"gluten Free Is All The Rage Now"

[mushroom]

Dr. Rodney Ford estimates that between 30 and 40% of the population react negatively to wheat

[ksymonds84]

Its that time of year when I have tons of tourists in my restaurants. I worked very hard on creating an easy to follow gluten free menu for celiac/gluten intolerant guests. My college kids work for me during the summer and they go nuts with guests saying Oh give me the french fries instead of chips and my daughter will say, its not a dedicated frier and they will say that's okay, I'm not that sensitive. It really confuses them and my other servers as well that I have trained about cc, but I try to explain that there are many on the diet for other reasons besides Celiac. I find that those of us that will get sick will absolutely follow the menu as directed. So that is my only fear with movie stars ect is that restaurant people (in other restaurants of course) will get confused and not treat cc as strict as they should.

[BethJ]

I can't believe anybody would stay on this diet unless they had to. The first time I read about celiac I was shocked at how restrictive the diet would be. I hoped it was something I'd never have to face, but here I am, not officially diagnosed, but definitely gluten intolerant. I also fit the northern European category.

I prefer to tell restaurant staff I'm allergic to wheat. They all seem to understand what allergic means. The few times I've said "gluten" I get "You can't eat WHAT?"

[K-Dawg]

Hey Georgie -- sorry to hear you spent three days on the couch. That is so very frustrating - i hate missing my life because I've been gluttened. I fear that the fad quality of this diet may lead to grave consequences for celiacs if businesses want to capitalize on the fad diet without understanding the disease. It may be that there will need to be some legislative intervention at some point with regard to using the term "gluten free"... perhaps there already are regulations on this issue...I haven't looked it up.

That is my worry too. That all these people doing gluten-free on a casual basis because it is 'trendy' are making it look bad for those of us that have Coeliac and need to be zero Gluten.

I have just had 3 days on the couch as a shop sold my hubbie some 'gluten-free' biscuits. ( that were not 100% gluten-free). When he rang back to ask and eventually complain the store owner was like - oh they are not 100% gluten-free but most people do not react to them.... like it was no big deal to eat a gluten-free food that was only 99% gluten-free ..... and had not bothered to train her staff to explain the difference between 99% gluten-free and 100% gluten-free....

If I had bought that biscuit and eaten it immediately before driving the car I could have killed myself by driving off the road. ( I would not eat a new food now before driving but I used to in my early days). As it was I spent 3 days on the couch and been in a lot of pain. Hubbie had to ring back 4x before the store even issued an apology/we will train the staff / store credit....

GRRRRRRRRR......

[Skylark]

I prefer to tell restaurant staff I'm allergic to wheat. They all seem to understand what allergic means. The few times I've said "gluten" I get "You can't eat WHAT?"

Yeah. I go with "allergic to wheat and grains". At this point I seem to be allergic to wheat as well as autoimmune so sadly I'm no longer fibbing.

[psawyer]

For those of us in Canada:

Food and Drug Regulation B.24.018

No person shall label, package, sell or advertise a food in a manner likely to create an impression that it is gluten-free unless the food does not contain wheat, including spelt and kamut, or oats, barley, rye or triticale or any part thereof.

Under this rule, gluten-free means gluten-free. It even goes so far as to say that selling "gluten-free oats" is illegal in Canada.

In the US, there is still no legally defined meaning for gluten-free.