Caeliac AIBU

[Pappybear]

We have family visiting next week. Their 12 year old son has caeliac disease. I am very aware how serious this can be for him, and how tough it is to make some people aware that this isn’t just an “intolerance”.

However, in-laws are incredibly controlling about it (which I understand might be a coping mechanism/ entirely necessary) and we have been given a long list of requirements for their visit. Which include deep cleaning the entire house, for our children to not consume any gluten around their child, and for us to not consume non-gluten free beer around them. So basically the entire house has to go completely gluten free whilst they are here. Fine, but they also won’t cook gluten free from out pans etc so we need to get take outs every night that they are here, from entirely gluten-free restaurants. Gluten free options are not acceptable, which I get becuase maybe they don’t know how safe those restaurants are with cross contamination.

It makes the whole visit so stressful every time they come. And my question is AIBU in thinking they could life much easier for themselves, us and their child if they were a bit more flexible in terms of their expectations?

Or is this unreasonable of me and a weeks inconvenience for us is nothing compared to the inconvenience they have to deal with everyday. Just after some perspective, because they’re so prescriptive that I don’t know if this is what everyone with caeliac has to deal with.

I think they sound batshit. Unless their child is homeschooled he'll be exposed to gluten every day in school. I am the mother of a coeliac teenager. We also have a child with dairy, peanut and a few other "lesser" allergies such as mustard seeds, strawberries etc. There is not a single restaurant or takeaway in the county that is certified as both gluten free /dairy free/peanut free etc but guess what, we do sometimes eat out, get takeaways, and we are not a gluten free /dairy free etc household. Pots and pans, along with all other plates, bowls, utensils are washed and used interchangeably. I do keep separate chopping boards for bread etc and a lot of our meals are obviously made suitable for all. We do have to avoid peanuts alright as that allergy is severe, and mustard seeds etc are relatively easy to avoid. No way would I expect any other household to restrict themselves so much. I would stay in a self catering accommodation of some sort and deal with it myself.

Crikey, I hope they are paying for all these takeaways?!

I would suggest that it would be much easier for you all to go to stay with them instead.

Nope, going gluten free is awful and absolutely should NOT be forced on anyone unless there is no choice.

I know because I am highly gluten intolerant, it started during Covid. I cannot be tested for coeliac because I have such a bad reaction to gluten (you have to eat gluten for weeks prior to the test, which is quite impossible for me) but they did the genetic test instead and it seems I am unlikely to be coeliac. However, whether it is damaging me or just making me sick is all one to me at the times when I accidentally ingest gluten.

Going gluten free has been one of the hardest things of my life, first of all yes there is gluten in everything, but secondly many things which are gluten free taste fucking awful. Gluten free bread is an absolute abomination, and I miss normal, real bread so much. There are more choices, even in the last couple of years there is more gluten free everything, and some are quite good, gluten free chocolate biscuits tend to be quite nice. But a lot of gluten free food is fucking awful, quite frankly.

And preparing everything gluten free massively limits other people's choices in their diet.

To demand another family eats gluten free so you can have a holiday in their home is the height of entitlement. There's no need, they are allowed their own dietary choices, and no need to discuss why they don't want to do that.

I would NEVER expect a restaurant to be entirely gluten free and it's always a gamble eating anything prepared by others - so their decision on that is baffling and calls into question their other choices.

They all just have to exercise caution and the overbearing parents are the ones who must do most of the heavy lifting here. The parents should be automatically bringing their own pots, pans, cutlery etc without being asked.

No need for a deep clean, unless he's wiping surfaces and putting his hands in his mouth all the time. He won't be preparing the food and by the sounds of it his parents will be in full Hazmat suits when they make him a snack. A standard clean, and yep you could wipe the shelves down and move the food into containers which are marked gluten.

And any wastage or extra costs must of course be paid for by the parents of the coeliac child.

No kidding.

I am guessing OP lives somewhere they quite fancy a free holiday twice a year.

I'm the same as your son. You could come visit us. Plus my best friend is coeliac, so I could host a rather awkward dinner party with @Pappybear 's relatives.

Realistically, you wash everything up before you use it, buy new packets of butter... (everything). Invite the mum to supervise you cooking. Ban gluten 24 hours before they arrive and damp dust the kitchen twice with disposable wipes. It is a bit of an inconvenience but not a big issue.

Its not the case!

Thank you, totally agree.

I'd go as far as throwing out things like Soy sauce and other sauces and condiments that have gluten in them, and getting in the gluten free variety, because it's easy to forget with condiments when you're used to the gluten free sort at home (I put soy sauce on some sushi not long ago, at lunchtime at work, and it was not good). I'd be happy to clean up the kitchen and not use the pans and utensils and toaster that they should bring with them for their own use - and stick things like oats (I am assuming like many coeliac he can't tolerate them) and cereals in boxes marked gluten - and that should cover it.

We have plenty of things with gluten in the house, I just don't eat them.

