Daughter Needs College Roommate In Fl Fall 09

[Cath4k]

Hi all,

I don't really know where to put this, so I hope it is okay that I am crossposting it.

This may be a weird message, but my celiac daughter will be heading off to college next fall. She is already accepted at USF (Tampa) and UCF (Orlando). UCF has told her that they can give her a single room with a kitchen, while USF says they do not have that available. The best they have is a double (as of right now, I don't know if they will be able to work something out.)

She would have to get her own apartment for USF (very, very pricey and not convenient to be off campus) and the single room at UCF is a year lease (also very pricey.) She would prefer to have a roommate on campus at either school, but USF is her first choice school.

Does anyone have a daughter planning to go to one of these universities next fall? We figure it never hurts to ask!

My dd is a very sensitive celiac and cannot risk cross contamination issues at all.

Thanks!

Cathy

[ShayFL]

Hey Cathy!

I hope someone responds. My Hubby teaches at USF. He is a History Prof.

You might also consider Craig's List. Just be specific that you are looking for someone that is Celiac or Gluten Intolerant. Or someone who follows a grain free diet would be good too.

The good news is there are lots of places around Tampa to get gluten-free foods.

[SunnyDyRain]

You may want to think about if your daughter REALLY needs a Celiac roommate. Usually your first year of college you eat mostly in the cafeteria and they will have to accommodate her meals, changes are she will not be the first or only one, and if she is, then they will have to learn. As for in room eating, it will require your daughter's roomate to be careful and mindful but i live with a gluten eating person and have never gotten glutened from sharing a microwave or fridge. At work I share a kitchen with 40 gluten eating people, still ok!

She may have to be extra vigilant but it should not keep her from her college of choice!

[wildwood]

My daughter is a freshman in college and while food services does their best to accomodate her she has had many cc issues. We are looking into accomodations for her (I am hoping we can have something in place next semester) so she can have her own kitchen. She is tired of not having control and having to deal with not feeling well after eating something she thought was safe. She is vigilant, but unfortuately that is not good enough and it gets a little demoralizing. I think even if she shares a unit with someone who does not have a gluten intolerance it will still be a better situation for her because she will be able to control her environment a little better. The other problem with trying to stick with a meal plan is that so many of the offered foods are processed and most processed foods contain gluten. Her diet has become very monotonous. Salad, grilled chicken, or gluten free pasta with oil or butter (all sauces offered including marinara have gluten in them) day in, day out. I do not feel it is healthy to have so little variety in her diet. IMO if you can get your daughter into her own place with a kitchen she will be better off.

I wish your daughter the best of luck. This is such an exciting time for her!!!!!

[DarkIvy]

As a college student, here's my .02:

Having a gluten-free roommate will be darn near impossible to find. If it happens, AWESOME, but let's be real. The odds of that happening are incredibly slim.

I would think that having a gluten-free roommate wouldn't be all that necessary, especially if you can't get her into a room with a kitchen. I've lived in various communal situations since college and let me be frank: having a gluten-free roommate was the least of my concerns. I was always far more concerned about what the dorm/restaurant/sorority chef were trying to feed me. I bought my own mini fridge (Target usually sells them at the beginning of the school year for $60-100 a piece. Well worth the money, IMO) and stocked it with my own stuff, and that helped a lot. I also illegally brought my own toaster oven, rice maker, and crock pot. Most schools don't do random room checks, and if they are checking for anything, they're checking for weed or alcohol. Most room checks are provoked, so I would say as long as your daughter and her roommate don't give the RAs any reason to search, she should be golden in terms of sneaking in appliances.

If she can get a room with a kitchen, that really is her best bet. The dorm food here, when I finally did go gluten-free was not even an option. Other gluten-free students that I met said that the dining services merely gave them a calender with gluten-free items highlighted, and after a couple months even that stopped. The food was repetitive, and CC was a huge, huge issue since they didn't make us special meals, they just told us what was gluten-free and let us have what was already sitting out. My school was a big fan of processed and breaded foods of all kinds. There was soy sauce or breading or pasta or something in nearly they made. When I did risk eating in the dorms, I usually ate plain meat (or lunch meat, when regular meat wasn't an option, which was right next to the bread and we all know how that goes...), salad, and fruit. It was a very plain, simple, repetitive diet. I always left feeling hungry and jealous of everyone else for eating their pizza/pasta/grilled cheese/bagel/whatever in front of me while I ate plain salad. Even the salad bar made me sick from CC, though, so I gave up. During this time, I kept a lot of gluten-free frozen dinners and yogurt in my mini fridge, and I ate out at a lot of local restaurants. THAT got pricey. I live in an area where most sit down restaurants can safely feed a celiac, but it wasn't a perfect system and it was expensive.

