i am utterly amused by the Gluten Free! Shopping Made Easy! Coborns ad to the right. irony win.

Hey, you know what's gluten-free and easy to make big portions of for a party, and which also happen to be delicious and good for you? Beans. Just make a big pot of beans. You can even make two pots, one with bacon or ham and one without. That way, the non-glutens have something to eat, the vegans have something to eat, and you don't look like an inhospitable ass.

Also "I'm allergic to sulfites and I get headaches when I drink red wine so I only drink white wine."

ARRRRRRRGHGHGHGH There is usually twice as much sulfite in white wine than in red. You are NOT allergic to sulfites! If you were really one of the less than 1% of people who are legitimately allergic to sulfites, trust me, you'd be feeling it after a glass of white and we'd be looking around for an epi-pen. Same goes for you eating cured meat or spinach for that matter.

You may legitimately get RWH (red wine headache) which is considered to be a product of the various tannins, polyphenols, oak aging, etc that go into red but not white wine thanks to the maceration on the grape skins, stems, and seeds. But that is not a sulfite allergy.

It's also quite possible that what you technically have is simply called a "hangover."
End.Rant.

@3: Or, just do as I do, and don't invite people over who do not have the exact same values, desires, preferences, tolerances, tastes, political perspectives, and interests as I do. It makes the party into a much more manageable size.

Yep, just me and my sock puppet pal, Tony. And Tony doesn't eat much, which is a nice bonus.

@5 Birthday cake, beans, what's the difference. Besides, it's easy to blow out candles when eating lots of beans. My own children love this game. You just have to make sure Birthday Kid does not have a lot of flammable lint on her pants.

More cookies and cake for the rest of us.

I think the whole food allergy thing has gotten way out of control (I used to wait tables at a Mexican restaurant and people would always tell me they were allergic to cilantro. Not sure if that's even possible and if so, don't go out for Mexican!) That being said, Celiac disease is a real disease that makes it difficult for the body to break down gluten. Those who have it get terrible digestive issues when they eat gluten, and if they continue to eat it, it will permanently damage their intestines and greatly increase their chances of getting colon cancer. Presumably the person this I Anon is talking about does not have Celiac disease, but others do and should not be judged for something totally out of their control. Some even might say they have a gluten allergy to avoid having to explain Celiac disease and to avoid discussing what's going on in their colon, since to some the happenings in our colons is private.

Info on Celiac disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth…

First world problems!

@8: Wow----3 for 3!!

Yeah--more cookies and cake! More cookies and cake!!

My sister always tells me how she is alergic to garlic, while she's shovleing my garlic mashed taters in her pie hole. Haven't seen her swell up yet. But I just smile and nod with a concerned look on my face. (I'm guessing she doesn't even know what garlic smells like)

Hint: offer ice cream to the child. She will enjoy the party without cake. Cake is aweful anyway. Just smile and nod.

@12: right on.
Celiac disease is one thing, "gluten intolerance" is an obnoxious fad.

great artwork as always

Isn't it funny how nobody who lives in a third-world country has a food allergy? I'm just saying.

#11 - There are also many people who go on worthless eating restrictions and end up feeling better because it is the first time in their lives when they are not thoughtlessly shovelling junk food down their gullet. What happens is:

1. Person is told they might have an allergy to gluten (or whatever) and they should eliminate all products containing gluten for one week.

2. Person stops eating doughnuts, muffins, cookies, chips and other crap. When they think about eating, they stop and consider their imminent actions. Maybe they instead have a carrot or an apple, or maybe they decide they really aren't that hungry after all.

3. After a week, person is feeling much better: less bloated and less overcarbed. Person says, "Aha! I must have a gluten allergy!"

I've seen it happen time and time again.

There is definitely both a broader understanding of celiac disease, and a gluten free fad going on in this country. It's absurd to take sides on this post because there's really no way of knowing whether the author is right or not.

I've been informed that EVERYONE is gluten-intolerant, but only some people have it bad enough for it to affect them. The person who told me this said it with a straight face.

@9 cilantro tastes absolutely horrible to me. Even the tiniest speck makes me well-up with the enormous urge to spit it out ASAP. It's different then just not particularly liking some food. It's like an intense awful reaction in my mouth. I imagine it's hard for some people to explain that to waiters so they probably opt for "I'm allergic to cilantro" as the quickest/easiest way to keep it off their plate.

i enjoy candy and hookers on my birthday, which is saturday.

Yes. Celiac's is one thing, but all this gluten allergy bs is ridiculous. How on earth did humans survive until now with all these dangerous food allergies out there??

I love gluten. I add it to the bread I make in my bread machine, which is one of my favorite appliances (yeah, I'm so early 1990's). If I don't use gluten, the texture of the bread sucks.

@16

I know, right? That poor little cupcake.

"Yeah, fuck all the people who don't describe things with complete accuracy. There is nothing more repulsive and despicable than someone who describes food that makes them sick as an "allergy" The nerve. They should either get the language impeccably correct or just suffer alone. fuck all you people who can't eat some things without getting sick"

It is interesting how being pedantic and uncaring seem to go together.

techbear@18, i suspect you are on to the actual mechanism behind this fad. but "just stop eating crap," doesn't make people feel as special as "you have a gluten intolerance."

@3: But what about the paleos?

@17 and others: Maybe because they died before it was diagnosed.

