SIL thinks I made her sick :(

[FlappingAboutTheFuture]

SIL and family came round after an activity on Saturday and had dinner with us.

SIL is strictly wheat and gluten free, awaiting testing but already knows she has a severe intolerance. I take that seriously but I know lots of family members don't and SIL is quite sensitised to the idea that someone isn't taking it seriously. Which I understand, so I do my absolute best and have successfully made meals for her in the past and she does, sort of, trust me with food now.

I made a meal of: jacket potatoes, grated cheese, baked beans, houmous, guacamole, and salad.

I checked the ingredients on the beans and houmous, no wheat or gluten. I made the guacamole myself so know what went in it (avocados, lime juice, fresh coriander, fresh chilli, fresh tomato). I even checked the ingredients on the mustard that went into the salad dressing to make sure that was GF (which it was!) - salad dressing was lemon juice, olive oil, fresh garlic, and mustard.

So as far as I could establish the meal was completely wheat and gluten free but apparently SIL spent all of Sunday and yesterday being sick and rang DP past night to quiz him about what was in the meal. Obviously our kitchen isn't really a 100% safe environment as we do eat wheat and I'm an ingredients cook so there could be all sorts of cross contamination, but I did my best and she was the one who said eating here would be fine so long as the actual meal itself didn't have wheat or gluten. I feel terrible now but I'm sure it wasn't my fault but I don't think SIL will ever trust me again...

Send her a photo of the ingredients of each packet, and list the fresh ones you used.

If it was cross contamination that's unavoidable but you can prove you didn't actually serve her gluten.

I have a very 'wheaty' kitchen in that there is lots of flour getting used and family eat a lot of both home made and shop bought bread, cakes etc.

I'm really surprised I've never accidentally poisoned my very severely coeliac friend.

As an allergy mum I just wanted to say THANK YOU! You obviously took lots of care and thought into the food preparation and that isn't the experience I usually face. I would be so thankful to have someone like you who was so diligent in checking ingredients and who clearly is stressed about making an error (which I don't think you did) There could be many factors for her sickness, totally unrelated to what she ate. It could even just be a bout of Norovirus, loads of that going round. She's undiagnosed too, so it could be dairy or anything else that she doesn't know of yet.
Is highly recommended her getting the ALEX blood test if she thinks it could be a food allergy as this was a game changer for us.
Again, thank you for being so considerate and don't worry, you did everything you should have and more.

It’s a lesson to her that even despite friends and family’s best efforts she needs to take her own foods to social events.

This post has nailed it.
She has a bloody cheek coming to you and making you feel bad after you went to all that effort.
She wouldn't be welcome in my house again.

The fact that she ate OUT before eating at your house then blaming you it quite a stretch!

I used to work in a bakery and once a month we did gluten free clean downs.
We would clean down a full bakery, flour everywhere and then reclean in the morning and then swab areas to test for gluten, 99% of the time, their was no gluten present.
Products made and then sent for testing (no gluten).

Chances are that if you used gluten free products and prevented any risk of cross contamination and cleaned your kitchen sides etc, then their was no gluten present.

Shes probably coming down with sickness and diarrhoea picked up from somewhere else this time of year!

you sound lovely and considerate, OP. I wish you were my SIL 😅

anyhow… what bowls did you use? Did you use stainless steel? Did you get freshly washed kitchen towels? They’re a fairly simple culprit for cross-contamination. Cleaning the oven (at least a rudimentary clean) and all surfaces is m advisable if you’re cooking / baking for someone with a GI.

My dad has celiacs disease- Not only can he not have wheat and gluten, but he can't have citric acid, dairy, chlorine (filter on water in house and can't do swimming pools). Amongst other ingredients. It wouldn't surprise me if it was the citric acid in the lime juice you used and maybe in the beans, plus the dairy in the cheese.

My mum is coeliac and has an app from the coeliac society (or something like that). Unless the food is listed on there as GF, you cannot guarantee that it is GF, so it's possible that even though you thought the ingredients were GF, they weren't

Hi Op, try not to worry and maybe speak to her yourself. Tell her you tried so hard to make sure it was all safe, here are the ingredients and ask her to consider if she may be allergic to more? My DD had allergies for many years, and was very ill. The allergies mutated and increased in number frequently and the best advice I can give is that she needs to write a food diary because she may be allergic to other things and not know yet. As an example, a friend of mine was amazing on food for my DD meaning she could still go for playdates but one day gave her barley squash. And hey presto, we discovered an additional allergy to barley. No one's fault at all. She may also have eaten something somewhere else that has triggered it. It's frightening when you are in it is the trouble, makes you feel terrible. Tell her you really want to work with her so that she's not limited to just bringing her own meals!

