Top 5 Questions Every Person with Celiac is Sick of Hearing

While it’s natural to be curious about a disease about which you know nothing, it’s important to acknowledge that sometimes, those who you’re curious about just want to be normal people for a day. Unfortunately, due to celiac being a rather unique and uncommon disease, it tends to become the topic of conversation and fascination. As a result, in every instance where it is brought up, we tend to face an onslaught of questions ranging from highly inappropriate to just annoying.

1) Can’t you just not eat the bread or pick around it?

While it’s sweet for wanting to include us, if bread has touch the food, it has become cross-contaminated for someone with celiac disease. Most of us have been dealing with this for a long time and know what to look for, so just let us handle it.

I think I speak for all of us when I say, thank you for your concern and thoughtfulness in trying to include us, but we got this.

2) What happens when you eat gluten?

This is my absolute least favorite question, because no one wants to hear the actual answer, despite how much they think they do. I have made many a person uncomfortable by providing the truthful answer and dealt with the third degree when I’ve tried to dismiss the question.

If you can’t handle the curiosity any longer, Google what happens to a person with celiac disease when they get “glutened,” otherwise please respect our privacy. If we don’t want to tell you, it’s for good reason.

3) Can you eat _____?

While your concern is sweet and noted, we know what we can eat and we can read the menu; let us find food for ourselves. I know this is all new to you, we’ve been living with it for quite some time; we know our way around it.

When we go out to eat, we just want it to be as normal as possible; you already had to make exceptions to go to a place with gluten-free accommodations.

4) Is there gluten in [insert generic food here]?

As we stated in the last paragraph, your concern is sweet and noted, but, contrary to popular belief, not everyone with celiac disease has a running list of brands and safe foods in their brain ready to use at a moment’s notice. Gluten is a cheap way to add weight to a lot of foods, so unfortunately, it’s pretty sneaky. Some mayonnaises, salad dressings, and other condiments have gluten in them while others don’t. Even some brands of chicken broth or stock have gluten in them.

Most brands of mixed nuts have gluten in them. While soy sauce isn’t gluten-free typically, there are gluten-free brands. Some potato chips are free of gluten while others have wheat as an ingredient or were processed at the same facility. At this point, they make gluten-free alternatives for almost every type of food, so we could even, technically, have some breads, crackers, etc. It’s all about the brands. The most common practice for those with celiac disease is to just read the ingredients list.

5) What can you eat? I can cook gluten-free!

While this is an incredibly sweet offer, it’s probably only valid for someone with a gluten sensitivity, rather than celiac disease. If you don’t have to make celiac-safe gluten-free food often (or ever), the learning curve can be a bit much. You have to make sure you don’t touch anything gluten-free to a surface that has cooked bread.

If you’re making both food with and without gluten, you will have to be extremely careful to ensure nothing touches and no cross-contamination occurs. Here’s an example using sandwiches to give you a better picture:

You’re making sandwiches for dinner and someone with celiac disease is coming, but not everyone wants to eat gluten-free. You go to prepare the food and decide to make the gluten-free option first to prevent contamination. However, you failed to purchase new condiments, cheese, or veggies. If anyone had touched bread with their hands or a knife and put it back in the package or jar, that entire jar is now contaminated for a person with celiac disease.

It’s not as easy to do as you might think. Those with celiac disease are highly sensitive and even if they don’t feel it (like getting micro-dosed), they’re still having to deal with some of the effects.