Friday, March 5, 2010
Mandi Chervitz, a senior from St. Louis, didn’t know she was gluten intolerant until her sophomore year in college in 2007. She said she was having bad reactions after every meal and tried to cut different things out of her diet, but nothing seemed to work.
“I had become a vegetarian and began eating all these sandwiches,” Chervitz said. “I didn’t know you could actually be allergic to bread.”
Pizza is a definite no-no in a gluten-free diet. People with gluten allergies cannot eat wheat, rye and other grains.
Gluten is a kind of protein found in grains such as wheat, rye and barley, and is a major ingredient in breads, pastries, cakes and cookies because it adds texture and shape to baked products. It’s even found in most beers.
Because it’s found in so many foods, Chervitz said, the only foods she can get on campus without gluten are salads, sushi and small items such as chips and fries.
In recent years, more and more “gluten-free” products seem to have been sprouting up in restaurants and grocery stores, but gluten itself isn’t harmful, at least according to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA lists the protein as GRAS — Generally Recognized As Safe. Other GRAS substances include caffeine, corn syrup and calcium.
But for those with gluten intolerance, also known as celiac sprue, eating gluten causes a host of side effects, ranging from diarrhea to mouth sores, according to the Celiac Sprue Association.
Celiac sprue disease affects about one in 133 people, or about 1.5 million Americans, according to a Feb. 10, 2003 edition of Archives of Internal Medicine.
The reason why so many new gluten-free products have been in the market and at restaurants is because people and doctors are now more aware of what it is and how to diagnose it, Ann Chapman, coordinator of nutritional services at Watkins Memorial Health Center, said.
“Celiac sprue is a disease we’ve had for years, but I don’t think medically it was identified as clearly as it is now,” Chapman said. “It’s not something that can be self-diagnosed.”
Diagnosis for celiac sprue disease at Watkins is by a blood test, which costs $155.
If the test comes back negative, Chapman said, gluten is harmless.
“People should not give up gluten containing products unless they truly have had a diagnosis,” Chapman said.
Some people may go about life and not even realize they have a gluten intolerance, Chapman said.
“You can have it for a period of time and not have overt symptoms, and you could be continuing to damage your intestines by consuming gluten,” Chapman said. “People in past years would suffer diarrhea and weight-loss and just didn’t know what was wrong.”
Celiac sprue disease can affect someone more than just limiting the foods one can eat.
Maggie Burns, a senior from Minneapolis, Minn., found out she had a gluten allergy when she was 17. She was devastated, she said, knowing her career goals would have to change.
“I wanted to have my own bakery someday, so it hit me really hard at the beginning,” Burns said.
Burns also said she thought she was going to be denied entry into the Peace Corps because of her gluten allergy.
“If I had just got it now, and I was still dealing with it now and still getting sick, then I wouldn’t be able to go,” Burns said. “But since I’ve had it under control for over a year, it’s fine and not a problem.”
There have also been complications when Burns travels out of the country because it’s hard to communicate food allergies in another language.
After Chervitz found out that she had a gluten intolerance, she said was overwhelmed at first with all the changes that she had to make. But now she said the only thing she misses is challah bread and likes her life better now that she knows she is gluten intolerant.
“I’m not as tired as much, which is a side-effect of flour, as strange as it sounds,” Chervitz said. “I’m really enjoying being gluten-free.”
— Edited by Kelly Gibson
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Comments
Gluten-free, way to be
Free Diabetes Meal Plan http://ow.ly/1dUWo
Gluten-free, way to be
When dealing with Gluten, you are able to use an expensive test to determine whether or not you have an intolernace to the substance, but for other GRAS substances you are forced to determine this through your own experience.
i.e Caffeine - there is no way to prove someone has an allergic intolerance to caffeine aside from them telling you so. Doctors/Specialists need to work around this. They have found ways to detect gluten, but that's not the only GRAS substance affecting the daily lives of people.
Yes, I understand caffeine is not the only other GRAS substance but even on the KU campus, we as students are surrounded by it on a daily basis, bringing to light it's affect on our culture as a whole.
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