I don't blame individuals for this - although some of them really ought to know better. I blame alternative medicine generally, naturopaths particularly, and, at a deeper level, American culture's particular hospitableness to cranks, quacks, and magic-bullet "wellness" solutions.

Have you noticed how the symptoms of gluten intolerance are typically the symptoms of worrying about eating gluten? Funny.

A certain wackadoodle member of my family has launched full-on into alternative medicine and particularly into food crusades, which means that half the time we agree on bad foods no one should eat, and half the time we're at each other's throats because I think it's fucking silly to say "All grains are poison" or "GMO crops will cause organ failure."

Thank you Granny Smith for a slivver of sanity in this ridiculous post.

Seriously- the vitriol spewing from the typings of the letter writer and subsequent commenters about something that has literally NO EFFECT on their lives if they choose not to prescribe to the idea is baffling.

Don't believe in Gluten Allergies? Great. Then eat whatever you want. If someone tells you you should avoid gluten tell them to fuck off. But guess what? People get to tell YOU to fuck off if you try and call their reactions to gluten/lack of gluten ridiculous.

A friend of mine was told by her physician that she should try avoiding gluten because she seemed to be adversely affected by it. She tried it out. Not by cutting out sweets and carbs- but by only going for carbs/candies that didn't have gluten. It worked. She lost weight significantly, her skin cleared up, she suddenly had more energy.

She didn't alter her food intake- she just shifted her bread/carb intake to something that didn't use wheat. And it worked. Does this mean I think everyone claiming a gluten allergy are actually allergic? Nope. But it DOES seem to exist pretty clearly for some.

And if those people try it and see positive effects regardless of whether it is an "allergy" or not- good for them.

So yeah. Get over it. Griping about something this trivial is petty. Really, really petty.

I don't think what the I, Anon was mad at had much to do with the person not eating gluten-- it had more to do with them talking about it all the time and expecting to be catered to at all times.

@33, my thoughts exactly.

I have celiac disease, the kind where your small intestine is withering up in preparation for its mid-life cancer, and where you eat 10,000 calories a day without gaining weight ... before I was diagnosed and got things under control.
The fad has certainly been good for improving the GF selection in stores, but it's embarrassing to be associated with.

I don't make scenes about my diet. Most people wouldn't know if they didn't cook with or for me. When going out, I always assume that I will work around the food selection somehow, or eat later ... it is, after all, MY PROBLEM. Other celiacs I have known also seem to want to keep things under the radar.

Selection bias at work here, but I tend to think that the people making scenes in restaurants and stores are not among the truly gluten-intolerant, but the fashionably wheat-free, having found their latest seemingly irrefutable excuse to be rude to strangers.

Having said that, I did once work with a young woman who claimed to have celiac disease, and who so oppressed our officemates that they were afraid to bring non-GF snacks (for themselves!). She was an aggressive moocher and was abusive to anyone who had food she couldn't eat. She would also give herself 'wheat holidays,' which is difficult for me to fathom, because as much as I loved bread and other wheaty foods before I figured out they were poison to me, the misery is not worth it. At least not to someone with real celiac disease.

In summary: Thanks for bullying the supermarkets into having a gluten-free section, but stop being such manipulative assholes in public.

I'm pretty sure the only way to conclusively prove celiacs/any allergy is a biopsy. Haven't had one? Then I'm going to have a hard time believing you.

For what it is worth, my family fits the description called out by Anonymous. Here's why: my six year old son has celiac disease. Diagnosed at age 3. Thanks to the earlier postings starting @9 differentiating between a gluten allergy and celiac. But we are the family that brings a GF cupcake to a birthday party, that hosts dinners at our house rather than at friends so as to make food safe to eat, and has to tell our kid that he can't just eat the candy from Halloween without us reading the fricking label first.

And it sucks.

And it sucks more when inconsiderate assholes pass off this auto-immune disease as a diet fad or something they don't think is serious. And if you know that my son can't eat gluten, and choose to feed it to him anyway because you think we're some diet-of-the-month family, then your selfishness is truly amazing.

I don't need others to accommodate our dietary needs if they aren't willing to do so - we'll bring our own food and try not to talk about it too much - but hopefully a little empathy and understanding can be brought to the table from the other side.

You're an asshole, Anonymous.

@32, it really has more to do with psychogenic gluten intolerance being a fad that's swept through American cities in the last few years, and with the fact that like any fad, people who are into it just loooove to talk about it and make a big damn deal out of it.

There's also the matter of co-opting medical science and self-diagnosing with something that, were it real, would be a serious problem; and the accompanying damage that does to the public understanding of science and lack of understanding of placebo. Furthermore, the rash of self-diagnosis of a nebulous "intolerance" does a disservice to the tiny minority of people who actually live with a condition or allergy.

Anyway, tl;dr - a diagnosis should never be a fad, nor vice versa.

@35, sympathies. Autoimmune problems suck.

@37, that is another tip off, people who really have intolerance to gluten usually don't want to talk about it endlessly....like the person the LW is complaining about.

Another thing....just to add to the rant....is to mention that you have a "condition" of some sort, irregular periods, strange bump on your tongue, whatever... and have the person you shared that with immediately recommend a) macrobiotic diet, cause it worked for their aunt, b) gluten free diet, cause they saw it on Dr. Oz, or my favorite, c) the blood-type diet, which is the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. Honestly, blood-type diet belief is the litmus test for idiots.

