I Lost My Best Friend

I have a friend who has never let me down.  This friend lifts my spirits when I'm down, makes me feel warm and loved, accepts me for who I am, makes my problems take a back seat, fills me up, and is always, always, always there for me...until now.  Until 2011, food was my most trustworthy companion.

Now I have been diagnosed with celiac, and my one true, lifelong friend has become my enemy.  I've endured pain off and on for many years, but no one ever hinted that it could be my good, close friend that was hurting me.  Then last year my safe little world began to crumble, like the cakes and pies I so enjoyed baking and consuming.

I'm left feeling betrayed by my friend.  I am angry and hurt.  Sometimes I slip back into denial, and have to experience the betrayal all over again to return to the reality that gluten causes me to feel like I've swallowed broken glass, and it is slowly working its way through my digestive tract.

I know right now "Gluten Free" is the new "Low Fat."  Everyone thinks they can't have gluten.  Here's a crash course in what celiac is all about.  It is NOT gluten intolerance.

Inside your digestive tract, you have these little tiny fingery looking things called villi....they sort of look like shag carpet lining your intestines.  When these little fingers are all plump and happy, standing up at attention, they suck the nutrients out of the food you eat.  Those nutrients are what power your body and give you the vitamins and minerals you need to do all the wonderful things God designed you to do.

In a person with celiac, gluten causes the shag carpet to lose its body and to lay down flat.  the villi aren't able to absorb the nutrients.  Basically, a person can be eating all the food in the world, but if they have celiac, and they ate gluten, they can die from malnutrition because their body isn't absorbing any of the nutrients from the food they eat.

So...eating gluten can, quite simply, kill a person with celiac.

Tonight, I am laying her suffering because at some point in the past week I had gluten when I didn't realize it.  Gluten hides in lots of places...try reading some labels one day...just for fun.
Gluten is in: wheat flour, modified food starch,caramel color, MSG, "natural flavors," and maltodextrin, as well as any food containing wheat, rye, barley or spelt.

For someone with celiac, "gluten free" isn't enough.  If a gluten-free product comes into contact with anything containing gluten, that's all it takes.  For instance, Mellow Mushroom makes a gluten free pizza crust, but they use the same pans and utensils and cooking space to prepare it that they do for regular crust...so for someone with celiac, the pizza is no longer "gluten free."  If a gluten-free product is made in a factory that also produces gluten products, we can't have it.  Celiac disease is NOT just gluten intolerance.

Please take just a second to check out more information about celiac disease.  And remember, when you meet someone with celiac and they watch you eat that cookie like they've lost their best friend...it might be because they did.

More information about Celiac Disease