I understand that having her own apartment or dorm with a kitchen is a pricey option, but it's the best way to go. I've had to withdraw from two different semesters because I was sick so often from gluten that I was failing all of my classes. Trust me, in the long run, paying for those two semesters worth of classes, housing, food, books, and everything else... and not getting a single credit hour for them is a lot worse than shelling out the extra cash for safe accommodations.

In the end though, I don't necessarily think that having a non-gluten-free roommate is going to hurt her, so long as they can reach and understanding. Most people are flexible with this stuff, and like I said, if she brings in all her own stuff, it shouldn't be an issue. I had some weird roommates in my day, but they left my stuff alone.

I currently live in an apartment off campus with my boyfriend, who is not gluten free. I'm pretty sensitive to gluten, but I haven't had many issues, and he's *very* careless in the kitchen. He leaves his stuff out, forgets to wipe down counters, etc. I've learned that to stay safe, I need to do certain things before I cook or eat, such as wiping surfaces down, making sure my dishes are spotless, making sure he didn't drink the juice right out of the container, lol.

Worst case scenario, she'll get someone who isn't that respectful, but she'll just have to be extra careful about cleaning everything before she cooks. And even if she does have to risk a bit of CC in her private dorm kitchen, it's still LOADS better than risking CC in the dorms. Best case scenario, she'll end up with someone who is kind and respectful. Generally speaking, when people go to college, they are freaked out and lonely and want to make friends. Freshmen are usually the most open minded students. She might not end up with another celiac, but she *may* end up with someone who actually "gets it" for the most part and will leave her stuff in the kitchen alone.

That said, if you can find someone else who is gluten-free, well that would be perfect. I would suggest calling the housing centers at both schools and making a note that your daughter prefers someone else who follows the diet. If someone else requests that specifically, too, you might just have a match. You never know, those are both large schools- surely someone else has celiac. The problem is, without someone else disclosing it and requesting a roommate like that specifically it might not ever come up. I'd say it's worth a shot, though.

[Cath4k]

Thanks everyone!

I didn't want my first post to be too long, so I will clarify a few things now.

She absolutely will NOT be eating on the mandatory food plan. She has already been told she can exempt out of it with a letter from her doctor.

Consequently she WILL be in an apartment with a kitchen. It is just a matter of whether or not she can be on campus with a roommate to bring costs down and not have to be in a year-long lease.

As of right now, she is understandably pretty unwilling to share a kitchen with gluten. She is highly, highly sensitive to any form of cross contamination. She currently is on SCD and we make everything from scratch. The only processed foods she eats is coconut oil, olive oil, tomato juice, dried spices, honey, and a couple teas. We have called every company of any processed item that is in our house to make sure the company guarantees there is no risk of cross contamination. We have verified that every item she uses on her body is gluten-free. We research any medicine she uses and compound it if necessary. She is SERIOUSLY gluten free.

She is going in with a state scholarship that pays 100% tuition and it is dependent on keeping her grades up. She is also in the running for a very large scholarship at each school as a National Merit Semifinalist. If she gets that, she will also have to keep her GPA up to keep her scholarship. Additionally, she plans on going to medical school and cannot afford to have her grades drop because of that. So, she has multiple reasons why she CANNOT get sick because of mistakes on the part of other people. I understand the thought that she would just have to clean really well, but considering she will already have to take all the time to cook every single meal from scratch, she really doesn't want the added burden of cleaning up after all her roommates. Right now she can't even pick up a raw apple and eat it. She has a lot of labor involved just in feeding herself.

People - even well-meaning people - just don't think sometimes. All it takes is one time for them to "share" off her cooked food or use one of her cutting boards or ...whatever...

I know it will be nearly impossible to find a gluten-free roommate. I just thought this would be the best place to ask.