I've never been diagnosed or tested, but I feel much better and my body/intestines works better when I don't eat wheat. It's embarrassing since it does seem like such a fad, so usually I'd rather eat what's put in front of me and feel terrible for a week than talk about it.

People who get mad at other people for what other people choose to not eat, for whatever reason, are assholes. Look at they way they hate all over vegetarians who never did them any harm. "That guy three tables over didn't order steak! Aaaargh!" What an asshole.

Are you a paid flack for the Wheat Foods Council? A lobbyist for the American Meat Institute? Do you pay the rent with checks written by some other agribusiness front group? No? No? And no? Then what the fuck do you care?

Mind your own business and quit being such an asshole.

@33,

Since the kid shows up to parties with her own gluten-free food, it looks like the parent doesn't expect anyone to cater to them. And anyone who throws a party and explicitly refuses to offer *something* a guest can eat is a shitty host and a fucking asshole.

Isn't it funny how nobody who lives in a third-world country has a food allergy? I'm just saying.

Isn't it funny how people with no scientific or medical knowledge like to postulate bullshit on the Internet? I'm just sayin'.

Third worlders don't have food allergies (or allergies of any kind, really) because they have far less hygiene. Allergies are the result of living in sanitary conditions. The cleaner a society becomes, the more allergies people have. And not washing your hands isn't a solution. You have to be inundated with (mostly) harmless micro-organisms as a child to get immunities from allergies, which means living in an almost literal shit-hole.

I am totally on board with this, Anon.

My family members have been dealing with celiac disease (the real thing) for more than 10 years.

I get irritated with all these pseudo-gluten-phobes - why on earth would anyone choose to eat that way?

But then I think of all the fun faux-wheat products my family gets to eat now because of the consumer demand from these fad dieters/hypochondriacs...

...and I keep my mouth shut.

My favorite thing to do to friends who say they are "gluten intolerant" or whatever the hell they call it, is to make some flour free cake, make sure they eat it and say "You're gonna DIE!!! That had FLOUR in it!!! HAHAHAHAHA"

Not everyone with an allergy puffs up, needs an epi pen, etc. I'm not allergic to sulfites, but I'm sure sensitive to them. Wine, beer, pickles, etc...oh, the headache. As for MSG, depends on the concentration. I used to love "Puffcorn" from Frito-Lay, but within 20 minutes I would have VICIOUS migraine, and about the only ingredient in the list I've ever had trouble with has been MSG, and most of the time not even Chinese food bothers me, so how much is in Puffcorn? Yeow! I'm allergic to the nickel in a lot of jewelry, as are a lot of people. I don't puff up, etc. I break out in itchy bumps that then weep and scab. Ick. But, no puffing up, no breathing problems, no throat closing up.

@26 I have read that 30% of us are gluten intolerant. In Italy they test everyone. I love wheat, but cutting it out has done wonders for my MS. (7 year remission!) I try not to mention it unless I have to. And I usually don't, not that hard to work around.

I don't know what anon's problem is.

BTW, @17: How much bread/pizza/cookies/bagels do you usually see people eating in third world countries? Yep.

In fairness, keshmeshi, the Hygiene Hypothesis is still, well, a hypothesis. That doesn't mean I don't personally buy it - I think it's plausible and pretty compelling - but the data's still not quite strong enough to lay it down on people with some righteous wrath, like it's something they ought to just know already.

@47, there are definitely different classes of allergic/hypersensitivity reaction. The classical version that everyone thinks of is anaphylaxis, but in immunology I had to memorize a chart of types I-IV hypersensitivity. Damned if I can remember which is which now, though.

@48, "I have read" is a pretty weak citation. I've read some really outrageous things from some pretty flagrant quacks on this topic, and I think I've heard more people smugly self-diagnose gluten "intolerance" than Asperger's.

I wouldn't care to speculate about the precise cause of your anecdotal experience. MS has such a broad range of symptoms, and autoimmune conditions are notoriously responsive to placebo - but on the other hand, they're also notoriously complicated, and celiac disease is autoimmune too, so you might well have something going on there. Who knows? I'm not your doctor. Still, I think it's safe to say your case isn't typical and if avoiding gluten is helping you, well, good.

@38 and I need to respond with: if a diagnosis IS a fad, but doesn't actually affect your life personally if you choose not to follow it- then why should you CARE if it's a fad?

Let it blow over. No skin off your shoulder.

Again: to gripe about this when it has nothing but the possibility of a positive effect on those who try it comes off really petty.

Yawn. Another rant from a self-righteous person with their panties in a wad because someone won't eat something they like to eat.

To all the people insisting that this new trend of gluten intolerance is fake, has it occurred to you that wheat isn't what it used to be, and perhaps all the genetic engineering and effects from bullshit modifying is what they can't tolerate? I don't know if this theory is true, but Michael Pollan has hypothesized this and it sounds like a reasonable explanation.

I used to be able to eat whatever I wanted to, and now I can't tolerate wine or wheat and some other stuff. One test came back celiac positive and two came back negative. I'm sick of paying money to doctors who can't figure out what's wrong with me, so now I just eliminate foods and try and figure out what works. This has been going on for more than 10 years. Sucks to be me, I guess, but it sucks just as much to have to defend my food sensitivity to every other dullard who needs to prove how and why I'm "wrong."

