Gluten Free-for-All

(July 25, 2013) Hear the audio version

Have you been hearing the term gluten-free more lately? Well, I have, and I don’t think it’s only because my daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease 21 years ago, and therefore follows a strict—and I mean strict—gluten-free diet: no wheat, barley, rye, or contaminated oats … ever. Even a crumb makes Molly violently ill. Long-term exposure could give her cancer. As her activist mother I’ve been promoting awareness about gluten and celiac disease for more than two decades. I thought it helped keep Molly safe and healthy.

Now I’m not so sure. Gluten-free is no longer an obscure food restriction; it’s a full-fledged fad and diet trend. Celebrities trumpet the supposed weight-loss properties of going gluten-free. It’s baloney. There are thousands more gluten-free products available than 20 years ago, but few would be considered “diet” fare. Even restaurants have jumped in. Ironically, that has made it harder for celiacs to go out to eat.

Why? Chefs used to come to our table when Molly ordered her meal. Now almost all servers know about gluten, but they underestimate its seriousness for celiacs. Awareness has led to complacency. In the last year Molly has gotten sick after eating at restaurants she used to be able to enjoy.

A national pizza chain promotes its gluten-free pizza, but it’s not safe for celiacs because of cross-contamination: all pizzas are made in the same kitchen and sliced with the same knives. Talk about exploiting a trend! As Dr. Stefano Guandalini, president of the North American Society for the Study of Celiac Disease said, “A product is either gluten-free or it is not.”

After extensive pressure from the celiac community, in February the FDA sent to the White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs a new set of rules dictating what foods can be labeled gluten-free. Yet nothing has been done about it.

Which is is too bad, because after the gluten-free bandwagon pulls out of town, there will still be millions of true celiacs in this country who could use the government’s help staying safe and healthy. It’s time to act, Mr. President.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

Life Without Gluten

(February 7, 2012) Hear the audio version

 Twenty years ago this month I first heard the word gluten, as in, “Ask your daughter’s doctor to check for gluten intolerance.” It came from a colleague of my husband’s down south in response to our pre-Internet SOS call for ideas why our 20-month-old daughter was wasting away before our eyes, and the eyes of the 54 physicians who had studied her malady over the previous three months. A biopsy taken four days later confirmed that Molly’s malnutrition was indeed caused by undiagnosed celiac disease. Right away she went on a gluten-free diet: no wheat, barley, rye, or (in those days) oats. Corn and rice were her grains of choice. We were told she’d never be able to have pasta, pizza, or decent-tasting bread, cakes or cookies.

But she would live. Food was, and still is her medicine. That’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed for celiacs in the last 20 years. Yet I refused to doom my kid to a diet of mushy pasta and doorstopper bread. I went to work finding and developing recipes the entire family would enjoy. I incorporated into my baking new whole-grain flours, some of which were old-world: sorghum, amaranth, brown rice, quinoa, teff, flax, buckwheat. Mercifully, gluten-free products started showing up on supermarket shelves, not just in specialty stores. Gluten-free bakeries opened. Restaurants offered gluten-free menu items. And gluten-free products were the hottest trend at last month’s Fancy Food Show in San Francisco!

Yet for Molly and the other one in 133 Americans who have celiac disease, or the even larger percentage of the public with a degree of gluten intolerance, gluten-free is not a fad, trend or choice. “Cheating” puts celiacs at increased risk for developing other autoimmune disorders and even cancer. Any cure for celiac disease, such as a pill containing an enzyme to break down the protein in gluten, is proving more elusive than we thought 10 years ago. But it shouldn’t continue to be so difficult for doctors to diagnose celiac disease—many adults still suffer symptoms for years.

It’s not a scary diagnosis. And there are some pretty tasty gluten-free brownies out there.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.

Just call me the Halloween Scrooge

(October 31, 2007) Hear the audio version

It’s Halloween, and boy, am I looking forward to . . . Thanksgiving.

I hate Halloween. There – I’ve said it. I didn’t even like it when I was a kid and never knew what I was going to “be.” Throw on some old, oversized clothes and pretend to be a beatnik – again? What a fraud! And it wasn’t as if I could whip up something on the Singer. I failed sewing in Home Ec. When I had my own children, they looked to me for costume ideas. Uh-oh. We went the catalog route for several years. I was in BIG trouble if I hadn’t ordered the princess, or pirate outfit in midsummer, when all the “hot” costumes were still available. My children’s elementary school had a costume parade every Halloween. Talk about pressure!

And speaking of “hot,” a walk down the costume aisle of Target or Long’s offers the narrowest range of possibilities for adult females who care to dress up for Halloween: French maid, “Deluxe bunny, “sexy witch” . . are the people making these costumes aware there was a feminist revolution forty years ago?

Lots of people lament the sugar overload on Halloween, but what about kids who can’t have the candy? Halloween is the worst day of the year for those with food allergies, because candy is teeming with common food allergens – nuts, wheat, milk, soy, you name it. My gluten-intolerant daughter never knew what to say: “Trick or treat, but is it gluten-free?” Poor kid: we made her hand over 90 percent of her candy to her sisters. And school is a mine field of poisons on Halloween – parties in elementary school and “candy grams” in my daughter’s high school. She’ll stay home today, rather than be sick for the next week.

If you are like many and enjoy this “holiday,” go ahead. Drape spider webs from your balcony, dress up as Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld – now that’s scary.

But if you’re like me and feel like turning off the porch light and hiding in a back room to read a book, know you are not alone. If you want to talk about the book, well, we could have our own Halloween party. But please, no costumes. Or candy.

With a Perspective, I’m Debbie Duncan.