Okay, so it’s kind of funny. I often complain about spotty wi-fi (especially at high-end coffee shops), and god knows I’ve complained about warm champagne. And no room for dessert, that’s just a travesty. But c’mon – how many times do we have to talk about how gluten is NOT a “rich person’s issue” – it can affect anyone from any socio-economic background.
While you may have had some laughs at this, all you have to look at is the comments to find the real issue. Stuff like this makes it easy for the rest of the universe to not take celiac disease, non-celiac gluten sensitivity and other issues where gluten is the problem to be taken seriously. “I never heard about gluten until last year” is a common response when people talk about gluten issues – even though celiac disease has been recognized as a disease since the early part of 1900’s. When these people are in charge of our food – they could be chefs, servers, restaurant managers, friends who cook for us at their homes when they assure us that their food is really “gluten-free…well, probably gluten-free” when they really don’t even know what gluten is.
I hate this gluten-free trend. I hate what it’s doing to our community. I hate what it’s doing to our only medical form of healing. I just hate everything about it. I just have no idea what to do about it, other than finding something like this and TRYING to make it right – TRYING to prove that all gluten isn’t some fad, isn’t some trend.
LE SIGH. How do we fix this?
A friend passed on an article a few months ago with the same attitude. The graphic attached to it said something along the lines of, “only people who can afford it have a gluten problem.” and then cited the costs at Whole Foods, amongst other non-applicable proofs.
Gluten-free is poor man’s fare when it’s rice and beans. Naturally gluten free foods are simple and easy.
As far as the pop culture’s priggish pull-boxing: Blegh. I do my part to spread awareness about the disease, and then let the rest go. It will pass, like all fads and fusses do.
The real problem is, only people with health insurance can ever be diagnosed. Everyone else just stays sick. And that’s the truth, and we all know it. The only reason why we don’t hear about celiac disease in poor areas – those people don’t have adequate medical care to ever find out what health problems they have. Especially if they can barely get enough food to eat every day. They can have many health problems, but might never get any treatment. And many of them just die younger. Which we also know happens. It’s not so mysterious. People just look the other way.