But really, it's the attitude that would get to me - because you know if they are this demanding and difficult, they are going to find a way to blame the OP if the boy gets sick. They are putting this other family under stress and making unreasonable demands twice a year (or more as the OP said probably twice a year) so they can have a free holiday. That's not on.

The restaurant thing is just baffling.You learn fast not to trust restaurants to prepare gluten free food, no matter what they claim.

I'm somewhat surprised they trust the gluten-free restaurants or are even comfortable staying with you if they object to using a carefully washed pot or pan.

I wouldn't be happy with some of their rules, especially if it will end up costing you more money than you'd usually expect to spend while hosting. I'd probably try to go along with as many suggestions as possible, but if it's too much, I'd suggest a compromise you can live with. Either that or they don't have to stay with you at all.

Jesus. How ridiculous. I couldn’t be assed with that and would send them off to a hotel and make arrangements to eat out.

im coeliac and I’ve never been that anal

I don't think I even know of any entirely gluten free restaurant in my area.

Could you buy a casserole dish with a lid, and a couple of cheap saucepans/frying pan and some utensils? That should give you your oven and hob back? Not cheap but alot cheaper than a weeks worth of take away! You can also then seal them in a box ready for the next visit!

Our daughter is coeliac. We have seperate pans and trays for her, seperate chopping boards and toaster. If we are at someone's, we take foil and cover the trays for cooking.

We don't all eat gluten free, but we are very used to the precautions. I guess they think that an accident might happen if you are distracted etc, and that's not to say you wouldn't be careful, but if you aren't used to all the precautions, they won't come automatically.

Their requests do sounds a bit unreasonable, but I guess they have maybe had some bad experiences where people have asked then to take reasonable precautions and they didn't. So they think if they ask for 'extra' they will acheive a safe level of precautions.

Gluten Free food is not "awful" at all unless you are trying to replicate a glutenny diet with plasticky gluten free "alternatives" like gf bread and gf pasta. Which is frankly foolish. If instead you get your carbs from potatoes, rice, buckwheat and oats etc there's huge numbers of delicious recipes that everyone can enjoy and no one is losing out. It's perfectly ok to not eat bread for a few days, there's more to lunch than sandwiches.

Cross contamination is very serious for coeliacs. It's nothing like a skin-contact allergy but anything more than 20 parts-per-million will make them very ill. To visualise, the 500g of flour you might use to bake a cake will contain about 50 million particles of flour. If when getting the gluten-free packet of flour out of the cupboard, you pick up an old packet of wheat flour that you used last time you baked a normal cake, and that packet has a little bit of flour on the outside, even if your hand looks clean it now has enough particles of gluten-containing flour on it to make your nephew very sick indeed if your hand comes into contact with the gluten free batter mix.

I think they are being wholly unreasonable , my daughter has been coeliac for about 15 yrs and we don’t have a completely gf house and aside from having a separate toaster all the kitchen items are shared and just washed . Ridiculous carry on , I’d tell them to stay in a hotel .

People with coeliac disease do not get contact dermatitis from physical contact with gluten-containing foods. They can develop dermatitis herpetiformis if they consume gluten. Very different things.

Can they stay somewhere nearby that they can self cater. That way they are completely in control of their main meals, without drastically changing the diet of everyone in your house.

If you want to get snacks, they could give you a list of suitable options - if it us only for snacks then there shouldn't be an issue in you all eating gluten free at those times.

You could still make sure you use different equipment when preparing the snacks to remove the issue of cross contamination.

I have been celiac a year, but I don't force everyone in the house to be gluten free. DH and DC are vegetarian - I am not.

We have baking trays for me that are used forgluten free options ( which may/may not be vegetarian).
Trays for them that are used for vegetarian options, that may/may not get gluten free.

Trays that are only used for things that are both vegetarian and gluten free.

I don't fancy their chances of finding restaurants that are exclusively gluten free while they stay with you. ( but if near cardiff there is a lovely coffee shop in can recommend).

YANBU They need to stay in a hotel as it sounds like they would not even be happy staying in another coeliac family's house. There is no take away delivery option that can be safer than preparing food carefully in your own kitchen. Perhaps the child could live off M and S gf ready meals if you do go along with their extremes. I eat mainly the same meals as the coeliacs in my family but I have normal bread just for me. Most food is gluten free. What on earth does the child do at school? They can't ban wheat from all around them. It's not the risk of death of a peanut allergy but it sounds like the child thinks it is. They are making being coeliac unnecessarily difficult for themselves and the child.

There is no need to have separate pans or boards. Coeliac Australia even say you can share a toaster. They are totally over the top and are making their child’s life harder than it needs to be (yes I am coeliac)

And again, going gluten free is FUCKING AWFUL. There are some quite good gluten free meals available nowadays, yes, but they are NEVER EVER as good as standard meals. Even just the basic things like gluten free noodles (made of brown rice) are never as nice as the real thing.

And gluten free bread is honestly disgusting, though I will admit some of the newer breads are not quite as disgusting as they used to be. I miss real bread SO SO MUCH. It's so bad that I just make myself ill by eating a white bread roll a couple of times a year. I would give up alcoholic drink (I rarely drink anyway) and every bar of chocolate or sweet treat in the world if I could just eat bread again.