@51, we all have reason to at least take note of public health issues, and for my part I'm a scientist and I like following the intersection of scientific issues and culture.

There's also a clear benefit in doubting broad health-related claims that aren't evidentially supported. If a huge number of people are actually all suddenly gluten-intolerant, then something huge is happening in the population of the food supply and we need to know why. If most of this is a fad, and traceable to placebo, then there is indeed no harm on an individual level in letter people do what they want with it, but there are other pressing issues in diet and in the foodsystem that need to be dealt with, and this is a distraction that speaks poorly of the health practitioners promoting it. There's always potential harm in pseudoscience.

There are two separate conversations taking place here, and it doesn't make sense to get personally butthurt over the one that concerns a sociological/epidemiological phenomenon. (It also doesn't really make sense to spend the time to say "STOP ARGUING" on an online comment board whose sole purpose is basically argument.)

I think the allergies are a combination of things, some of parents just being too shit-scared to let their children try things, but a lot of it is from changes in our food system (GMO, soil, pollutants, etc).

I do think that gluten-sensitivity seems pretty real. We have cut it out in my house, and the reduction in gluten has made a potentially cancerous growth in my partner's neck shrink. I'm not saying it will solve everyone's problems, I'm just saying that there's something going on here with our food that is bigger than I think we realize (and not just with gluten, people also have allergies/sensitivities to many other seemingly innocuous food items).

@9 and @21, I read somewhere that cilantro has a strong-tasting compound in it that some people have the receptors to taste and others don't, so there might be a genetic reason why some people violently hate cilantro, while to others it has an innocuous herb-y taste.

Speaking as an ex-cook, I used to really hate it when people came in and claimed to have allergies when they really just had dislikes. If you have a true allergy, the cook will go to significant pains (checking ingredients in sauces, making sure utensils aren't contaminated) to accommodate you, since real food allergies can be extremely dangerous. If you dislike a food, just say so. It's the restaurant's job to serve you food you like, so there's no shame in asking them to hold the cilantro.

but the data's still not quite strong enough to lay it down on people with some righteous wrath, like it's something they ought to just know already.

They deserve righteous wrath when they imply or outright state that allergies are entirely in the heads of people in the First World. As if there are no differences in lifestyles between the First and Third World other than hypochondria (in the First) and starvation (in the Third).

The anti-vaccine nutters make the same implications all the time, that the supposed lack of autism among the Amish is proof that vaccines cause autism. As if the only thing differentiating us from the Amish is the routine use of vaccines.

People who THINK they are allergic or self-diagnose or just latch onto a trend do a major disservice to people who really have food allergies or who really have celiac disease (which is totally real).

On the same token, people who THINK someone is faking it without being absolutely sure are also doing a disservice to people who really have food allergies or who really have celiac disease.

Get informed. Everyone.

@59: Yep. And those of us who have celiac get to deal with the very justifiable assumption that most people who claim a wheat allergy* or intolerance are attention-whoring assholes.**

*If someone tells you that they've been diagnosed with a wheat allergy, they're full of shit, or the alternative health care provider who told them that is full of shit. Celiac is not an allergy.

** To clarify: I don't think everyone who chooses to stop eating wheat is an attention-whoring asshole. But if you use it as an excuse to bully strangers and loved ones, you probably are one.

OK, now I'm just repeating myself ...

@56 -- that probably explains why I can't really taste cilantro. I could never figure out why certain friends hate the taste of it. (Taste? It doesn't have a taste.)

@60: But! Bringing your own cupcakes or whatever else to a party should be fine to any host who isn't an asshole. And no one with a non-life-threatening food allergy or intolerance who isn't an asshole should demand that the a host cater to their unique needs, and "wheat allergy" and even celiac disease are not acutely life-threatening. That doesn't mean you can't ask if there'll be shellfish on hand that might kill little Johnny.

I learned that just talking about being celiac made people terrified to invite me, lest they fuck up the cuisine and commit a homicide. I don't bring it up, except to explain why I brought my own cupcake, so no one thinks I'm taking a piss on their cooking.

Going wheat-free can be rough, and it would be hard on a little kid, but it automatically eliminates 99 percent of nasty processed foods. I wouldn't be surprised if the 'placebo' effect of a wheat-free diet is really the effect of a garbage-free diet.

@4 FTW! Are you in the industry? That's my biggest damned pet peeve, but I can't convince people to save my life (or theirs) that when they get headaches the cause is that they need to drink some more damned water, and it doesn't happen as much with whites because the alcohol content is (generally) lower! Next time ask them if they enjoy dried fruit. If the answer's yes, let them know that they're consuming 10,000 times* the amount of sulfites there than in an entire bottle of wine!

*not based on any actual data, but still, it's more

@9 I'm allergic to cilantro, and it causes me to have digestive problems. The kind you don't want to have manifest in the vicinity of other restaurant customers. Not in the league of celiac disease, but my allergy makes me double over in pain 20 minutes after I eat fresh cilantro leaves.

Guess what, my best friend, her boyfriend and my boyfriend all love Mexican, so I find myself in Mexican restaurants from time to time, along with Vietnamese, Thai, and Indian restaurants, too.

What an asshole. Hopefully your friend wises up to how sincerely you do NOT like and respect her.

Gluten intolerance is serious. Many Coeliacs (myself included) suffer for a long while undiagnosed, trying many different diets and fads in order to feel better before stumbling on a GF diet.

