Ridiculous Conversations

[Auntie-Manda]

This morning I was thinking... I should write a book about all the ridiculous conversations I've had with people about gluten free diet, etc. I'll bet there are lots of stories out there... let's share. Laughing is a good way to cope, right?

 

So I told my coworker (who is also my aunt) that gluten-free diet cleared up my daily migraines (she has migraines often as well). Her response: "well I know that isn't the problem because Aunt F has celiac and she still gets migraines even though she's gluten-free". Sigh. Ok...

 

Here's another one:

LL: did I hear you are wheat free?

Me: yes. Well, I'm gluten-free, which is wheat free.

LL: Well, not all wheat has gluten.

Me: it does...

LL: No, there's this unaltered strain of wheat that some amish farmer in NY has.

Me: Ok, well I don't have access to that, so I'm wheat free. 

LL: *goes on to discuss just starting wheat free and seeing a big difference, and using coconut wheat (?!?) as a substitution*

Me: Well that's good. So wheat is definitely a problem for you, huh?
LL: For sure. I ate pizza all weekend and I'm paying the price now!

[w8in4dave]

OMG I cannot even think about eating Pizza all weekend!! I make Hubbs cook his own pizza! Lol 

 

Thats like my Daughter telling me she went Gluten free.. About a month later I asked he if she was still Gluten free she said yes. One day she was coming over and was taking a while. I texted her and asked what the hold up was, she said she had to take the kids to lunch they were hungry. I say really? Where did you go? She said  "Panara" <-spelling sorry     ?????? I didn't say a word...  She is Gluten free when she wants to be. 

[cap6]

Many people are that way especially once they discover this way of life isn't as easy as it sounded!. 

[notme]

O MY GAWD YOU CAN'T EAT ANYTHING!!!  yes i can - just not the crap you're eating............

 

i love the "i think i have that" people, who, as soon as they hear how strict you need to be, abandon the idea that they could have a problem.  "oh.  i don't have *that* - that's too hard."  oh, brrrrotherrrrr 

[Auntie-Manda]

Right? I HATE when people are like, "oh, I couldn't do that!" Yes, yes you could, if your health depended on it, and if you felt miserable for a week after eating a cracker. My 2nd most hated comment is, "that's so expensive, though!" Ok, well, forgetting the halthcare and medication required to NOT be gluten-free, may I remind you that rice is cheap, fruits & veggies & meat don't cost more than what you pay... it's only expensive if you buy the gluten-free versions of food that has gluten in it. And not being able to eat at resturants sure saves ME a lot of money!

[w8in4dave]

My friend has Crohns she told me. I don't know how you can just say to your self you have to stop eating all that stuff and do it!! I said "if it ment stoping all or most of your symptoms you would do what you have to do" She said "I am not so sure I could do it"  What ever!! 

[eers03]

Its now entertaining to me that "others" think they are somehow eating better food than I am.  Not true.  You had a combo from Wendy's on the way home from work?  You're right, I'm missing out.... Or not...

[ItchyAbby]

This thread is great! Being a newb at this, I am getting hit with all these things for the first time. I imagine these questions and comments are common:

 

"What do you eat?" (often accompanied by a truly alarmed look) I want to answer: "Oh, you know, twigs" But I keep trying to remember that this may be a teachable moment, so I tell them all the things that I can eat until their eyes glaze over.

 

and

 

"That must be so hard" No. No, it's not. It's not always easy, but compared to being covered in the devilspawn-lovechild of poison oak and shingles that is DH, eating gluten free is a cake walk.

[w8in4dave]

Gluten free cake walk  

[NateJ]

I'm pretty sure I've had everyone of these converstations at least 5 times each.

My favorite is always " oh i could never do that"

Or the fake interest. I get tired of talking about it, like if i hear the word gluten one more time i may have a nervous breakdown.

[moosemalibu]

I'm pretty sure I've had everyone of these converstations at least 5 times each.

My favorite is always " oh i could never do that"

Or the fake interest. I get tired of talking about it, like if i hear the word gluten one more time i may have a nervous breakdown.

I'm pretty certain I have had a nervous breakdown!

[africanqueen99]

This is all new to me - the mother of a toddler celiac (and probably getting the DX for a school age celiac on Monday), but I think I'm going to scream bloody murder if one more person tells me it's not a big deal.  Even my husband's aunt told us that since gluten-free food is easy to find that this is going to be easy.

