: "Many celiacs do not immediately get sick if they eat gluten and some take that to mean that 'a little is okay'."
One of my celiac relatives gets very, very sick if she has even a little gluten and therefore is extremely careful; another relative with celiac is considerably less sensitive -- he just gets a headache and some extra bathroom time -- and he will sometimes have one or two small bites at Thanksgiving of some gluteny recipe his mother used to make when he was a little boy.
He is also retired and in his 60s, so he's not too worried at this point about developing intestinal cancers in 20 or 30 years if he has small amounts of gluten from time to time; my other relative is much younger and has two small children so she's a lot more concerned about her long-term prognosis.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:32 AM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
One of my celiac relatives gets very, very sick if she has even a little gluten and therefore is extremely careful; another relative with celiac is considerably less sensitive -- he just gets a headache and some extra bathroom time -- and he will sometimes have one or two small bites at Thanksgiving of some gluteny recipe his mother used to make when he was a little boy.
He is also retired and in his 60s, so he's not too worried at this point about developing intestinal cancers in 20 or 30 years if he has small amounts of gluten from time to time; my other relative is much younger and has two small children so she's a lot more concerned about her long-term prognosis.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:32 AM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
So I think what we're seeing here is like that woman in the wheelchair who was photographed standing up, and everybody declared she was faking it because they didn't know enough about how people in wheelchairs can have limited mobility.
The fact is, unless you're a medical professional that has actually worked with the person with the intolerance or sensitivity, you just don't know what their issue is with gluten, why they have chosen to avoid it, and how much they can or will tolerate. And yet we have an endless number of people declaring that it's all just faddists who are ruining things for people who actually have sensitivity.
We don't know that. All we know is that some restaurant workers have decided upon themselves to diagnose their customers because they are irritated at having to work harder. And, I mean, so what -- sometimes it seems like the only way not to irritate a restaurant worker is to not be a customer. Except that, in an unfortunate number of incidents that my gluten intolerant friends have experienced, they have been given food with gluten by restaurant workers who either don't know or don't care that it's an issue.
Go ahead and think whatever you want about your customers. But, for the love of pete, please recognize that you just don't know what somebody else's dietary needs are, and take seriously what they request, even if it makes no sense to you.
posted by maxsparber at 6:03 AM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
The fact is, unless you're a medical professional that has actually worked with the person with the intolerance or sensitivity, you just don't know what their issue is with gluten, why they have chosen to avoid it, and how much they can or will tolerate. And yet we have an endless number of people declaring that it's all just faddists who are ruining things for people who actually have sensitivity.
We don't know that. All we know is that some restaurant workers have decided upon themselves to diagnose their customers because they are irritated at having to work harder. And, I mean, so what -- sometimes it seems like the only way not to irritate a restaurant worker is to not be a customer. Except that, in an unfortunate number of incidents that my gluten intolerant friends have experienced, they have been given food with gluten by restaurant workers who either don't know or don't care that it's an issue.
Go ahead and think whatever you want about your customers. But, for the love of pete, please recognize that you just don't know what somebody else's dietary needs are, and take seriously what they request, even if it makes no sense to you.
posted by maxsparber at 6:03 AM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
The fact is, unless you're a medical professional that has actually worked with the person with the intolerance or sensitivity, you just don't know what their issue is with gluten, why they have chosen to avoid it, and how much they can or will tolerate.
That's not really the case when we're talking about close friends and family members who we know, for a fact, have consulted precisely zero medical professionals, have self-diagnosed and who comply with their own supposed dietary "rules" so arbitrarily that it is clearly impossible for them to know if any "symptoms" they have are connected with exposure to gluten.
Truly, nobody is doubting that anyone in this thread who says they have celiac disease or whatever has a genuine disease that demands serious care about gluten exposure. What we are complaining about is people who have taken up the idea of being "gluten intolerant" without doing any serious testing (not even self-testing, which is fraught with all kinds of confirmation bias problems) and who people with genuine problems with gluten really ought to regard with equal annoyance because these people are fucking it up for them, too.
