To ask if everyone who is 'gluten-free' has an actual allergy to it?

[Caribou58]

I'm not being disingenuous here. Time was when people suffering from coeliac disease were few and far between, but yet another acquaintance has declared themselves suddenly 'gluten-free' (when we were out as a group for dinner recently).

I wasn't near enough to ask her about it discreetly.

Has there been a sudden upsurge in allergies?

Most people who are gluten free are silly fad dieters. The worst are those who claim gluten intolerance with no diagnoses or tests, just their says so.
Really pisses me off because it means my coeliac kid is not taken seriously.

@YourVagesty

I know a few who claim to have this but when confronted with a particularly tempting cake, they are miraculously cured.

So what does that prove? They've decided to risk the repercussions, perhaps.

I am coeliac, and was diagnosed at the same time as having Hashimoto’s. For years and years prior to diagnosis I tried cutting out wheat and dairy on an alternating basis, and my stomach issues/hair loss/fatigue kept on getting worse.

I’m now Paleo (and have been for four years) and am probably in the best physical shape of my life, which is pretty good going with two autoimmune diseases.

I also have hashimotos and coeliac disease which are both auto immune not an allergy. My dd has coeliac disease and it hospitalised her

So what does that prove? They've decided to risk the repercussions, perhaps

No, it proves they don't need to be gluten free at all.

@MiggeldyHiggins no, it doesn't prove that at all. They probably had a bad stomach and possibly screaming diarrhoea after eating it, but because they're a greedy twat ate it anyway.

I'm similar. I don't have coeliac or anything but I can get a horrible bad belly if I eat too much cereal but the enjoyment of it sometimes outweighs cutting it out...

Not allergic at all and love it but trying without for health reasons.

@YourVagesty

I know a few who claim to have this but when confronted with a particularly tempting cake, they are miraculously cured. Ds’s GI consultant encourages Ds to take short breaks from his diet if he wants to - one slip up will cause him discomfort and pain but it won’t damage his system - he rarely chooses to eat gluten, the thought of the pain somewhat taints the treat.

Im not allergic to it but my ibs improved massively when I cut it out and I lost weight and feel so so much better as a result. Id wake up every morning feeling completely nauseous. Kept getting thrush recurrently. Headaches and it went away when gluten was excluded.

KnownUnknowns I don't disagree with anything you say. I'm thinking about a few awkward-as-arse types I know who clearly either don't have a problem or a very mild one.

I also never mention it to anyone. Theres no need now because when in restaurants I just order a meal thats got gluten free next to it without a song or dance.

I don’t eat gluten. I was tested for coeliac disease due to my symptoms which resolved when I cut out gluten and came back when I ate it again.

The coeliac blood test came back negative but I still cut it out from my diet. Just faded eating? I wish! If I eat gluten I get diarrhoea, swollen gums, a mouthful of ulcers and bleeding from my arse.

Needless to say, the doctor advised that I could be intolerant and not to eat it. Since then I’ve discovered the blood test result was so low they should have suspected I may also have IgA deficiency giving a false negative. Bit late now though, I don’t wish to eat gluten again and endure months of agony in order to have more testing, so I carry on as I am.

My son had a genuine wheat allergy ( not specifically gluten) which he has now all but grown out of. So he is back on it now.
An allergic reaction is pretty instant, hives, vomiting within the hour etc.

However we do have to much of it in our diets really. We are hunter gatherers and should really be eating meat, fruit and veg.
It’s essentially processed and unatural. I eat it because I love it and it’s convenient but I do feel better and when I cut down a bit - I don’t like all the substitute crap although it was handy when we had to feed a fussy toddler with allergies.

This gives me the absolute fucking RAGE. As part of my job I had to arrange a lot of social occasions for staff. I had to work around people with severe allergies to nut or coeliac disease who could die or become seriously ill if they ate something with it in. But then you always get some dickhead coming in and insisting that their 'intolerance' that their holistic healer has diagnosed is mega, mega important and should be given equal footing to people who can actually die or be hospitalised.

No. Stick it up your fucking arse or bring your own sandwiches. And you can stick them up your arse while you're at it too for all I care.

I’m gay. I also have a severe autoimmune response to gluten (in bed for days after a slip up - psoriasis and lichen sclerosis flare ups, migraines etc).

I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it is a million times easier to “come out” as gay than “come out” as needing a gluten free option. Particularly since I don’t have a coeliac diagnosis so I “must be faking it.”

Being gluten free is a horrible inconvenience to eating out, being invited to dinner etc, and I still have to waste a ton of time and energy trying to “convince” skeptics of my undiagnosed condition. Or apologise to people who have “real” coeliac diagnoses.

Why people can’t just chill out about what other people choose to eat is beyond me. Some people are (for whatever reason) already choosing not to eat cake. Don’t be a dick about it!

