A stream of hungry students poured into the dining hall in Northeastern University’s International Village, surveying the all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of everything from burgers to wild mushroom risotto to “foods made without gluten ingredients.”
Some loaded their plates with gluten-free creamed green beans because they have doctor’s orders to avoid the gluten protein in wheat, barley, and rye. Others opted for gluten-free baked sweet potatoes and Cuban pork chunks simply because they looked good.
Comments
Lord God, Have Mercy.
Mercy, yes - on those who are afflicted with celiac disease and for whom every meal needing to be purchased outside the home is a challenge. Educate yourself a little: try business travel; by plane is a good way. Find yourself a gluten free meal in an airport except may at Legal's at Logan, a veritable oasis. Find a meal on a plane - they're for sale - but none are safe and no airline that I know of has more than maybe peanuts or Popcorners to offer a celiac. Grab a quick bite somewhere - try it. Pizza? Uh- no. McDonald's? Sure - their vanilla ice cream's safe, nothing else. On Amtrak? Sometimes you can eat a salad they offer though not necessarily with any of the dressings.
The kids who're stuck on campus with a mandatory diet plan they can eat nearly none of are having a wretched time of it. The simple fact is that a great many foods can be made without their gratuitous gluten ingredients or with substitution of a safe version. There's GF soy sauce and teriyaki and bread crumbs. A large food prep kitchen can keep one fryalator for just fries and allowing nothing battered with flour such as onion rings to enter it. Baked goods are another matter but they are available. Costly but available.
Before you go rolling your eyes at celiacs I suggest you put yourself in the place of a person who can walk through a whole supermarket and find almost nothing to buy, through a cafeteria line just to realize the fruit, steamed veggies and a salad eaten dry are the primary options. Live like that awhile - say for the rest of your life - and then come back and tell us how much fun it is. Till you've done that I suggest you suppress your urge to make snide comments. Your knowledge deficit is showing.
I feel sorry for many of these kids who have these types of allergies so young, you just have to expect their healthcare costs as they get older will just be excessive. How did we get here?
Celiac disease is actually an auto-immune disorder - different then a food allergy like someone who cannot come into contact with peanuts, for example. Lots of debate still exists on "how we got here" - but Celiacs has been around for a long time and certainly predates what appears to be a more recent rise in food allergies. What seems like increases in the prevalence of Celiacs is more likely due to better diagnostics than it is any actual increase in the burden of the disease.
This is wonderful to hear. I spent the last 5 years with abdominal cramps, bloating, pain, fatigue. There were days when I just couldn't get out of bed. i would be in the bathroom about 35 times before 7 am. Vomiting, diarrhea, the works. I was constantly dehydrated. It turned out I had a gluten allergy. At first doctors thought I had 'irritable bowel syndrome', then gastro-esophogeal reflux disease. I would wake up with such pain and heartburn, it felt like I was having a heart attack. Once I started a gluten free diet, the abdominal pains left, the fatigue went away, and I was able to stay out of the bathroom. I also was able to stop taking my prescription stomach medication to lessen my stomach acid. Turned out my acid reflux was caused by my being allergic to gluten. Now, almost a year later, I can't believe how much my health has turned around.
The article fails to mention one other complication of celiac disease if not treated by a gluten free deit. Death.
The title of this article isn't quite accurate--that "Colleges must now serve up gluten-free fare." Lesley Univesity and the Justice Dept. agreed that Lesley would offer gluten-free foods in its meals plan. The agreement, as reported, did not involve other colleges and universities. It's obviously wise for other schools to adapt their meals plans to avoid complaints to the Justice Dept.
Unfortunately, many people with celiac disease are also lactose intolerant - my two friends who have it must also both avoid dairy products. So the creamed spinach wouldn't be helpful to them.
And worth noting that as many with Celiacs heal, they do regain some of their ability to eat dairy. It has to do with the villous atrophy caused by Celiacs and where the lactose receptors are on the villi. As the villi heal once a gluten free diet is implemented, it is possible to start eating dairy again.
Great new avenue of income for ambulance chasing attorneys. Heaven forbid that a college cafeteria served potatoes with gluten and a student got seriously ill. Increasing liabillty insurance
for food service (absorbed by tuition) will no doubt be the answer.
Celiacs is not a food allergy like a peanut allergy, for example. It is an autoimmune disorder. This has a number of ramifications, including the ramifications for an accidential exposure. Celiacs will not cause you to go into respritory arrest as with severe allergies. Persons who accidently eat gluten DO get sick, no doubt, and their symptoms vary (usally GI issues and sometimes migranes & mood changes in certain individuals). But the symptoms from a single "glutening" (as we call it) are not by themselves life threatening. Most gluten free food is processed in facilities that also process wheat - those who live with Celiacs know that and occasionally getting sick from cross contamination is a reality for everyone who lives with the disease. I say all this to make this point - folks with Celiacs accept these issues (some even cheat from time to time), and I have never heard of litigation stemming from a glutening incident.