Someone up above said that the "boy who cried wolf" doesn't apply because that only affects the individual boy in the story. But it's really not hard to imagine re-writing that story as one in which all the boys in the town get the idea that crying "Wolf!" is a fun lark, and that the town rings every day with cries of "Wolf! Wolf!" Pretty soon you'd take any little boy's cry of "Wolf!" with a hefty dose of salt, right? Well, that's what is happening with the gluten-free fad. It's not a matter of not understanding that people with genuine problems occasionally eat a little bit of gluten or what have you, it's knowing for a sure and certain fact that a lot of the people who are self-diagnosing as "gluten intolerant" are basing that "diagnosis" on nothing.
posted by yoink at 9:03 AM on February 6, 2015
That's not really the case when we're talking about close friends and family members who we know, for a fact, have consulted precisely zero medical professionals, have self-diagnosed and who comply with their own supposed dietary "rules" so arbitrarily that it is clearly impossible for them to know if any "symptoms" they have are connected with exposure to gluten.
Truly, nobody is doubting that anyone in this thread who says they have celiac disease or whatever has a genuine disease that demands serious care about gluten exposure. What we are complaining about is people who have taken up the idea of being "gluten intolerant" without doing any serious testing (not even self-testing, which is fraught with all kinds of confirmation bias problems) and who people with genuine problems with gluten really ought to regard with equal annoyance because these people are fucking it up for them, too.
Someone up above said that the "boy who cried wolf" doesn't apply because that only affects the individual boy in the story. But it's really not hard to imagine re-writing that story as one in which all the boys in the town get the idea that crying "Wolf!" is a fun lark, and that the town rings every day with cries of "Wolf! Wolf!" Pretty soon you'd take any little boy's cry of "Wolf!" with a hefty dose of salt, right? Well, that's what is happening with the gluten-free fad. It's not a matter of not understanding that people with genuine problems occasionally eat a little bit of gluten or what have you, it's knowing for a sure and certain fact that a lot of the people who are self-diagnosing as "gluten intolerant" are basing that "diagnosis" on nothing.
posted by yoink at 9:03 AM on February 6, 2015
they are irritated at having to work harder. And, I mean, so what -- sometimes it seems like the only way not to irritate a restaurant worker is to not be a customer.
Or, in a slightly better world, there would be a coalition between people with celiac, people with potentially fatal allergies, and, I dunno, the ROC or the SEIU or something.
posted by feral_goldfish at 9:04 AM on February 6, 2015
Or, in a slightly better world, there would be a coalition between people with celiac, people with potentially fatal allergies, and, I dunno, the ROC or the SEIU or something.
posted by feral_goldfish at 9:04 AM on February 6, 2015
they are irritated at having to work harder
No, we're irritated when our jobs are made harder by precious little snowflakes who lie about food intolerances. Working harder for someone who has an actual problem is part of my job and I have exactly zero problems with it. I do have problems with people who just make shit up.
sometimes it seems like the only way not to irritate a restaurant worker is to not be a customer.
It is astonishingly easy to not be the dickbag guest that we hate. Be nice to your servers, order from the damn menu (that is, in fact, why we have the things in the first place), and don't be a stupid precious selfish git; we are not slaves, we are people doing a very difficult job.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:42 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
No, we're irritated when our jobs are made harder by precious little snowflakes who lie about food intolerances. Working harder for someone who has an actual problem is part of my job and I have exactly zero problems with it. I do have problems with people who just make shit up.
sometimes it seems like the only way not to irritate a restaurant worker is to not be a customer.
It is astonishingly easy to not be the dickbag guest that we hate. Be nice to your servers, order from the damn menu (that is, in fact, why we have the things in the first place), and don't be a stupid precious selfish git; we are not slaves, we are people doing a very difficult job.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:42 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
No, we're irritated when our jobs are made harder by precious little snowflakes who lie about food intolerances.
Yeah, except you don't know. You just don't. I'm not sure why you think you do, but if you think someone is a precious snowflake for having a food preference and requesting it at a restaurant that offers it ---
well, if it was my restaurant, you'd be looking for new work.
posted by maxsparber at 10:48 AM on February 6, 2015
Yeah, except you don't know. You just don't. I'm not sure why you think you do, but if you think someone is a precious snowflake for having a food preference and requesting it at a restaurant that offers it ---
well, if it was my restaurant, you'd be looking for new work.
posted by maxsparber at 10:48 AM on February 6, 2015
Oh, and because I know the next nonsense to come, five years I worked in restaurants, front and back of the house. I know exactly how hard the job is, and I also know that a large part of the job is good customer service, and I know what it sounds like when somebody thinks that's too much to ask.
posted by maxsparber at 10:52 AM on February 6, 2015
posted by maxsparber at 10:52 AM on February 6, 2015
Yeah, except you don't know. You just don't.