Of course, it is unclear of whether the friend and her child were given a blood test or biopsy for a diagnosis. Many do not; I have never had either, because the thought of going back on gluten (required to test for antibodies) is so unpleasant. The few times I have consumed gluten, knowingly or unwittingly, my symptoms return and I get very sick, distinctly different from normal stomach flu or indigestion. I am not delusional; I would do anything to eat wheat like a normal person.

Of course, we Coeliacs know it's a bummer to eat with us. We feel bad enough as it is to put upon people and create a hassle. But we do expect some accommodation. I expect friends to at least remember that, no, I can't have a piece of cake and to not question the legitimacy of my diagnosis, and, yes, if we are close enough, to put out the bag of GF crackers at a party.That is hardly too much to ask. So many people have arbitrary dietary restrictions, everything from kosher to no-garlic/onions. And if you're friends with those people, truly friends, you do not torment them, you do not try to persuade them to give up their diet, and you try, within reason, to accommodate their needs.

@60 wheat allergies are real, and different from coeliac. I think the blood test for coeliac is ambiguous between diagnosis coeliac and wheat allergies; the biopsy (which shows the damage to vili) only diagnoses celiac.

Fine hairs, but yeah. Many people are sloppy in their terminology and will use "allergy" to refer to anything that makes them physically uncomfortable, whether it produces typical allergy symptoms like hives or whether it just causes stomach discomfort and might be closer to a food intolerance or autoimmune reaction.

This is why people should never "test" the veracity of their friends' claims for allergies. You might think "heh, I'll sneak some garlic in those potatoes because I know she's full of shit" but the "allergy" might really be diarrhea or indigestion later, not a nice thing to inflict on someone.

@17: Yeah! I noticed that, too.

Gee, I never noticed how food makes people crazy. Talking about it, obsessing over having it, quantity issues, variety issues, restrictions, mythical beliefs about it. Above all, passion about it regardless of how well thought out or researched your beliefs are.

It's exactly like sex that way.

You are not the food allergy god. You do not get to decide what your friends are actually allergic to and what they're just being drama queens about. If you don't like listening to her talk about her gluten troubles, you could always save yourself the trouble and STOP HANGING AROUND THIS PERSON.

I have Celiac disease. It is not the same as an "allergy", nor is it the same as an "intolerance". That said, sometimes when I am at a restaurant that doesn't market whether something is "gluten-free" or not, I tell people that I am allergic to wheat, or intolerant even though this is inaccurate. Why? Because when I say "I have Celiac disease" I am often met with a blank, foreboding stare that generally precedes a gluten-contaminated meal. People tend to take my disease much more seriously when I tell them that I will go into anaphylaxis and DIE if they give it to me. Of course, this doesn't help protect me against Barley, Rye or the often-contaminated oats, but hey, it's a start.

For the uniformed, yet highly opinionated posters on here, let's play a little round of questions.

1. What is Celiac disease?
A: It is an auto-immune disease. It is thought to be genetic, and there is NO CURE, nor does one grow out of it, as sometimes happens with allergies.

2. What are the repercussions of eating gluten, for those with Celiac?
A: CLASSIC SYMPTOMS MAY INCLUDE

Abdominal cramping, intestinal gas
Distention and bloating of the stomach
Chronic diarrhea or constipation (or both)
Steatorrhea – fatty stools
Anemia – unexplained, due to folic acid, B12 or iron deficiency (or all)
Unexplained weight loss with large appetite or weight gain

OTHER SYMPTOMS

Dental enamel defects
Osteopenia, osteoporosis
Bone or joint pain
Fatigue, weakness and lack of energy
Infertility – male/female
Depression
Mouth ulcers
Delayed puberty
Tingling or numbness in hands or feet
Migraine headaches

SOME LONG-TERM CONDITIONS THAT CAN RESULT FROM UNTREATED CD

Iron deficiency anemia
Early onset osteoporosis or osteopenia
Vitamin K deficiency associated with risk for hemorrhaging
Vitamin and mineral deficiencies
Central and peripheral nervous system disorders - usually due to unsuspected nutrient deficiencies
Pancreatic insufficiency
Intestinal lymphomas and other GI cancers (malignancies)
Gall bladder malfunction
Neurological manifestations

As you can see, it isn't something to fuck around with.

3. What is the treatment?
A: A lifelong gluten free diet. Often, cutting out dairy as well. END OF STORY.

If this list doesn't induce some sort of sympathy in you, you might want to get your head checked.

All that said, ANONYMOUS, if you had a severe allergy, or even believed that you have one but others were skeptical, I would hope they might be considerate enough to provide an option for you. You know, in case you were right and it made you sick.

#43: Have you considered that people in 3rd world countries "don't have food allergies" because they also don't have appropriate medical and diagnostic care? Occams razor, you know?

Celiac disease is real. It is a fact, and if you want to argue about it go ahead but you may as well join the flat earth society while you are at it. All kinds of things that you wouldn't imagine have gluten in them (sauces, licorice, meat patties, salad dressings, soup bases) so if you have this disease, sometimes you have to ask if an otherwise innocuous dish has gluten in it. You don't do it because you want to be an asshole or call attention to your disease, you do it because you don't want to suffer lower GI pain for the next week.

