Wednesday, April 18

Celiac and Gluten

My BIL has celiac disease. He can eat as much as he wants without worry of stuffing all those calories and fats in his belly. But his diet doesn’t mean he can have anything he wants rather, he can eat bigger portions of food that he can only have. He’s actually subsisting on rigid and boring diet. Celiac is caused by a reaction to gliadin, a gluten protein found in wheat, rye and barley. The only effective treatment is a lifelong gluten-free diet and that means, celiac people only eats gluten-free food. Now, that’s what I meant with boring.

Subsisting on gluten-free diet means you can’t gate-crash at some parties or the parties you hosted cater only gluten-free diet so the selection of food that you can serve is limited. Eating out is not a good option either, unless you can find a gluten-free restaurant, which I haven’t heard of yet. And those living with a person with gluten-free diet, unless the “cook” fixes-up two meals, will also make-do with the routine meal.

Having a gluten-free food is not at all that a misery. Shopping is made easy. What good in this place is, packaging label is strictly regulated so every single processed goods in the market are specifically marked “gluten-free” or “contains gluten”. There are also shops like bakery that especially baked/sell gluten-free bread and goods, so shopping for gluten-free items are not really a hard-done task. It just makes your pockets deeper. Gluten-free items cost more than half and sometimes double or triple the price of ordinary goods. I think that’s the price you have to pay to make a lingering mark in this world.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

hmm... read somewhere that gluten-free diet can "cure" an autistic. dapat pala iwasan talaga ang gluten.

Ers said...

hi cess! talaga? now i know. :D buti na lang rice, which is our staple food there, doesnt contain gluten. what we eat really determines what our disease, sometimes is.