You don't know which individual customers are, certainly. But you do know that some reasonably large percentage of the people making a fuss about "gluten free" are, in fact, faddists--because we all know that among our acquaintance faddists outnumber actual medically diagnosed individuals by at least an order of magnitude.
posted by yoink at 10:53 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
You don't know which individual customers are, certainly. But you do know that some reasonably large percentage of the people making a fuss about "gluten free" are, in fact, faddists--because we all know that among our acquaintance faddists outnumber actual medically diagnosed individuals by at least an order of magnitude.
posted by yoink at 10:53 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
And how does this matter? If you think preparing gluten free food is a problem, it's a problem with management. They're the one asking that gluten free be offered. If it's not available, you just tell the customer that and they'll go elsewhere.
Never take out an issue with management on the customer. They're not at fault. It doesn't matter if they are faddists or people with allergies or just people who prefer their food not to have gluten in it. If it's on the menu, they get to request it, and that really should be where the discussion begins and ends regarding a customer.
posted by maxsparber at 10:57 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Never take out an issue with management on the customer. They're not at fault. It doesn't matter if they are faddists or people with allergies or just people who prefer their food not to have gluten in it. If it's on the menu, they get to request it, and that really should be where the discussion begins and ends regarding a customer.
posted by maxsparber at 10:57 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
If it's on the menu, they get to request it,
If it's "on the menu" it's obviously not a problem. No one cares that X customer has ordered Y dish as opposed to Z dish. Where it becomes a problem is when customers start asking for special changes to be made to what is offered on the menu. And then it's obviously really, really irritating to do it when you know for a fact that most of the people asking you to complicate your life are not doing so for genuine health reasons.
I've sat in restaurants with family members who I know perfectly well eat gluten in such large quantities that they cannot know if gluten is the cause of whatever little aches, pains or other infirmities they've decided to blame on gluten (entirely free of any expert medical advice whatsoever) and felt simply wretched for the poor server who is being asked to do a whole lot of extra work to accommodate their momentary whim to be "strict" about their self imposed "diet"--and then they decide at the last minute that the pasta dish is just too tempting to resist.
You really can see why the iron enters the servers' souls.
posted by yoink at 11:14 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
If it's "on the menu" it's obviously not a problem. No one cares that X customer has ordered Y dish as opposed to Z dish. Where it becomes a problem is when customers start asking for special changes to be made to what is offered on the menu. And then it's obviously really, really irritating to do it when you know for a fact that most of the people asking you to complicate your life are not doing so for genuine health reasons.
I've sat in restaurants with family members who I know perfectly well eat gluten in such large quantities that they cannot know if gluten is the cause of whatever little aches, pains or other infirmities they've decided to blame on gluten (entirely free of any expert medical advice whatsoever) and felt simply wretched for the poor server who is being asked to do a whole lot of extra work to accommodate their momentary whim to be "strict" about their self imposed "diet"--and then they decide at the last minute that the pasta dish is just too tempting to resist.
You really can see why the iron enters the servers' souls.
posted by yoink at 11:14 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, except you don't know. You just don't.
Yeah, I do. When someone requires a substitute for the bread in their bruschetta because they're gluten-free and then go on to order pasta? I know they're a stupid faddist. When someone claims they're allergic to onions and garlic and everything related and orders food with shallots in it because somehow they're okay, I know they're a stupid faddist. When they order something dairy free because they're lactose intolerant and then order ice cream, I know they're a stupid faddist.
Does this stop me from preparing their food as ordered? Absolutely not. I will, as I said above, fetch clean utensils and board, get plates sent through the dishwasher again just in case they've been contaminated, communicate with the server about exactly how far our guarantees can go if Chef hasn't already, and prepare their food as close to pristine as possible.
but if you think someone is a precious snowflake for having a food preference and requesting it at a restaurant that offers it ---
well, if it was my restaurant, you'd be looking for new work.
You cannot possibly claim to have worked in restaurants for five years, much less claim that you worked in a kitchen, and think you could get away with firing someone for bitching about customers. Unless you didn't hear literally 90% of every. single. conversation. that happens in kitchens.
And I am not talking about ordering menu items. I am talking about substitutions and modifications. Which, if you have actually worked in restaurants, you should understand exactly how and why those put additional loads on the kitchen.
I can complain and moan about stupid guests as much as I want, thanks. You know, like how every single person in the world who has to deal with customers or clients will complain about them.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:21 PM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I do. When someone requires a substitute for the bread in their bruschetta because they're gluten-free and then go on to order pasta? I know they're a stupid faddist. When someone claims they're allergic to onions and garlic and everything related and orders food with shallots in it because somehow they're okay, I know they're a stupid faddist. When they order something dairy free because they're lactose intolerant and then order ice cream, I know they're a stupid faddist.