For the people who say they are gluten intolerant because they are on some kind of anti-carb kick, please stop it. Just don't eat bread or pasta, you don't have to be a dick about it and claim some kind of issue you don't really have. I have had friends who say they are gluten intolerant, then guzzle beer and eat soy sauce without batting an eye.

The vast majority of people who claim that they are allergic to sulfites because "wine doesn't agree with them" are usually drinking cheap wine that gives EVERYONE hangovers. Try drinking some decent wine for a change and watch your so-called "sulfite allergy" disappear! Really cheap wines are cheaply made (duh!) and often contain more impurities than better-made products, and your body has difficulty removing these impurities, thus causing bad hangovers. Drinking water helps flush these contaminates out, as well as helping to prevent dehydration.

The one person I met who has a real sulfite allergy grew his own vegetables and made his own food at home to ensure that there are no sulfites in his food, as he kept encountering everyday foods from the grocery store with sulfites in them. And he didn't go around complaining to everyone. He effectively managed his diet and moved on with his life, a skill many Americans could utilize to their benefit.

I have worked for many years in the wine industry and have heard the “I’m allergic to sulfites in wine” complaint more times than I care to remember. The amount of misinformation circulating in our society makes us all look like ignorant Americans.

Keep on banishing the darkness, my dears at the Stranger, before it envelopes us all!!!!!

You know what cures gluten allergy?
COCAINE AND MALT LIQUOR!!!!!

(sorry, this thread was going on too long without it.)

I understand that Celiac disease is a big deal, and people with Celiac are at risk for lots of life-impairing ailments should some idiot food worker decide it's "no big deal" to feed them a bit of wheat.

However, it's the entitlement that often comes along with food allergy-havers that's the kicker. Some are kind and understanding, but in my experience, most can be really demanding and rude. I used to work at a burrito shop. It was really easy to go gluten free, just use corn instead of flour tortillas. But then there would be those who would watch closely to make sure all of us changed our gloves, wiped down our tortilla steamer, and require we use new, freshly-washed scoops for the beans, meat, etc. This is in the middle of a rush! There are 13 people behind this person who are also hungry and irritated. It's stressful and annoying, and in those times, I wanted to just tell them to go to a special gluten-free cafe instead of inconveniencing everyone in the restaurant.

Also, isn't it weird how many people are suddenly and recently "gluten intolerant?" Surely not all of them are, and some percentage of them are fad-dieters/fad-allergy-havers who are just looking for a new lifestyle to tout. I know a few people who go through brief food phases. It's fine, but don't be a jerk about it.

At Number 75:

Consider this: To be considered legally and completely gluten free, a food item must have LESS THAN 20 PARTS PER MILLION (PPM).

THAT MEANS THAT IF YOU USE THE SAME GLOVES THAT TOUCHED A WHEAT TORTILLA, THE SAME SCOOP THAT TOUCHED A WHEAT TORTILLA, ANYTHING NEAR SOY OR VEGETABLE GLUCOS SYRUP OR ANY OTHER GLUTEN CONTAMINATED ITEM, IT WILL CONTAMINATE MY FOOD AND I WILL BE SICK.

A small inconvenience for you can literally mean a week of illness for those of us with Celiac. It isn't as simple as JUST USING A CORN FUCKING TORTILLA.

Besides that, YOU WORK IN FUCKING FOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE! Your job is NOT TO HAVE AN OPINION, ITS TO MAKE THE DAMN FOOD THAT SOMEONE ORDERED FROM YOU!

You think that is stressful and irritating? Try having diarrhea for days, then complete constipation paired with intense cramping and abdominal pain for a week. That should shut you right up.

As for going to a gluten free cafe, please tell me where these are found in abundance. Oh, that's right. THEY DONT.

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

@76- I understand your anger at 75's comment, but I think it was more about having to go through all the extra work at RUSH HOUR with 13 people in line waiting behind...if you worked in food service, you'd be undoubtedly be annoyed as well.
Probably would not be so irritating if the "special requests" were made when it wasn't so busy to do so.

I would never make a special request in an establishment that was already running around tearing their hair out because they were so busy as it was. Maybe dine elsewhere, order something simpler, ? I don't know. But have some compassion for those poor minimum wage earning burrito- makers who already have (presumably) difficult lives as it is.

@71: "I will go into anaphylaxis and DIE if they give it to me ..."
Not symptoms of celiac disease. (!) If this is true, you have some other, much more acutely dangerous condition that has been misdiagnosed . If not, you might consider dialing back the drama.

@66: Wheat allergies are real, and they involve symptoms that are very different from the symptoms of the majority of the people who tell me they have wheat allergies (I get it a lot). @71 describes symptoms of wheat allergies (while claiming celiac disease. Maybe she has both?).

If someone told you they detected a 5 percent reduction in your ability to hold your arm up while you put a wheat cracker under your tongue, then you're probably the beneficiary of a garbage-free diet, which is great, but telling everyone you will die if they fuck up is abusive and manipulative.

Even so, anyone who tells me they have a wheat allergy or intolerance gets the benefit of the doubt, even if in my heart of hearts I'm pretty sure they don't.

FWIW: Back in the day when I was a strict vegetarian but before I knew I had celiac, I was much more obnoxious about my food than I am now. I was prone to claiming that my body could detect even the slightest amount of animal protein, which I was sure left me feeling poisoned for days afterwards. It was pure, between-the-ears bullshit, like much of the drama of my teens and twenties.