Blessings,

Cathy

[Cath4k]

My daughter is a freshman in college and while food services does their best to accomodate her she has had many cc issues. We are looking into accomodations for her (I am hoping we can have something in place next semester) so she can have her own kitchen. She is tired of not having control and having to deal with not feeling well after eating something she thought was safe. She is vigilant, but unfortuately that is not good enough and it gets a little demoralizing. I think even if she shares a unit with someone who does not have a gluten intolerance it will still be a better situation for her because she will be able to control her environment a little better. The other problem with trying to stick with a meal plan is that so many of the offered foods are processed and most processed foods contain gluten. Her diet has become very monotonous. Salad, grilled chicken, or gluten free pasta with oil or butter (all sauces offered including marinara have gluten in them) day in, day out. I do not feel it is healthy to have so little variety in her diet. IMO if you can get your daughter into her own place with a kitchen she will be better off.

I wish your daughter the best of luck. This is such an exciting time for her!!!!!

Does she want to transfer to Florida?? LOL.

Cathy

[ShayFL]

I can ask around at my next Celiac Support meeting in Tampa. It is in December though. I can also shoot an email to the woman who runs the group. Never know. Could be someone has a big house and is gluten-free and could take on a boarder with shared kitchen. I did this for a few semesters (I wasnt gluten-free then) but found a great lady with a big house who traveled a lot. Rent was cheap. I had to walk her dog when she was gone. It worked great!

Just keep looking! I will send out some lines......

[DarkIvy]

If you're that concerned about it, I'd probably just count on getting either a single apartment with kitchen on campus, or getting her a place off campus right off the bat, unless by some miracle you do find her another celiac to live with.

That said, even if you do find another celiac, it seems like you guys are very, very, very strict. What if you had her living with a celiac that does bring in processed foods or whatever else? Glutino snack bars and Pamela's cookies and such? I think you'd run the risk of finding a celiac who isn't as careful with food or is a lot more lenient: goes out to eat, risks certain "sketchy" processed foods (Amy's frozen dinners come to mind... those saved me my sophomore year).

Unfortunately, when it comes to college + celiac, I've found that you can't always have your cake and eat it too. It's a bit isolating at times. Do you know just how many activities in college revolve around food? When I first found out I couldn't have gluten, I felt really isolated because I suddenly couldn't eat with my friends. I've skipped certain sorority things because of food, or just felt plain awkward when I had to bring my own stuff and people who didn't know me as well asked me if being gluten-free made me loose lots of weight. It's unbelievable how many people assume its some sort of fad diet. Every club on campus offers pizza at their meetings. Going to parties with friends could be weird if everyone started asking why I was the only one not drinking beer. Granted you can always make up some story about how you're the designated driver or don't like crappy key light, I prefer to tell the truth. People's reactions can be both positive and negative, so you just never know. Recently, a newer member of my sorority who didn't know me very well said "I thought you couldn't eat bread" in a really nasty tone of voice when I was eating a sandwich on gluten-free bread. I mean, yeesh.

I've found that for me, balance came when I was able to find a way to socialize around the food. I didn't want to live alone, so I compromised with living with my boyfriend. Clumsy as he is, he's the most understanding about the disease and we've both been learning to be more and more careful. If my friends go out to eat, I try to pick a restaurant that can accommodate me or I bring my own food. I bring my own booze to frat parties now, haha. I do go out to eat more than I would, mostly because I want to socialize. The key is to find places that are knowledgeable about what's in the food and are very understanding about CC and allergies.

The point is, I've had to make certain compromises in order to have a "life" on campus. Not having a meal plan was isolating. Not eating the food in the sorority house was isolating. Skipping out on free food events felt isolating, too.

If you can, see if there are any local support groups, or any clubs on campus that relate to gluten-free. This might be a good way for her to find a roommate, or to have a place of understanding on campus when she gets there. If she gets a roommate, or even if she doesn't, encourage her to find some outside activities to keep her occupied, whether its clubs, intramurals, or something. While these things can be frustrating in that they're always offering food (at least at my school), the company is still nice. In my experience, the dorms and cafeterias are really where freshmen bond, so she might need to find another way to meet other freshmen and hang out.

Good luck with everything!

[SGWhiskers]

Maybe you can find someone who is highly allergic to nuts or seafood. They may be more willing to go gluten-free in order to be assured of a roomie that won't bring home an allergen.

I wish your daughter well in school. She sounds like a young woman you can be proud of. I hope you find a cost effective and safe housing arrangement.

SGWHISKERS

[wildwood]

Does she want to transfer to Florida?? LOL.

Cathy

LOL!! Maybe she would consider it. She called me yesterday to tell me it was snowing at her campus. Sunshine might tempt her