Forcing people who are not gluten intolerant or coeliac to go gluten free is a horrible, rude imposition and it is absolutely entitled behaviour.

Nobody should never ever be forced to go gluten free who doesn't have to. It's in SO MUCH food, you have no idea till you try to avoid it.

I know because I am highly gluten intolerant, it started during Covid. I cannot be tested for coeliac because I have such a bad reaction to gluten (you have to eat gluten for weeks prior to the test, which is quite impossible for me) but they did the genetic test instead and it seems I am unlikely to be coeliac. However, whether it is damaging me or just making me sick is all one to me at the times when I accidentally ingest gluten.

Going gluten free has been one of the hardest things of my life (and yes I have hard lots of shit, hardship and have ongoing chronic health conditions, so no snark about well you mustn't have had anything hard happen to you will be tolerated at all). It's the day in, day out weight of it that gets to you. It took a couple of years for me to really remember to check absolutely everything I put in my mouth. At best, it's a daily nuisance, occasionally it is just miserable.

And yes, do not listen to anyone who tells you different, many gluten free prepared meals taste fucking awful.

There are more choices coming onto the market to be fair, and the biscuits and some of the cakes can be quite nice.

But yes, like it or lump it, a lot of prepared gluten free food is simply horrible and disgusting compared with the real deal.

And preparing everything gluten free massively limits other people's choices in their diet.

To demand another family eats gluten free so you can have a holiday in their home is the absolute height of entitlement.

I never expect a restaurant to be entirely gluten free and it's always a gamble eating anything prepared by others - so their decision on that is baffling and calls into question their other choices.

They all just have to exercise caution and the overbearing parents are the ones who must do most of the heavy lifting here.

I would never have chosen to be gluten free, it was forced upon me, it is limiting and a shit thing to have to deal with And it should NEVER be forced upon anyone who doesn't have to make that choice.

Nobody should have to miss a day of real food, let alone a week IN THEIR OWN HOME. I'd wish this shit only on my worst enemy.

So again, the parents must bring their own pots, pans and cooking utensils and toaster, and if they cannot or will not do that they can either buy their own and throw them away when they leave (as obviously you're not their storage container) or they can clean yours and use them like everyone else does and probably just avoid the toaster altogether.

There is NO NEED for a deep clean, unless he's wiping surfaces with his fingers and putting his hands in his mouth all the time. The 12 year old won't be preparing the food and by the sounds of it his parents will be in full Hazmat suits when they make him a snack.

A standard clean, wipe the shelves down and move the food into containers which are marked gluten, not forgetting the sauces, gluten hides in soy sauce and other sauces, and even today, after 6 years of this shit, I sometimes forget to check sauces outside my own home.

And any wastage or extra costs must of course be paid for by the parents of the coeliac child.

I am surprised at sharing a toaster as I did this, by mistake, staying out at a friend’s overnight - never again ha!

I do miss Warburton’s thick white bread toasted with half a pack of real butter sigh but actually Warburton’s gluten free tiger bread or sourdough isn’t so bad now that’s on the market - and butter always remained!

Otherwise I do think it’s all OTT though as I said upthread maybe it’s harder if it’s your kid and maybe he’s trying to rebel and eat any gluten around - still doesn’t explain the deep clean and beer though.

I only lately found out some say you shouldn’t be kissing folk drinking gluten beer - after I’d been dating (and kissing lol) a while - but I’ve been fine and continued!

Who’s paying for all the takeaways while they are visiting as if it’s yourselves could be expensive

I know of a couple of GF cafes where you can have a sandwich or a cake and one cafe/restaurant, attached to a farm shop, that has a separate kitchen for GF, rather than the usual compromise of a GF worktop, grill and deep fryer, it's deservedly popular as it has a full GF menu but is only open during the day so a takeaway in the evening is not going to happen.

they are bat shit crazy. No way would I be accommodating this. Plenty of people live with this disease without it affecting the whole family,

Why are they choosing to stay somewhere different when it requires all this change? Can't they stay at your in laws if they are so strict about it

My mother had dermatitis herpetiformis (related to coeliac disease), I'm coeliac and so is one of my brothers. We only need a few crumbs to set off a nasty reaction (slightly delayed).
Cross contamination is a real issue for coeliacs, but as long as pans, crockery and cutlery are washed, they're fine. Bread boards need to be cleaned well and full-of-gluten things should be kept apart. Watch out for toasters. Shake them free of crumbs if you are toasting gf bread. Give him his own little pot of butter, jam etc. You can buy a variety of bread, cakes etc in the free from section of all supermarkets, but can buy normal crisps etc. Just look at the list of ingredients on the packets. Common allergens are written in bold lettering. Don't buy anything containing wheat, rye or barley. GF oats are fine for lots of coeliacs (ordinary oats can suffer from cross contamination). I can't tolerate a lot of them, but can tolerate some biscuits containing them.