Grown-ups who have dangerous conditions do not scurry through life demanding that everyone else take responsibility for them. If it's really life-threatening, you will not trust anyone else to take responsibility for the problem, much less expect it of them.

@74 wins thread. Boom.

EXCEPT! HOW CAN YOU SAY MALT LIQUOR DONT YOU KNOW THAT BARLEY MALT HAS GLUTEN IN IT I WILL GET SICK AND DIE! IF YOU EVEN PICTURE IT IN YOUR HEAD! EVERYONE SERVE ME! SERVE ME! SHUT THE FUCK UP AND SUBORDINATE YOUR ENTIRE BEING TO MY NEUROSIS!

@80: Well said! Your comment reminded me of a long past slave wage job I had briefly as a counterperson for McDonald's (see below).

@75: Severe allergies to anything are no joke, and, like aeros66, I can empathize with your situation. It's not the same thing as gluten intolerance, but I'm allergic to penicillin. You wouldn't believe the hell and back I went through convincing my own mother in my much younger days that I could NOT have it prescribed! Fortunately, my doctor listened to me, the patient, while giving Mom a rather puzzled 'are-you-deliberately-trying-to-kill-your-daughter, lady?' look in response to her stubbornly insisting that I was making the whole thing up.

But try working a lunch rush in a fast-food restaurant with impatient, fussy old ladies "in a hurry" insisting on ordering custom-made cheeseburgers for their picky little grandkids---just in time for a tour bus full of irate senior citizens from B.C., and a couple hundred other diners at once---and all are mad as hell that their food isn't coming within three nano-seconds or less.

@74 Sir Vic: LOL!!! Where's Arthur Zifferelli when we need him?

I have a sensitivity to gluten. It's not celiac, and small amounts don't have much of an effect, so it's not a true allergy. But I'm not having a doughnut or a piece of cake or a slice of regular pizza. And I do feel a lot better than I did three years ago.

For all of you who say it's a placebo effect--well, I didn't *want* it to be true. My partner insisted I try a gluten-free diet for a week, over my objections. Goddammit, she was right. Again.

Thanks, 80! You summed it up nicely. My job was to make burritos as efficiently as possible and give it to people it with a decent attitude. Those people actually made it harder for me to do my job because a) I inherently had to work slower and less efficiently to meet their demands and b) I cannot force myself to be chipper with every customer who is all complainy and high-maintenance, no matter how good I am at my job.

You don't seem to care if the people around you are hungry, pissed, and in a hurry, so why should we/they care if you have diarrhea for days? It's about simple decency. If you know you're going to take five to ten minutes longer just to explain your situation and force us to wash everything for you, I suggest going somewhere more palatable. This was in Bellingham, btw, which actually has an amazing level of tolerance for all kinds of food restrictions. Head up the street to the co-op, where every dish is labeled with every allergen it contains.

Anyway, by the amount of capslock you used, you seem to be pretty sure that everyone should stop what they're doing to make sure you (and anyone else) doesn't end up violently ill for days, so this argument is probably useless. If I had a food allergy that would make me really sick, you know what I'd do? Not eat out very often, because I don't expect that strangers should care about me and my specific needs.

Also kudos to 81 on this one; particularly, the last sentence.

@82,

That's why I said "supposedly", but there's another *possible* explanation for why people in poor countries don't have food allergies: they do, but people like #17 erroneously claim they don't.

But I still think the pathogen/parasite hypothesis is the most likely explanation.

And no one with a non-life-threatening food allergy or intolerance who isn't an asshole should demand that the a host cater to their unique needs

Well, I guess that's where I disagree with you and most of the commenters here. No, someone with a relatively mild food allergy shouldn't "demand" anything from a host, but a host who isn't an asshole should make an effort to accommodate all his/her guests. That Americans think it's too hard to serve some dishes without wheat or gluten demonstrates a paucity of imagination AND a shitty diet.

@88: My position is that both sides need to be reasonable. As a host with celiac, I check with guests beforehand. It's what I do. I do not expect everyone who hosts me to do the same. As a guest, I deal with my problem with as little disruption as I can, and without demanding that something special be made for me. If I determine that nothing on the menu will be edible, then I bring my own, carefully explaining to the host what my deal is, if only so they don't think I'm shitting on their cooking.

If only gluten intolerance were the only issue. With the fairly common objections/intolerances/allergies to soy, dairy, wheat, eggs, sulfites, yeast, sugars of various sorts, carbohydrates, animal products, etc., demands can stack up, and pretty soon everyone at the party is left sucking rice cereal through straws.

A little set theory: The menu shouldn't be the intersection of everyone's diets (boiled water, rice cereal), but the union (everything that would have been on the menu before the needs were accounted for, plus the special-needs stuff), and each person with special needs should assume they will be responsible for their part, unless they hear otherwise from the host or other guests.

I think it's really damn hard to tell about these kinds of things. I'm sure there are some pretentious shits who are just trying to get attention. But I've watched a friend cut certain things out of her diet, and as a result I've noticed biological differences. We're not always wondering if there's going to be a bathroom available when we go someplace, for one thing. She is more energetic and upbeat, and she's not sick as often. She always ate fairly healthy before, so it's not just that she's cut the junk out of her diet. Why is it so hard for people to believe that some foods just don't agree with other people, and that it's best for them to avoid those foods?

@90: A swing and a miss! The point, that is.

