Five Things to Never Say to Someone Who Has to Eat Gluten-Free Food

Five Things to Never Say to Someone Who Has to Eat Gluten-Free Food

Here are five things to never say to someone who has to eat gluten-free food because they have celiac disease or other medical concern that requires them to completely eliminate gluten: 

1. Oh, you can have just a little! Go on, have a bite. My neighbor’s daughter is gluten-free and she eats this cake once in awhile.
   *Your neighbor’s daughter is going to remain sick if she has a medical need to be gluten free.
2. How much weight have you lost? I work with someone who lost a lot of weight on a gluten-free diet.
   *Gluten-Free is NOT a weight loss diet. The opposite is often true.
3. This is so AWFUL. I don’t know how you do it. I’d die if I couldn’t eat bread/cake/onion rings.
   *Gee, thanks. Appreciate your support on a major change in diet that will last my entire lifetime. I also can eat bread, cake, onion rings, just about anything you eat. I just have to make a gluten-free version.
4. What happens when you eat gluten? What would happen if you ate this fried chicken on my plate?
   *For many of us, this isn’t something we want to discuss in a social or meal setting. Vomiting, gastric distress, days of pain and brain fog, a rash, not things we want to talk about across the table.
5. I heard you can eat anything you want in Europe. They have different wheat there. Followed by ramblings about GMOs, RoundUp, organic food, farming practices they only think they know about…  
   *This is NOT true, people who cannot eat gluten still can’t eat gluten in Europe. Gluten is gluten is gluten.

Is there anything you would add to the list of things you wish people would not say to someone with celiac disease or a need to eat a strict gluten-free diet? Leave a comment below…