 

In less than a month I've had my baby girl get DX, de-gluted my entire house and repurchased all the essentials, spent hours figuring out what I need to do with my beauty products (I'm still nursing) and had a meeting with the director of her early childhood center.  Please allow me my freaking pity party and let me state that it's a very big deal!!  I am the mother - it's MY job to make sure she gets better!  And *I* am the one that hears my other kids get tearful when they really want a cheese-it or a spaghetio.  So now I'm making it my mission to be better in the kitchen so I can help those kids not resent the baby.

 

Sigh...  At least the people here get it.

[Pegleg84]

My favourite one recently was while asking about the menu at a new bar. They were very accommodating to dietary needs, and have good gluten-free beer, so I did just fine, but anyway:

 

Me: I'm gluten free, and can't eat soy or dairy.

Server (I think she might have been the owner, actually): oh, are you on a cleanse?

Me: uhhh, a permanent one, I guess.

server: Oh, you must have great skin now.

Me: um, maybe, can't say I've noticed, but sure...

 

*face plant*

 

They did make things for me sans soy/gluten and I did just fine, so will definitely go back sometime, but MAN! total hipster-trendy-health-craze-myth alert!!

[NateJ]

I'm pretty certain I have had a nervous breakdown!

Maybe i have and just don't notice. ignorance is bliss

 

I'm thinking of adding a sig to my posts here that just says "intolerant to everything"

[moosemalibu]

My favourite one recently was while asking about the menu at a new bar. They were very accommodating to dietary needs, and have good gluten-free beer, so I did just fine, but anyway:

 

Me: I'm gluten free, and can't eat soy or dairy.

Server (I think she might have been the owner, actually): oh, are you on a cleanse?

Me: uhhh, a permanent one, I guess.

server: Oh, you must have great skin now.

Me: um, maybe, can't say I've noticed, but sure...

 

*face plant*

 

They did make things for me sans soy/gluten and I did just fine, so will definitely go back sometime, but MAN! total hipster-trendy-health-craze-myth alert!!

 

She sure wouldn't say that to someone with DH.... jeez...

[w8in4dave]

At a friends house just soon after I found out I had Celiac. She made Riffle soup, I said Ohhhh darn I can't eat that!! Darn it!! She said what can I do different so you can eat it? I said use Gluten free flour. She said well besides that. Lol I said actually there is nothing you can do  

[Auntie-Manda]

Lol. These are funny.

[LauraTX]

For me, the most annoying thing ever is the people who think reading a few articles on the internet gives them a medical degree and makes them an expert at your problems.  I have lupus, celiac, and I also lack part of my natural immune system, and I always tell people the minimum amount necessary because I have heard the most ridiculous crap from people who barely know me and my health history.  Some times I am not nice about it, if they are strangers and are very intrusive.  Also the whole saying it is a fad, etc. will get you a scientific lecture.  I tutored science to eat my way through college, so I WILL make sure you understand by the time I am done with you!

 

Also I am surprised no one has put, on the list of silly things said to celiacs:

 

Me: "I can't have gluten."

From an RN:  "Oh, so glucose? So you are a diabetic?"

 

After ordering a milkshake from sonic and asking them to clean the stirry stick since I cant have gluten which is in the oreos and pie pieces, the employee came out after a long time without the item and said sweetly,

"You can't have gluten?  Well there is a lot of sugar in this, we just want to make sure that is okay."

Luckily that was an opportunity to educate and when I see her there I will make a U-turn when driving past and go get a milkshake in confidence

 

"What DO you eat?"- I will list off all the delicious food I made myself in the last few weeks.

 

 

And on a more humorous note, things my husband has lovingly said to me:

 

"-redacted dirty thing- is gluten free!"   (if you are a married woman, use your imagination here, haha) 

He got slapped over that!

 

"You are my silly yak girl"

 

At petsmart: "I wonder if they have any silly yak food for you here?"  

That got a dirty look from me, but I was cracking up!

[Juliebove]

Its now entertaining to me that "others" think they are somehow eating better food than I am.  Not true.  You had a combo from Wendy's on the way home from work?  You're right, I'm missing out.... Or not...

Yes!  I originally made the entire house gluten-free but husband became angry because he no longer had his sandwiches.  He loves pizza too but we don't, gluten-free or not so I'm sure he doesn't get that as often as he'd like but...  I eventually bought premade sandwiches and then went back to making them after I got my daughter her own little fridge. 

 

He knew that I was paying more for her food and knew that we were keeping it separate, only because he and my parents couldn't understand the diet.  They kept trying to feed daughter stuff that she shouldn't have and she wasn't quiite old enough to read the labels to know.  So between the fridge and the card table (have since bought a shelving unit), they knew that whatever food was there was safe for her to eat.