Your meal sounds lovely btw. You didn’t do anything wrong

That must take some updating with all the ingredient changes, very useful sounding

If they'd eaten out earlier in the day that's most likely it. It's fair for her to ask, but not fair to be finger pointy about it. It sounds like you went to a lot of effort to keep her safe. We're an allergic family - anaphylaxis level of food allergies, as well as a couple of people with celiac. Everything gets checked, esp if eating out. Eating out is much more likely to be the cause then home cooking when people are being careful.

As others have said she shouldn't be excluding gluten if celiac is suspected - the tests will be invalid.

If she does have coeliac, it only takes a grain or two of cross contamination. I have a family member who is coeliac but symptomless. The courses she went on were really strong about cross contamination. It is really difficult and a lot of people are pretty shit at it (cough even hospitals who should know what gluten free is and not give someone whose coeliac a normal sandwich…)

You’ve clearly tried to accommodate and it’s possible there was cross contamination at your house but equally as possible she picked up something elsewhere.

And she hasn't even got the nerve to talk to you directly and has gone through DP. What a CF.

So she’s awaiting testing? She hasn’t actually had testing for the gluten intolerance?

A close relative of mine has celiac disease, and they were told that they had to continue eating foods containing gluten until the testing was completed to avoid getting a false negative on the testing. Not sure if that’s just for celiac disease or for all forms of gluten intolerance.

Anyway, it sounds like you went to a lot of effort to make the food as safe as possible. She may be trying to just figure out what caused the reaction rather than blame someone, but I can see why you’d feel unfairly got at.

It could be cross contamination, but if she did eat out before eating at yours, any cross contamination could just as easily have come from the other food she’d eaten that day. Or there could be other intolerances that she’s not identified yet.

We have a good friend who is coeliac and we clean the entire kitchen before he comes over and line everything we might use with kitchen foil (like baking pans and such). We wash our hands religiously and open everything new for him. He's never gotten sick at our house but also is aware he takes the risk himself (most of the times he's gotten sick is at his own house as his kids touch everything and they feed them regular food).

I think she should stop being accusatory really - it's a hideous disease and so, so difficult to manage. If our friends go anywhere with a buffet he just eats beforehand or brings a packed lunch for himself as it's just impossible once everyone is touching everything.

I'd suggest she bring her own food next time to be on the safe side!

Any barley in the cordials?

The app is notoriously unreliable. If you just eat what’s in there, you’d barely be able to eat anything!

Yes, exactly the same. So any dressings with raw garlic, or some prawns in garlic butter where its very lightly cooked and I am suffering very quickly. Put a whole bulb in my Bolognese and cook it on the hob for a few hours and I am fine. Now finding raw onion does the same for me, but to a slightly less dramatic.

Catches me out if we go out and share some marinated olives, or something with an aioli type dip, or home made hummus. So tapas is a bit of a nightmare. Which is a shame as I LOVE tapas!

Could be crumbs in the butter, yes.
I am coeliac and it sounds as though she may be too ? Everything else in your meal sounds absolutely fine. At home nobody double dips butter, or dips breadsticks etc into anything, because of the risk to me. That’s the thing most likely to cause me an issue as it’s easy not to notice.
I had a really bad reaction recently after a meal out, somewhere I go to regularly. The most likely thing is that the gluten free bread they brought me which was toasted , had been put in a normal toaster.
,

It happens op. You sound very thoughtful.
It may be cross contamination so best she asks these questions as her sensitivity may of increased.

Thing is she herself has advised me in the past that I just need to check the ingredients and that if there's nothing containing wheat or gluten listed then it's ok, I've even been shopping with her before and seen how she chooses what's safe.

No barley in the cordials for those asking about it. I don't buy cordials with artificial sweetners as we try and limit UPF where possible, and I've never found a fruit and barley cordial that doesn't have sweetners!

In future I think I'll just insist on eating out to avoid the stress of thinking I've fucked up 😬 I offered a choice between eating out and me cooking this time but they said they'd rather eat here as were already eating out at lunchtime.

she eaten out already and is blaming you? i think shes done this to herself and cant accept it