But dancing if you have to sort food out for social occasions why does it matter if it’s a serious allergy or a lifestyle choice? You wouldn’t be raged about a veggie meal presumably?

Sprinkle, because it costs money and when you're trying to find somewhere which will cater to diverse requirements including fads it limits options (including dates and locations) and increases costs.

I get people who sign up for conferences insisting they have 'intolerances' so special food is laid on which is more expensive and we may have to choose a location and time which is not ideal to cater for them, and then they refuse to bloody eat it and eat the stuff they're apparently 'intolerant' to. The worst for doing that is fucking public sector staff at publicly funded events who feel entitled to piss taxpayers money up the wall on their imaginary 'intolerances' often at events trying to figure out how to make cuts!

And you might think 'oh it doesn't matter'. But I have staff under me who waste hours of man hours sorting out these bullshit requirements that don't even get eaten.

Our economy suffers from low productivity exactly because of people who expect this sort of bullshit to be indulged. It's a waste of my time, it's a waste of my staff's time and frankly we have better and more productive things we could be doing. It is an absolute waste of money, food, time, productivity.

We're starting to stop offering food at a lot of events because of it. And I feel really bad about that sometimes as I organise some training events for fairly low paid workers and having to buy food while they're out will leave them out of pocket until they can claim it back and many can ill afford to do that. But we really can't do it when people are just taking the piss. And that includes bloody part time vegans!

Oh. And while I'm at it. There is a special place in hell for people who say they have no special requirements then turn up and eat all the bloody gluten free food 'because I prefer to be gluten free if I can' and leave people with coeliac disease who actually have to have it with nothing to bloody eat even though they ordered it.

Cunts.

Dancing - one of the people i'm thinking of is like this. For conferences etc, she's strictly gluten free and just awkward about everything. But she eats so many cakes, biscuits etc when she thinks nobody is clocking it. Which pisses me off when i'm the one organising catering.

Dancing - I think you need a new job, you sound like you can’t cope.

I have had coeliacs disease for 14 years, long before gluten free became trendy. It does annoy me when people say they’re gluten free when they’re not really, however it’s those people that have created a market for gluten free food and now us coeliacs are much better catered for than before

DD is gluten intolerant (she's working her way through FODMAP reintroductions), and we had no idea how bad she was till she cut it out, then tried some again (apologies to anyone in the ladies loos in Coventry IKEA when she was realising that gluten is not her friend ).

She's found that most places have been pretty helpful when eating out (although she only goes to places where she's researched the menus in advance), and are quite relieved when she's "just" intolerant as they can't always guarantee no cross contamination.

But, trying to combine gluten free along with all the other FODMAPs has been pretty tough, like a PP said, you'd be amazed at how many things contain onion for eg.

Gluten free is something I want to try for myself, as anecdotally it can help with fibromyalgia, I'm not sure if I should be trying the whole FODMAP thing, as some of the medical conditions in the family can be hereditary, and if I've been "poisoning" DD with broccoli and apples for the majority of her life without either of us realising, then maybe my diet has been contributing to my pain levels.

In short, it's not as simple as "only diagnosed coeliacs can be gluten free, and everyone else is a lying attention seeker faker", some of us have had GPs tell us to give it a go, and see what happens.

Also, if anyone's interested Honest Burgers (they're mainly London based) have a FODMAP friendly option, as do Copasetic in Barcelona (who have amazing gluten free pancakes). And yes, we did go to Barcelona just to go there

known, I don’t know what you do. But if you’re a nurse I imagine you’d be pissed off if people came in for an X-ray after they had a slight bump on their knee.

If you’re a teacher I imagine you’d be pissed off if a parent called every minor tiff ‘bullying’ and called in every day listing off every minor interaction their child had and insisting they were investigating.

Nobody likes being asked to do extra unnecessary work purely to cater to people’s neuroses.

I don’t like members of my staff having to stay late phoning around looking for venues or juggling spreadsheets or having to take stuff home with them. I don’t like doing it myself.

I’m coping perfectly fine. I just think selfish arses who deliberately cause hassle for other people are cunts.

Because they are.

It’s always the same bloody people as well.

The ones who complain to facilities if somebody farts in the lift because they expect them to be able to stop it.

Or they complain that the sun is too shiny in the afternoon in their office but they don’t want to shut their blinds because it makes them feel claustrophobic.

Or they bring in a legion of houseplants, don’t bother looking after them then complain when they die.

Or ask you to cut down the ancient tree in the office grounds because it bothers their hay fever.

Or insist that everything in the office complies to a religious requirement of a religion they don’t follow (yes we are going to the pub, no Mohamed doesn’t mind, he’s coming with us to drink orange juice and bitch about what an arsehole you are to work with).

Some people are just cunts who like inconveniencing other people.