 

Then one day, husband pitched a fit and said that "we" were eating better quality food than he was!  I don't have to eat gluten-free but have other food intolerances as does daughter.  So I had to buy other special things that were free of peanuts, dairy, eggs and other common foods.  He couldn't understand this.  Instead of being thankful that he could eat cheap stuff if he so chose, like regular pasta and white bread, he claimed I was feeding him the cheap, crappy stuff and we were getting the higher quality stuff.  Mm hm.

[Juliebove]

At a friends house just soon after I found out I had Celiac. She made Riffle soup, I said Ohhhh darn I can't eat that!! Darn it!! She said what can I do different so you can eat it? I said use Gluten free flour. She said well besides that. Lol I said actually there is nothing you can do

Curious now.  What is riffle soup?

[Juliebove]

Got into an argument with my mom the other day who herself has multiple food intolerances but perhaps is senile (we think she is) and doesn't realize it but is also super stubborn and has always just done what she wanted, whether it was the smart thing to do or not.  And she lives in denial.  Says she will not eat eggs (eggs make her sick) then orders waffles and can't figure out why she is sick.  Well, she didn't eat EGGS!  She ate waffles!  Also tried to tell me that there was no egg in Avgolemeno soup.  It was cream in there.  Not eggs!  The woman doesn't cook, so she has no clue.  I've made the stuff.  Anyway...

 

She kept suggesting places for us to eat at where we couldn't go.  To complicate things, daughter is now a vegetarian and both of us have multiple food intolerances.  I can't eat chicken.  So someone suggested The Rock.  It's a pizza place with burgers, salads topped with chicken and beer battered fries.  I told SIL that the only thing I could eat there was a plain hamburger patty.  Can't have the bun or the fries.  So she tells me that they have salads. Yeah.  Salads with CHICKEN!  Daughter can't have those either and she needs more than a dinky dinner salad.  Plus we don't want to have to sit through another meal with you all eating stuff that we can't have.  Sure, I know that could happen anywhere but at least give us some options for our meal! 

 

So once again, my mom suggested The Rock and some other place that literally had no options for us.  And when I said, "no", she got nasty with me and demanded to know why but added, "And don't use your food issues as an excuse!"  So all I could do was shake my head and tell her that I didn't know why.

[Juliebove]

Before I knew much about the gluten-free diet, my neighbor suggested putting my daughter on it to see if it would help her.  She added that it hadn't helped with her daughter though and she had tried it for a full two weeks.  So I said something like...  "But isn't it hard to do?"  She told me that it was easy.  Just feed the kid rice instead of bread.  And what kind of rice did she give her?  Rice A Roni!  Mm hm. 

 

This is the same woman who told me that she put all of her kids on a low sodium diet because heart problems ran on her husband's side of the family.  I blinked my eyes at her and asked her why then she was giving them Gatorade?  Not only was she giving it to them but it was the only thing she allowed them to drink.  As she was telling me that Gatorade had no sodium in it, her husband walked in.  He's a runner.  He blinked at her too and told her that it was loaded with sodium.  She became angry with the two of us but finally read the label, fell silent and put it back in the cupboard.  Yes, she served it from the cupboard and put the opened bottle back in there.  She had some reason (not sure why) that they could only have it at room temp.  Mm hm.

[w8in4dave]

Had pulled pork sandwiches today Hubbs got himself some wheat buns! I was shocked! Usually I would get Wheat and he'd get white. So when everything was done he said Look! I got you some buns. I said Dave sweetie I cannot eat that! He looked at them and looked at me. He said their whole wheat, I said hunny I cannot eat wheat .. He just got that look like ughhh what was I thinking? Poor guy!! Lucky for me I had some UDI's bread in the freezer He ate the whole wheat and was happy with it! I guess it's the thought that counts.  

[Rucko]

When visiting family after being diagnosed with celiac, my father-in-law got out a loaf of home-made bread and told me I would be able to eat some of it because he didn't put gluten in it.  He proceeded to get out a package of Vital Wheat Gluten and assure me he hadn't used it.  My husband said "it doesn't matter, it already has gluten in it" but his dad seemed skeptical...

[w8in4dave]

Rucko I do miss home made bread!! I used to make home made bread every day!! I used to make pizza dough Yup I used to add Gluten to it!! I  have got to make some home made gluten-free bread I havn't gotten the nerve yet.. It seems to take so many ingredients .. I just haven't made the list and done it yet!! But man hubbs loved my bread!!