I cook at a daycare centre, so have to be aware of all allergies and sensitivities of all the children. Fine, that's my job. I may believe that a certain parent is a drama queen, making things up in order for her little snowflake to be extra special, but I'm not going to take the chance of a kid getting sick because I suspect her mom is a fool, so I follow requested restrictions.

But, yeah, it's annoying to see a child walk in the door in the morning with a big handful of the *exact same thing* I've been going to quite a lot of trouble to keep away from her for the last six months. It seems that many food restrictions last for years if *I'm* the one taking the trouble, but are discarded within a few weeks if the parent has to take responsibility. It's not just an isolated instance, either - I've seen this same pattern dozens of times over the twelve years I've been doing this job.l

What other people do and don't eat doesn't affect me, but I still find the widescale proliferation of pseudoscience annoying. You have to understand, at least 50% of my friends have decided in the last year that they have "gluten allergies." In the vast majority of cases, they're feeling better because they're not porking out on cakes, donuts, breads, pasta, etc., not because of anything inherent in the foods. I also have several friends who either have full-blown celiac or who have children with celiac, and I have nothing but sympathy for them.

From what I can see, the G-F thing is just this year's fad diet. When I was a kid, it was macrobiotics - brown rice would save us all! Then it was vegan diets. Then the anti-sugar thing, the anti-carb thing, etc.

For the vast majority of people, food is neither medicine nor poison. It will neither kill you nor cure you, provided you exercise moderation in what you choose to eat. It's just fuel. And how other people choose to fuel their bodies is really not my problem, which is why I didn't post a similar rant - I don't really care that my friends are G-F. I do care that they're trusting medical advice from some quack who would probably have been telling them to drink a quart of vinegar before each meal ten years ago, and who treats cancer with colored lights. For people with actual autoimmune disorders caused or exacerbated by celiac, cutting out gluten can be quite literally lifesaving. But for my friends who are feeling kind of sick and tired mostly because they're sedentary and eat too much, well, don't expect going G-F to cure all your ills. If you lose weight because you're eating fewer Oreos, more power to ya. But please don't proselytize to me that "all grains are poison."

Oh, and G-F has made having any kind of dinner party with our friends very, very complicated. Many are vegan, many are G-F, some have quite legitimate food allergies (I myself do react to red wines, although I've never assumed it was the sulfites - I believe it's the compounds in the grape skins)...so planning a dinner party is like, "well, we can't serve fish or bread or anything with nuts, and she can't eat dairy, and he's allergic to onions" so we kind of end up with everything being a potluck and everyone brings something THEY can eat. It's just ... complicated. But c'est la vie.

OMG, I so agree. My ex step-sister, along with my sister-in-law truly have Celiac disease, so I bake accordingly.

We are tired of having people over for dinner who tell you about their "allergies to".

Fish (not shellfish)
Tomatoes
Green Peppers (not the more expensive yellow or purple or orange ones).
Veined cheeses
Lamb
Beef
Veal
Duck
Vegetables
All Fruit

Just bring your own f*&*ing food next time!

It's not the allergies that are the problem, it's the drama. I've got a friend with Celiac. It's very easy to accommodate him. He's low-key about it, and so am I. Problem solved.

Oh, I've got another friend who hates cilantro. Says it tastes like soap. No problem. No cilantro in his food. This stuff really isn't hard at all. It's the drama that pisses everyone off.

The other side of this are parents like myself who are paranoid and protective because of four ambulance trips with our child turning blue because he had an allergic reaction to something he was previously fine with. Watching EMTs bursting his veins trying to start an IV on their 9 month old child tends to make you this way. Having daycare employees who we were assured knew how to use an epi-pen fuck it up and nearly kill him.

We have a laundry list of things we've got to watch out for and we've trained him (as much as you can train a 4 year old) to not eat certain foods no matter who says it's okay. We bring all of his food with us when we go out and we make sure to have his lunch look as close to his classmates' as possible. We make sure he's got cakes and cookies at his friends' birthday parties also. The people who really have to deal with this are typically rather self-reliant.

We hate all of the people who ARE drama queens and want to build a special school for their kids rather than just taking the time to teach their child how to politely turn down foods they can't eat.

We also hate the people who "say" they're allergic to something trendy. They make it tough for us people who *do* have real allergies.

Again, not all people who say they've got multiple food allergies as being dramatic...

@29: That's certainly a possibility. Infant morality is significantly higher in third-world countries, and maybe food allergies are part of the reason. On the other hand, maybe the germ-phobic US creates the conditions that allow for immune system overreactions. If your body deals with actual threats on a semi-regular basis, it won't throw up the white flag when it sees a peanut. It's hard to say without the kind of diagnostics you aren't going to find in third-world countries.

@48: Have you actually been to a third-world country? Not the pricy hotels where the tourists stay, but the villages where most people live? They mostly eat bread, pretty much all the time. It's cheap as fuck compared to meats, eggs, dairy, etc.

I'm not bothered by people's particular diets or allergies, and I don't mind accommodating them, as long as I have a heads up and it doesn't require an entire menu overhaul. Even if it is just a fad allergy, that's your deal it doesn't effect me and what I eat.

What bugs me is when people go on and on and ON about their food issues, real or imagined. Who cares? Tell me what I need to know to accommodate you, but I don't need to know every detail.

re @84: Dang it! I meant to address @76! Sorry!