Foreign Exchange Students

[gfteen]

Hey! I'm 15 and gluten-free for a year. I really want to study abroad or, even better, be a foreign exchange student. Of course these organizations most likely can't find celiac oriented families, so being in a new glutenous household would be quite the horrid experience. It would be perfect to find an organization with celiac families involved

Does anyone know of a group like this that can easily accomadate to the gluten-free diet?

[Lani]

hey

i wanna b an exchange student too

i study italian tho so i think it will b really hard

sorry cant help u but if u do find anything id love to hear about it

good luck

cya lani

[natalunia]

I am a host parent here in the US (first time this year!) for foreign exchange students. You would just have to ask. I know our exchange student we are getting (in August 2006), is not a celiac, and does eat gluten. I guess I will tell the group I host with that my house is gluten free for any celiacs who want to come to the US in the future. My exchange organization is CCI (Center for Cultural Interchange). I would think Japan and China would not be too hard to be gluten free, and in Finland, celiacs are normal (Mc Donalds has a gluten free burger). I hope this helps.

[Modism]

Hey! I'm 15 and gluten-free for a year. I really want to study abroad or, even better, be a foreign exchange student. Of course these organizations most likely can't find celiac oriented families, so being in a new glutenous household would be quite the horrid experience. It would be perfect to find an organization with celiac families involved

Does anyone know of a group like this that can easily accomadate to the gluten-free diet?

Sorry, don't know of any groups specifically. My family always went through the school in highschool. In university I did it through the universities as well. I'm not familar with outside organizations, I would be afraid my credits wouldn't count.

But, I think the main thing is to look into the culture before the family. When I was over in europe for my sister's exchange (france, switzerland and italy) the main diets were meat, bread and cheese. Tons of pastries, very hard to accomodate. (Though, coastal towns in Italy were fine, they ate a lot of fish, not so big on pasta and breads)

When I was in central america with my University, it was much easier. They used a lot of corn flour and ate a lot of rice; gluten wasn't in anything really. (I stayed in a few spanish speaking countries) Though, they did have a hard time understanding what meat was. "I don't eat meat" "so you can have chicken?" "No, no animal products" "so you can have fish" "no, no meat" "so... shellfish?" ugh. I had to learn all the spanish words for every kind of meat out there.

So, avoid cultures where bread, pastries, etc. are a big deal. US, Canada, Australia, Asia, Northern Europe should be fine. Though, people can be ignorant anywhere.

I was heading to Iceland, when the school told me that a vegetarian/vegan diet would be near impossible to accommodate. This is why some people travelling eat meat even though they're vegetarians, sometimes it's just impossible to do. Being celiac though, you can't just give up and eat gluten.

Choose the country wisely.