FFS, nobody is saying “there are no people who have Celiac disease or OAS.”
nobody is saying that. what we’re saying is the numptys who claim they’re “gluten sensitive” or “allergic” to foods apropos of nothing are diluting the importance of accommodating people who actually have serious physiological problems with said foods.
Aren’t the people who are really doing that the people who assume that others are lying to them? If you say “Most of those people who say they can’t eat gluten REALLY CAN therefore they are liars and I hate them and avoiding gluten is a faddy fad fad!” then you have to distinguish between those horrible, terrible liars and the people who have a real issue.
But if you say “Most if not all of the people who say they can’t eat gluten know or think they know that they feel better without eating gluten,” then it’s not diluting the importance of anything, and distinguishing between the good guys and the bad guys doesn’t matter.
Don’t think you’re defending me by punching at them. You’re just punching all of us but expecting those of us with medical issues to shake it off because we weren’t the intended target.
Ah, gotcha.
I am wondering if blanching carrots is sufficient – preparing them that way can still get you the crunchiness for use in salads, snacking, etc.
People assume that because most people who say they need to avoid gluten are lying to them. Or at least, even if they’re not lying, they’re telling untruths. If it were 10% of the people who claimed to have these conditions who were lying, then yes, it’d be wrong for others to assume the worst of them. But when 90% of the people who claim these conditions are lying, it’s hard to fault someone who thinks it’s BS, especially if they’ve never happened to meet someone who genuinely does have Celiac’s or whatever.
I don’t think a lot of people are lying. I think some have a genuine medical condition. Others believe they have a genuine medical condition, but are absolutely sincere in it and act like they actually have that condition.
My biggest issue is with people who say they have a condition like celiac or allergies but then “cheat” in a way no one actually with that condition could possibly get away with. The “celiac” who nonetheless regularly eats something with gluten because it’s a favorite, or who say “just a bit won’t hurt” - because someone actually with celiac does know that even a little bit hurts, and doesn’t cheat because the penalties for doing so are pretty unpleasant. Or - this is a bugaboo for me - someone who finds the acid in tomatoes irritating and thus says they are “allergic”. No, they aren’t allergic, they have heartburn (or whatever the problem is). This leads to people earnestly telling me that if I just cook the tomatoes they won’t bother me, or if I take an antacid they won’t bother me, or being careless with cross-contamination. Yes, it WILL be a problem for me. It will, in fact, probably land me in the ER. That’s an example of how the pretenders/misinformed make life more difficult for me. They “teach” others that “a little bit” of an allergen is OK (it’s not) or confuse what an allergy is.
And yes, I realize my food allergies are a pain in the ass to people doing meal planning - after all, I have to do my own meal planning. I get it. Which is why I (and many others) with dietary restrictions will often simply not eat at an event, or eat very little, or eat oddly (I once caught flack for a lunch of watermelon, chocolate pudding, and french fries - sorry, those were the only safe things for me to eat at the venue, it wasn’t by choice).
I do my best NOT to be a drama queen. I try to NOT call attention to my problem. I try NOT to inconvenience people. When I go out for pizza with friends I don’t expect them to change their conduct to accommodate my problem - if there’s nothing on the menu I can eat there I just buy a drink and socialize. Which is what most people with genuine medical problems do.
That’s a claim that if someone gets a mistaken diagnosis they are lying if they repeat it. Or if they are told that avoiding gluten can help control their symptoms they are lying if they say they are avoiding gluten to help control their symptoms.
I enjoy cooking and also enjoy producing a meal that everyone can eat. It gives me great pleasure to make a terrific meal for a group when I know that some of them often can’t get any complex dish cooked by someone who actually understands that if a person can’t eat soy, that includes soy sauce, or that ramen noodles have gluten.
Yes, some restaurants can’t accommodate dietary requests. I wouldn’t expect a basic pizza place to have a non-dairy, non-gluten pizza; I’d find one that did or make it at home. Some menus can’t be modified so everyone can eat the same dish, though our extensive gourmet Thanksgiving meal includes food for everyone’s needs and preferences. A caterer or restaurant that can’t accommodate basic requests (like “no nuts”) or mark dishes clearly isn’t a service I’m going to use.
It’s not people who get a misdiagnosis that are a problem, really, it’s people like the lady last week at the cafe I work in who spent 20 minutes going through all the menu ingredients with me and the chef, to make extra sure there was no gluten in anything, because she couldn’t eat it. Of course, we were very careful to use separate, clean equipment to prep her and her friend’s plate (who was getting a meal that included a homemade bread roll) because she’d said she was celiac… and then I watched her finish off her friend’s bread :rolleyes:
^ Yeah. That. No one who really had celiac disease would finish off their friend’s bread.
I have an acquaintance who has celiac with very severe symptoms who still eats gluten every couple of months. Then she yells at herself. Then she does it again.
I also have friends with dairy allergies and shellfish allergies who eat their allergens. People are insane.
Well, OK, no sane person with celiac or gluten allergy is going to flirt with their offending substance like that.
Depends on the severity of the allergic reactions, I guess (not for celiac). There is such a thing as being “mildly allergic” to something, correct? A common example is a runny nose from the spices in Indian cuisine.
I don’t think “runny nose” from spicy food qualifies as an allergy, which is just one more example of the confusion around the topic. Spicy food can make your nose run because it’s triggering pain sensing nerves, and that is not an allergy.
Yes, there are mild allergies. For example, a dairy or nut allergy that causes rashes instead of wheezing, hives, or sudden death. However, I suspect a lot of those are simply never diagnosed.
I know a guy who says he has celiac, but loves Chinese food. Perhaps the amount of gluten in soy sauce isn’t sufficient to cause a reaction, I am not sure. He also told me we live in a food desert - literally while standing in front of one of about 10 grocery stores and I-don’t-know-how-many farmers’ markets in a (small) town.
I definitely cannot eat standard soy sauce. I haven’t had Chinese food in years and years, which sucks.
Actually the polite thing here is to make whatever you are making and provide a list of ingredients. Then, they can either skip or eat.
Never cater to others diet beyond that.
I also had a mutual friend tell me (about the same guy) “He has a terminal illness, poor guy!”
“I thought he had celiac?”
“Yeah, poor guy!”
Well, that’s unusual. 
By the way, some people do have Celiac without having any symptoms (at least the normal things like digestive issues) of it. They might be identified because of some malnutrition or the like without ever knowing there was anything wrong. Someone like that could get a diagnosis and contentedly eat gluten all day every day, doing damage to his intestines but not feeling the immediate repercussions.
Oh, no he had frequent symptoms, and that was his reason for calling out of work a lot. That, plus, dying of celiac, or something.
More evidence that people are insane.