While I'm not opposed to helping people with celiac, this could get out of hand. We could end up with school lunches that have to account for multiple ailments, which would be complicated, expensive, and subject to error.
Wouldn't it be better for all concerned for those with celiac and other rare disorders to take care of themselves by, for instance, bringing their lunch? They comprise less than 1% of the population. Some studies say it's as few as 1/10 of 1 percent.
This is the tricky part of the Americans with Disabilities Act - you're required to provide reasonable food options for folks with Celiacs & allergies, but I think that you're correct insofar as there are practical limits to what is possible. I think the idea of bringing your own food is good depending on the severity of your condition. Some with Celiacs are not all that sensitive and may be less concerned with cross-contamination. Some others with Celiacs are highly sensitive and may tend to be less trusting of kitchen prep processes - for those folks, bringing lunch may be a better option. The law is clear, however - accomodations must be offered under the ADA.
As for your statistics regarding the prevalence of Celiacs disease - do you have links for 1/10 of 1%? The prevalence that I am aware of is in the neighborhood of 1 in 100 (about 1%) - studies tend to underestimate the burden of Celiacs. I've seen suggestsions that it may even be more prevalent - 1 in 80, perhaps - but this is more speculative. Assuming it is around 1 in 100, that would mean 3.1 million Americans have Celiacs. I'm not sure I would consider this rare (there are many diseases that have a far smaller prevalence).
I got that range from a 2004 report at the National Institutes of Health website:
http://consensus.nih.gov/2004/2004CeliacDisease118Program.pdf#page=40
There's a 2012 report that estimates 1 in 141 (0.71%):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22850429
I would consider anything below 1% as relatively rare. That would mean 7 or 8 students in the average high school. But whether that's considered rare is a matter of opinion, not a fact, so many people wouldn't agree -- especially those effected or affected by celiac.
who-cares-1940, this is for college students.
Celiac affects 1 in 133 people and gluten sensitivity is not included in that number. (Source: Univ. of Maryland Celiac Center) All Celiacs are super sensitive: the scientific research for Celiacs supports the theory that if you have more gluten than can fit under the nail of your little finger, it will trigger an autoimmune reaction that can happen immediately, or take days, and can affect every system of your body. Cognitive impairment, liver malfunction, dental enamel defects, you name it.
Up to ten percent of the population has a food allergy. (90 percent of those food allergies are to 8 foods: dairy, soy, wheat, eggs, fish, shellfish, nuts, and tree nuts.)
Cooking for food allergies is not as complicated as it sounds, and it definitely is more healthy. To prepare food for multiple ailments- serve fresh fruits; vegetables prepared without eggs, wheat, or dairy; and meat prepared with herbs and spices. Guess who should eat that? everybody!! So every college student would benefit from being able to consume allergy-friendly meals. I'll tell you- a lot of the Celiac-friendly meals that I get in restaurants are better tasting and more nutritious than my non-Celiac friends-and they look jealous!
I think schools can afford to serve food like that, to everyone. My daughter's meal college plan for next year costs over five thousand dollars, and is not optional. She has no allergies, but I'd like for her to be able to eat fresh food prepared from scratch.
A student with a food allergy at school usually has no other way to eat except to eat at a dining hall. There is a learning curve, but a competent dining hall manager should be able to make this work. Especially in Massachusetts, where plenty of food training is available. And everybody, allergic or not, will benefit.
Clarification- about how much gluten is safe- if you consume more gluten than can fit under your pinkie nail within a month- you will get a reaction. Sorry for the typo
Celiac is not a food allergy as you imply - it is an autoimmune disease. Also, every person is different in terms of their sensitivity to gluten - not everyone with Celiac disease could tolerate the "pinkie nail" test you suggest, and some might be able to tolerate more.
mtnhx- that's in a month- and they weren't saying it was okay to have even a crumb- They said that there is cross contamination that is unavoidable, so every precaution must be made. who-cares-1940 - I agree, the gluten free fad gets tiresome. The allergy/celiac students are really just asking (or should be asking) for regular, real whole food- that usually happens to be allergy friendly and healthy and I bet a lot of people would benefit. I think people make it so darn complicated. It doesn't have to be. Really, it doesn't.
Many people are allergic to fruits and/or vegetables, such as apples and bananas. Trees nuts are fruit, of course. Some are allergic to finned fish and shellfish. The list is endless.
Avoiding dairy products can lead to lactose intolerance. The majority of Japanese, for instance, were historically lactose intolerant. After WW2, as dairy products became more common, lactose intolerance fell dramatically.
Normal people avoiding anything that can cause an allergic reaction in others could possibly be a disaster for the population as a whole. I think the issue is very complex and not so easy to deal with, even in home environments.
Children who grow up on farms or in households with pets generally have more robust immune systems, apparently because of their exposure to large numbers of microbes. We can protect children -- and ourselves -- too much, in my opinion.