I’m a writer. But I never thought I’d write a blog, or even a note to myself, about being gluten-free. Now, surely you’ve just concluded I’m newly diagnosed, that I’ve found my social conversation cross to bear via genealogical fate—but you’d be wrong. I’ve been a card-carrying Celiac for nearly six years. I’ve just never been particularly motivated to put pen to paper—or fingers on a keyboard, as the case may be. If I were to tackle the topic, I’d start with my grandmother. I owe her. In addition to hips wider than I’d like, I’m certain she was the giver of this special gift, although she was never diagnosed.
Gram lived in an era when people died from the measles (though there seems to be a fresh uptick on that) and doctors were far more concerned with curing polio. Her belly pain was reduced to skeptical curiosity with likely theories running the gamut: it was the coffee, the tea, the beans, the tomatoes, the protein, her gallbladder, the mustard, the milk, the Mylanta she took for the pain.
No, Gram. It was the wheat.
It was the cookies you made by the dozens and the delicate Christmas tarts, the endless pasta dinners, and the warm delicious Zeppoles—which, by the way, is a recipe you managed to take to the grave. The disease, not so much.
So what about Celiac disease has finally brought me to the gluten-free table of conversation? On my most recent trip to the grocery store—and I do this a lot in a family of five—I’d suddenly felt as if I’d been zonked on the head by the gluten-free fairy. Madness. I tell you, it’s madness. I take exception to the glut of GF tagging. Nowadays, I half expect to find the Clorox and Duraflame logs stamped gluten-free.
Don’t get me wrong. Awareness is a good thing. Choices are even better. But those two things, bound together, seem to have resulted in an industry born out of a disease. Is that also a good thing? I’m not sure. I certainly can’t complain about the aisle dedicated to GF products in my grocery store. But I do wonder if the market is taking advantage of the trend.
For those who dabble in gluten-free thinking, the misnomers are vast. Savvy marketing and misinformation have many believing that gluten-free falls into the same healthy eating habits that MyPlate.gov encourages. Gluten-free, right up there with antioxidants, low carbs, more greens and less sugar. It’s not the same thing. Gluten-free—while theorized to influence a number of maladies—is really only proven as the “maintenance drug” for Celiacs, additionally offering relief to those who are gluten sensitive.
Add to this the cost of going gluten-free. Years later, and I’m still stunned by the prices—$19.99 for a sack of flour, $3.00 for a 3 ounce box of Rice Thins, a tasty product manufactured by Nabisco. Their counterpart would be Wheat Thins, 8 ounces, on sale for $1.98 on the next aisle over. It’s just an observation, but last I checked, rice was as plentiful as wheat.
It begs the question, if GF demand is so great, why are prices so high? Haven’t manufacturers had the time and technology to mainstream their GF products and neutralize some of the cost? Are gluten-free goods still really considered a specialty item? Maybe not the Clorox, but when a bag of plain frozen peas bears a fancy “gluten-free” label, you have to wonder if you’re being given information or a sales pitch. And speaking of sales, gluten-free products are projected to exceed $5-billion dollars in revenue this year. As the GF world grows, so should questions about the profit margin of consumables that, for many, are a necessity.
A last thought on going gluten-free and how Gram might have reacted to all the GF fuss. Maybe it’s better she never knew. Maybe her suffering was a tradeoff. But mostly, I think, she would have looked at the cost of going gluten-free, muttered a few choice curse words in Italian, and taken her chances on the aisles of plenty—and that would have been a shame.
Are you gluten-free? If so, please share your story below!
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“A sultry, tantalizing story… intensely emotional and full of heart. L. J. Wilson is a discovery.”
–Shannon McKenna, New York Times bestselling author
Pictures courtesy of the Public Domain Archive and Laura Spinella
