Living Without Your Daily Bread - How to be Gluten-Free

May is celiac disease awareness month.

Living Without Your Daily Bread

by Karina Allrich

Since the birth of agriculture, when our ancestors began to cultivate and harvest grains, human beings have cherished bread. It was a minor miracle, this almost magical transformation of grain into dough. Bread became the staff of life, a daily source of nourishment, symbolic of spiritual renewal.

But what if bread was suddenly poison? What if wheat was toxic, and every bite of a toasted bagel, slice of pizza or forkful of penne inflicted damage to your body?

This scenario is a daily reality for those carrying the gene of an autoimmune disorder known as celiac disease.

Little did I know as I wrote my second cookbook, happily creating recipes for lemon infused pasta primavera and olive-rosemary focaccia, that a hidden twist in my own eclectic heritage would soon disrupt my life. After years of subtle symptoms, an acute phase produced a twenty pound weight loss, joint pain, skin rash, and malabsorption. By December, 2001, I knew I had celiac disease.

According to the Mayo Clinic, celiac disease (also known as celiac sprue or gluten sensitive enteropathy) is on the rise, and more common than previously believed, affecting 1 in 100 Americans.

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If you could eat gluten, would you? The option is one step closer.

Dining out is a minefield if you have to be gluten-free. 
Would a vaccine make life easier?

There may be a celiac vaccine in our future.

That's the word from Down Under this month. An Australian biotechnology company called ImmusanT, Inc. is developing an immunotherapeutic vaccine for celiac disease. And guess what? The Phase 1 clinical trial went swimmingly.  Read about their positive results here at the NFCA's Celiac Central.

It's a very odd feeling to imagine eating gluten again, after almost ten years of banishment. A decade of shunning gluten is no small feat. In a food culture that worships wheat, and elevates the gentle science of baking to both a high art (think crusty, fresh baked baguette) and a low art (say, pizza pockets), living gluten-free is akin to attempting to mambo in a minefield. Gluten lurks everywhere. Not only where you’d anticipate it (pizza, bagels, beer) but in sly, coy disguises, hiding in plain sight (soy sauce, broth, herbal tea). And even the most modest of amounts (a few stray crouton crumbs, perhaps) can trigger one’s hyper-vigilant immune system and ignite a fiery swath of digestive destruction, albeit mostly invisible to the naked eye (unless, like me, you are doubly blessed with symptoms and sport the eruptive skin rash known as dermatitis herpetiformis on your butt).

Feelings akin to those sticky, fluttery uncertainties (if not subtle panic) one feels dodging the unbidden proposal of matrimony (or tip-toeing backwards on a Sunday morning walk of shame) begin to trickle in.

Is this something I really want?

And would I, if I could?

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