A world becoming obsessed with eating healthy and clean
eating is supposed to be a good thing, isn’t it?
To me and the many other coeliacs around the world it is
ruining our lives. I’ve done many rants like this on my personal Facebook, they
always end up with people telling me I am over reacting, but I’m not.
Being a part of an active community, I have several ‘health
nuts’ let’s call them on my Facebook. For the past year I have had to see them
put up posts and photos about their new Gluten free diets and I have to bite my
tongue. I make my position on this subject extremely clear and am finally
writing this post to explain in further detail why the gluten free fad diet is
ruining my life.
I’d like to say before I start that I have nothing against
those who are trying a gluten free diet for medical reasons. I personally know
that you don’t have to be medically diagnosed to know something doesn’t agree
with you. I can’t eat too many apples, they make me feel sick but I don’t have
a fructose intolerance.
I also am not having a go at anyone who wants to live a
healthy lifestyle. Eating right and exercising daily is important to your
wellbeing not only physically but mentally as well. My problem is with those
who treat gluten free like the next biggest weight loss secret, or a miracle
diet that will keep them alive longer. It’s not; it is a horrific upheaval of
lifestyle for most people.
Coeliacs, gluten intolerance and gluten-sensitivity are a
life challenge that we have to get up and face everyday; it’s simple, we eat
any amount of gluten and we end up incredibly ill. It costs us hundreds of more
dollars than ‘normal’ people for us to eat. I pay $6AUD for a loaf of bread when
my partner can buy one for $1AUD. I pay an extra $5AUD for pizza and on average
have to pay an extra $3AUD in a restaurant for gluten free pasta. We can’t just
go to the bakery and get a muffin. I have to travel across town buy meat pies,
which cost $7AUD each!
The fact is that the Gluten free fad dieters belittle and
hinder the problems we have to face.
You are probably asking how does it do that? Or if more people are eating gluten-free, doesn’t
that mean that a larger amount of gluten-free products will come out on the
market, making it easier for you to eat?
Yes, yes it does but it creates its own whirl wind of
problems; It’s simple. As the number of people cutting gluten out of their diet
as part of the latest diet trend, thanks to celebrities and healthy living
personalities increases, people forget that coeliacs is a larger issue. They
forget that cross contamination like chopping my bread and normal bread on the
same chopping board will leave me in bed for days because they don’t take me
seriously anymore! When I ask for a gluten free option at a restaurant most
waitresses roll their eyes believing I’m one of those fad dieters. How can I be
sure that they aren’t just going to give me a normal meal and claim that it is
gluten free? I’ve once had a chef when we complained that there was pasta in
our GF rice dish tell me to take my complaint about my make up disease to some
one who cares. This is what you are doing to us!
It has become so much harder to eat out at restaurants now
then it was three or four years ago. Our gluten free options are being stuffed
in the same display windows as the wheat filled food, sometimes touching
meaning we can’t eat them due to cross contamination. All because
no one thinks of Coeliacs as a life threatening allergy. It’s true that we don’t
need an epi-pen and that our symptoms may not be instantaneous but our disease or
allergy is serious. We are being belittled in the face of those wanting to be
on trend and I’m sick of it.
Another result of these fad diets is that my bread is
becoming harder to buy, the fad dieters are snapping it up because they think
it is healthier for them. Please, I beg you to stick to the whole wheat breads
instead of taking away the product that myself and others rely on as our only
available option.
There are healthier ways to live and trust me it isn’t a
gluten free diet because I am no super model and I have to eat that way. Please
stop helping creating the illusion that coeliacs is a joke and help myself and
the others out there that medically need to avoid gluten at all costs stay safe
in the world.
This was a bit of a longwinded post but it is something that
I am extremely passionate about. I am sorry if I have offended anyone but we
can’t live in a world where our allergies are made a laughing stock.