Does this stop me from preparing their food as ordered? Absolutely not. I will, as I said above, fetch clean utensils and board, get plates sent through the dishwasher again just in case they've been contaminated, communicate with the server about exactly how far our guarantees can go if Chef hasn't already, and prepare their food as close to pristine as possible.
but if you think someone is a precious snowflake for having a food preference and requesting it at a restaurant that offers it ---
well, if it was my restaurant, you'd be looking for new work.
You cannot possibly claim to have worked in restaurants for five years, much less claim that you worked in a kitchen, and think you could get away with firing someone for bitching about customers. Unless you didn't hear literally 90% of every. single. conversation. that happens in kitchens.
And I am not talking about ordering menu items. I am talking about substitutions and modifications. Which, if you have actually worked in restaurants, you should understand exactly how and why those put additional loads on the kitchen.
I can complain and moan about stupid guests as much as I want, thanks. You know, like how every single person in the world who has to deal with customers or clients will complain about them.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:21 PM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]
Or, one of my personal favourites, the person who was vegan, who sent the server back to the kitchen several times for lists of ingredients, required modifications on everything they ordered so there was no possible contamination with toxic animal products... and then ordered brownies a la mode for dessert.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:27 PM on February 6, 2015
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:27 PM on February 6, 2015
Not to dwell too much on something of a sideline, but to anyone who feels like they may be gluten sensitive but have tested negative for celiac, or whose symptoms haven't been wholly alleviated by avoiding gluten, seriously try a full FODMAP elimination. Aside from isolated gluten protein, pretty much everything with gluten in it has fructans as well. If you do a phased reintroduction (really the best way but tricky without a lot of organization and good references) you can test fractions from alternate sources to wheat to take gluten out of the equation altogether. This book is a gold standard especially if you want to do a proper full introduction with nutrient classes reintroduced in phases to really suss out your sensitivities - but you can get pretty good guidance just to try the elimination from this free PDF from Stanford U Medical Center.
posted by nanojath at 2:05 PM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by nanojath at 2:05 PM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]
Seriously, has no one here who works in a restaurant said "well fuck you I'm gonna pour a bucket of flour in your food" I don't play doctor and pick and choose who is really gluten intolerant. We'll make your food with all it's modifications if we can. We're just not going to be happy to have all the extra time and effort spent, especially in the middle of a rush.
Gluten free being the catch all panacea does make life harder for anyone in the food industry.
and t maxsparber, yeah I am going to complain when my job gets harder. That's what people do, even us lowly fucks in the service industry.
posted by Ferreous at 2:34 PM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
Gluten free being the catch all panacea does make life harder for anyone in the food industry.
and t maxsparber, yeah I am going to complain when my job gets harder. That's what people do, even us lowly fucks in the service industry.
posted by Ferreous at 2:34 PM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]
I'd say if I was experience distressing, persistent dyspepsia, flatulence and urgency/constipation after eating complex-yet-tasty n-saccharides (and assuming I'd checked with a physician to eliminate zebras such as carcinoid/neoplasm, thyroid, giardiasis, eosinophillic dz), I'd think I might try enzyme supplementation such as Beano, fructosin, or lactase before eliminating their deliciousness frommy diet. Or even consider gut-selective serotonin antagonists.
I'm not your doctor. This is not medical advice.
posted by meehawl at 7:49 PM on February 6, 2015
I'm not your doctor. This is not medical advice.
posted by meehawl at 7:49 PM on February 6, 2015
Literally everyone I know with carbohydrate malabsorption disorders has tried those enzymes, meehawl. FM in particular isn't just a diagnosis of exclusion -- there's a real quantitative test for it, which we had administered at the local Children's Hospital. The xylose isomerase research was very exciting but it hasn't been very widely replicated; of the people I know who have tried it, their results have been disappointing at best. In my child, it made no difference whatsoever; her gastroenterologist said that they pretty universally have seen no luck with it at all.
