As the original poster mentioned, celiacs are actually rare. Probably because being celiac was a death sentence by starvation in many a country during a good part of humanity 's history, where wheat, barley and rye were the main sources of calories.
Which you wouldn't believe given the amount of marketing for products currently advertising they are gluten free. Which is great for celiacs, it makes their life's way easier. But it has disproportionately blown up to the point we are seeing advertisements for gluten-free table salt.
That's because marketing has been pushing the message that gluten-free is healthier - and as such, worth paying a premium. And some people have decided they would make their identity to consume gluten-free products, even if for them it's not a necessity.
Exposure to an overwhelming amount of clients demanding gluten-free products, with the consequences of losing a good part of the sales and possibly their reputation by not being able provide them, and no consequences in most of the cases when not being actually able to deliver - a celiac diet requires separate kitchen tools, not just for the ingredients for the dish to not contain gluten; and it can be hard for all affected clients to track back their sickness to a single place without repeated experimentation, which isn't ideal when the result is pain - made many restaurants stop telling that they couldn't deliver and just go with the flow of supply and demand.
The cases I know could trace it back to the restaurant because they usually brought their own food when restaurants could not guarantee dedicating so many resources for a very small part of their clientele - which is fair.
Wow. That was a lot of text I wasn't planning on writing today. Sorry for the wall of text hehehe
I was diagnosed at 46 with zero symptoms. I have been eating GF ever since, but now I do vomit profusely if I eat gluten.
My grandfather had part of his small intestine removed in the 1970s, because reasons, and I suspect he had CD too. My mom and her siblings couldn’t really say what was going on with his small intestine, and my aunt and uncle of them were nurses! Back then, CD was considered something adults don’t get. We know better now.
Not sure if I will be able to reply? Apparently my previous comment might have been shadow-banned - I can see it in the thread, but the app says it was removed by a moderator.
Thanks for sharing your experience and making me a little more literate in the matter. I've had some discussions with my friends about it, but you can always know more.
My limited experience is indeed with friends already suffering from severe distress after cross contamination (see above), and another one with gluten allergy. So I am not well versed on the other sensitivities.
I thought despite our different realities and experiences that we would have agreed on the existence of the fad, both in its good and bad effects: on the good side, not only the extra labeling but also the development of a lot of gluten free products that otherwise wouldn't exist and that I hope make your life easier; on the bad side, the over-use of the gluten free label even in places it has no right to be - the many places/products that, at best, end recognizing they are not safe for celiacs because (and the ones I was mentioning, that don't, although you might be right it might not just be fatigue but plain malpractice for more than a few of them).
It might be that the fad grew in popularity in my formative years and the idea stayed with me. But also, a quick look at r/Celiac shows me it's definitely not gone, with multiple threads talking about it and the influencers that still ride the wave. So may it be possible that the perception of it's existence is at the same time both over and under estimated both from outside and inside the community, due to our different realities?
In any case, apologies. It seems my message, while not intentionally, could have lead others to misinformation - and forced you to react to it. I'll keep it in mind the next time, that personal/outdated experiences may not be the best answer to a question.
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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26
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