Wheat free question

January 5, 2008 12:11 PM

My girlfriend was recently diagnosed with coeliac disease. Do I have to get a new chopping board?

I did some web research and apparently this gluten stuff is peskier than I had previously thought.

Should gluten free food be stored separately? Even if a standard wheat loaf never touches it again, do I really have to buy a new chopping board? What about sharing the toaster? Even if she had the tiniest crumb of white-bread, would that really knock her guts out?

What's the fact? What's the fiction?

posted by popcassady to health & fitness (12 comments total)

Prepare for wildly differing opinions.
And maybe flamewars re: fad diagnoses / hypochondria.
[I put my money on trusting doctors, fwiw]

If it were me with celiac disease, I wouldn't do anything as drastic as getting a new chopping board, or storing it separately. Gluten isn't going to secretly insert itself into your foodstuffs while you aren't looking.

Some people with celiac disease have different tolerances than others, but in general the greater volume of gluten consumed = the greater punch to the guts.

Microscopic amounts seem to be inconsequential amongst the celiacs I know.

But do some experimenting. you'll naturally reach a level that's comfortable for her.
posted by Acari at 12:38 PM on January 5, 2008

My best friend's little girl has Celiac Disease, and yes, they store all of her food separately. She is very careful about what touches her daughter's food. For example, she buys 2 jars of peanut butter- one for the bulk of the family and one that will only ever be used by her daughter. This way a knife that's been spreading peanut butter on wheat bread won't get dipped back into her peanut butter, leaving bread crumbs behind.

It's been a steep learning curve for my friend, so good luck to you and your gf!
posted by Biblio at 12:45 PM on January 5, 2008

Better to start out being very strict and then, as your girlfriend's health improves (as it surely will), see where the lee-way is.

Good on you for caring. It's much easier to face a challenging diagnosis with an informed and loving partner.
posted by chairish at 12:53 PM on January 5, 2008

It really depends how sensitive she is -- it varies quite a bit amongst sufferers. I have celiac disease, my husband doesn't, and we don't do anything special or out of the ordinary at our house other than my not eating the regular breads or cereals, etc. We use the same toaster, chopping board, toaster, knives, and all that. I only started showing symptoms while in college, and admit to occasionally cheating on my no-gluten diet, whereas young kids with celiac seem far more sensitive to even minute amounts of the stuff, so if she too has been diagnosed later in life, she may be okay with the odd crumb or bite of cake once in a while.
posted by Asparagirl at 12:57 PM on January 5, 2008

A great cook's reference for dealing with this illness is the blog Gluten-Free Girl; I bet she'd have some good input on just how cautious one has to be. Plus she talks about the human side of dealing with it AND posts terrific recipes.
posted by bcwinters at 2:16 PM on January 5, 2008

Seconding the sensitivity thing. I have two friends with coeliacs and they're both very sensitive (and were diagnosed at very different ages so I wouldn't rely on that too much). Even microscopic amounts of gluten cause huge problems so different chopping boards, separate knives, etc are a must. However, cleaning my plastic chopping board in the dishwasher was enough for one of them to be able to use it and not have any issues, so you probably don't need brand new ones. As you can see above others are much less sensitive. It will take a bit of time for your girlfriend to figure out where she sits on the continuum.

There are a number of pathways involved in this disease besides the basic allergy, where polymorphisms in different bits of the immune system modulate the immune response and change the levels of inflammation that occur. So it makes sense that different patients have different levels of sensitivity. But for now you girlfriend has just been diagnosed to is highly likely to be in the middle of a flare up, i.e. everything is really inflamed and probably at it's worst because it hasn't been treated before. So it makes sense to be as strict as possible until that gets under control, which could take a while. Then you might be able to try loosening up a little and see how it goes.
posted by shelleycat at 2:23 PM on January 5, 2008

There's no great trauma in buying another board. Get one that's dishwasher safe, either in a different color or mark it on the end.

You won't know if she's sensitive to microscopic amounts of gluten for months or more, until her system is a little more upright. It's generally best to go super-strict at the start, to allow for healing.

Segregating your storage will help prevent brain-fart mistakes like dredging in flour or getting out the wrong crackers (or guests getting into the expensive rice crackers rather than the regular ones), as well as guarding against contamination.
posted by Lyn Never at 3:59 PM on January 5, 2008

Just get some of those flexible cutting boards. They're cheap and you can lay them over your existing cutting board for support. They come in useful anyway.
posted by Deathalicious at 4:58 PM on January 5, 2008

Should gluten free food be stored separately? Even if a standard wheat loaf never touches it again, do I really have to buy a new chopping board? What about sharing the toaster? Even if she had the tiniest crumb of white-bread, would that really knock her guts out?

My father has coeliac disease, and has, for months at a time, totally ignored his diet completely (protesting that the bread is horrible, etc). Of course, he is in agony and probably on the way to an early grave, but considering how serious he has it, and how much he ignores his diet, I don't think it's necessary to go as far as using entirely separate equipment. As long as she doesn't actually consume gluten-containing food actively, the risk is low. Consider, at least, that a "crumb" of white bread is likely to contain less gluten than what you'd breathe in from dust coming off of food naturally.
posted by wackybrit at 5:00 PM on January 5, 2008

Like others, it depends. I worked with a fellow who had a recent diagnosis and was sensitive to the point that anything that came out of a fryer that had a breaded item in it would make him very ill.

If you want to be king - send me email about a recipe for home-brewing your own gluten-free beer. I have preliminary recipe that I used for said co-worker and it ended up WAY better than the gluten-free beers available on the market.
posted by plinth at 5:12 PM on January 5, 2008

I have coeliac disease.

In the twenty years since I was diagnosed, the food I've eaten has been prepared with the same utensils as unsafe food, without problems. We just needed to make sure that things get washed properly.

As other posters have noted, sensitivities differ. However, the worst bouts I have had were caused by human error rather than small amount of contamination. I happily share a toaster and my food is in the same pantry as other food. The best thing to do is relax and learn to read labels.
posted by elephantday at 10:42 PM on January 5, 2008

My mums best friend has it. When we worked together she would take her bread and get them to make sandwiches on that. One day she looked a bit ill and uncomfortable and commented they must not have wiped the sandwich grill down properly.

She is anti crumbs in the butter. But after she described the true extent of the horror ingesting gluten wreaks upon her one day... I would not be a fan of gluten eaters and their filthy bread crumbs either! Some crumbs makes her uncomfortably yuk. A lot more will make her 'pray for death' (mums friend is no princess either so I'm sure it's safe to assume she meant that in a very real sense).

If it were me I'd teach everyone else to be super anal about it - because there's SO MANY things that don't even occur to you even when you're aware you need to be cautious. Gluten is everywhere! And it can find its way into just about anything!

Research it, she will remember what not to eat I'm sure and you just need to remember to never unintentionally sabotage her!
eg. I use water pasta was cooked in to thicken the accompanying sauce. Not eating pasta is obvious BUT am I thinking of what I am actually about to do the moment I'm assessing the sauce to do what I've done thousands of times before...?
Maybe bright post-its, colour coded tags or stickers ect to remind you and get you in the habit of doing things certain ways.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 4:02 AM on January 6, 2008