The advantage of FM, unlike celiac disease, is that "the less you have, the more you can have." Six months of a sobbingly brutal elimination diet (no plant-based foods but peeled potatoes and white rice -- including onions and garlic) later, my child's diet has relatively few exclusions, and even the prohibited foods like HFCS are ok in small quantities every once in a while. Environmental cross-contamination isn't a worry, and small exposures lead to small symptoms. I can get my child chicken strips and fries in every cheap casual dining restaurant in America; that's a pretty big deal. She does have a mild to moderate presentation, though; I know other people who have to police their diet much more aggressively.
posted by KathrynT at 8:54 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
The advantage of FM, unlike celiac disease, is that "the less you have, the more you can have." Six months of a sobbingly brutal elimination diet (no plant-based foods but peeled potatoes and white rice -- including onions and garlic) later, my child's diet has relatively few exclusions, and even the prohibited foods like HFCS are ok in small quantities every once in a while. Environmental cross-contamination isn't a worry, and small exposures lead to small symptoms. I can get my child chicken strips and fries in every cheap casual dining restaurant in America; that's a pretty big deal. She does have a mild to moderate presentation, though; I know other people who have to police their diet much more aggressively.
posted by KathrynT at 8:54 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]
A few other thoughts: Celiac is absolutely a real-deal auto-immune disease and I'm sure GF sensitivity is also real. Here's the thing: a person with Celiac knows it's not 100% safe to eat out, period. We know this. Our doctors and nutritionists and gastroenterologists and immunologists tell us in absolutes, "The only place you can be certain you're eating GF is at home, and even THAT'S going to be very hard to do." It's taken my family a lot of training to NOT open my X-marked almond butter and plunge in their knife that just touched their whole wheat bread. It is really, really hard to do.
GF became a trendy thing and restaurants tried to accommodate it, which wasn't a great idea. I KNOW eating out isn't safe and experience has taught me not to risk it in most cases.
I think what sucks for food service people is at some management level, this decision to accommodate GF people was made but the reality is that ensuring food is prepared without a trace of gluten in a commercial kitchen is close to impossible. They need a dedicated prep area, dedicated knives, cutting boards, pots, etc. If they prepared food with gluten and then moved to the GF area, they need to put on gloves. And let's not even talk about a kitchen that has flour used in it; because those particles will poison the GF area.
Yet, restaurants will offer GF food that really isn't GF. I recently went to a local sandwich shop recently opened by an acquaintance, having called ahead and discussing GF safety. The cook made my kid's regular sub, then turned and opened the GF bread and prepared my sandwich on the exact same board with her gluten-filled hands where she had just made a regular sandwich, using the same knife to cut my sandwich. That's not gluten free.
And what makes this the screaming headache that it has become is that suddenly, loads of people are CLAIMING to have gluten issues and are requesting GF food. So they put this (pretty much impossible) burden upon a kitchen when it's not in any way necessary.
Ordering GF food isn't like ordering vegan food. It's not just taking some things off a plate, but there are people who just piss off food service people by asking. Hey, I get it, you want to eat out and you want to avoid gluten. But these people place an unfair burden on staff.
I think the solution lies in honesty. Restaurants should be clear that they don't guarantee GF food.
posted by kinetic at 5:35 AM on February 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
GF became a trendy thing and restaurants tried to accommodate it, which wasn't a great idea. I KNOW eating out isn't safe and experience has taught me not to risk it in most cases.
I think what sucks for food service people is at some management level, this decision to accommodate GF people was made but the reality is that ensuring food is prepared without a trace of gluten in a commercial kitchen is close to impossible. They need a dedicated prep area, dedicated knives, cutting boards, pots, etc. If they prepared food with gluten and then moved to the GF area, they need to put on gloves. And let's not even talk about a kitchen that has flour used in it; because those particles will poison the GF area.
Yet, restaurants will offer GF food that really isn't GF. I recently went to a local sandwich shop recently opened by an acquaintance, having called ahead and discussing GF safety. The cook made my kid's regular sub, then turned and opened the GF bread and prepared my sandwich on the exact same board with her gluten-filled hands where she had just made a regular sandwich, using the same knife to cut my sandwich. That's not gluten free.
And what makes this the screaming headache that it has become is that suddenly, loads of people are CLAIMING to have gluten issues and are requesting GF food. So they put this (pretty much impossible) burden upon a kitchen when it's not in any way necessary.
Ordering GF food isn't like ordering vegan food. It's not just taking some things off a plate, but there are people who just piss off food service people by asking. Hey, I get it, you want to eat out and you want to avoid gluten. But these people place an unfair burden on staff.
I think the solution lies in honesty. Restaurants should be clear that they don't guarantee GF food.
posted by kinetic at 5:35 AM on February 7, 2015 [4 favorites]
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