Tag Archives: education

Myths and facts and insensitive bas***ds (FAQ about Celiac)

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Why is your house gluten free? I mean common, its just gluten right? 

Because Celiac disease kills. Yup, it kills. Only it does it slowly without huge obvious signs. Would you keep nut dust around in a nut allergy home?

Oh common, just one bite wont hurt? 

Hell yes it will. It will hurt, ALOT. In some you cant see it, in some the effects are felt and heard, for a long time. The last contamination we had the effects lasted almost 3 months (and that wasn’t a bite, it was contamination!)

Oh yeah, Im allergic to gluten too.

No you are not. You either have Celiac disease, gluten sensitivity (NCGS) or Celiac disease. Celiac disease is not an allergy, its an autoimmune disease.

You are just being difficult / embarrassing. 

HELL YES, Im trying to save my kids life here. Did you know Celiacs who are not gluten free or are repeatedly exposed to gluten have a much larger chance of premature death then the general population? There is also a higher chance of developing another autoimmune disease, as well as the risk of malnourishment and everything that comes with it, to name just a few of reasons I am being difficult / embarrassing.

Do you really have to wipe the darn table when we go out for coffee (insert eye-roll)

Yup, I do, if you cant deal with it you cant be my friend. An 8th of a breadcrumb can be enough for a reaction, thats my kid touching the table all over and then forgetting about it and popping a finger in her mouth or touching her lip then accidentally licking it. If you are my friend, you will help me wipe and give evil looks to anyone that stares!

Its Christmas, let her have one, it wont hurt her

Sorry, Celiac disease doesn’t take holidays.

Gluten is killed off / burnt off in high temperatures

If this logic was correct we would be able to eat a loaf of bread, its baked in the oven…. or an onion ring thats deep fried…? No… not so much? Didn’t think so.

So if you can write a list of what she can and can’t eat….

Yes, because that would be so easy, why didn’t I think of that earlier! THANK YOU!

If you leave bread out overnight the gluten will evaporate.

You really must have had a really special kind of education….. like …. say what?

Don’t worry, she will grow out of it.

What part of THIS. IS. NOT. AN. ALLERGY. Did you not understand? Autoimmune diseases are like very special gifts, they are for life.

Cant you just scrape the filling out of the bread and eat that? / PEEL the KFC chicken? /Pick the croutons out / Scrape the breading off?

Yeah, sure, lets sprinkle nuts all over this donut and then scrape it off a bit with a spoon and feed it to your nut allergy anaphylactic kid! No? Didn’t think so.

Oh gluten? Thats only in pasta and bread, not that hard.

hahahahahahaha. Thats is all. Really, hahahahaha.

Its SOUP, there is no gluten in SOUP!!

SO glad you told me, so AWESOME to have met an expert on this. THANKS! Assume you checked the thickener and the stock cubes? Oh yes, those can have gluten too. Never mind the small bits of pasta / croutons / barley / whatever floating in it…..

If I threw a crumb in her mouth what would happen?

You may very well end up dead thats what would happen

I got this for me and the kids – I couldn’t find anything you/she/he could eat

Yes, because picking up some sliced melon, bananas, fruit, plain yogurt, berries, cheese slices or anything cleverly labelled (!!) gluten free would have been too difficult. I understand.

You really are fussy aren’t you.

Yes, extra specially fussy in a very special kind of way 🙂

But, she’s not going to EAT glue / playdough / waterpaint 

No, but she’s 5. How many 5 year olds do you know who are impeccably clean after playing with stuff like that? Actually, scrap that. YES, she might eat it.

Might have to edit this one and add more later. Thanks to the awesome gluten free people in the Facebook group called Gluten Free and Me (not mine) for helping some with some of theirs. The lady who was told she was only Celiac because of her pregnancy must have been the best one. Or the gluten evaporates one. Heck, some of the stuff some of these people have been told, often by close friends and relatives ASTOUND me. Surely people who know someone with Celiac would take their time to do a quick google on actual facts?

I actually meant to put proper answers explaining very carefully, until I realised just how much bottled up gluten rage I held inside! Go ahead, add yours in the comments below or on my facebook page!

For those of you with a sense of humour failure, this kind of stuff is the stuff families like ours hears on an almost daily basis, while we smile sweetly and answer politely for the 5th time at the same dinner party, these are the answers in our heads. Or at least mine.

-Linda

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Does fun = Junk?

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obesity-snapshotSo, I have gotten rather heavily involved in the PTA this school year. Yesterday we all had a meeting to plan the events for the rest of the year. Not the first meeting, there have been a few, and in the events department the thing that keeps popping up is FOOD.

As one of those mums, any event involving food is just another opportunity for my child to feel singled out, lonely and different. As a mum, this ties my stomach in to knots. Big ones.

Food – in my opinion – has no place in school unless its eaten at lunch or snack time, and then it should be the child’s own food thats consumed, and no junk.

Having a Fun food Friday or a similar event is ok, but only if the food can be enjoyed by all and is healthy!  Try telling that to the PTA! haha. Apparently, food is only fun if its junk. Apparently, it has to be mc Donald’s or Pizza or there is no point. Now, Im sorry, Im not trying to be a party pooper here, but hasn’t society ‘got it’ yet? That obesity is an epidemic? That we are raising a generation of kids that eat as much sugar in a day that kids a century ago may not have eaten in a year or even in their lives? That heart disease in the young is on the rise, as is diagnosis’s such as ADD and ADHD and concentration issues etc are also sky high? That giving the kids a meal of Mc Donals’d is not FUN at all, but in fact teaching them that rewards = food, fun = junk and sending the wrong message entirely? Couldn’t Fun food friday be fun in the park friday, or fun fruit salad making day? Or just fun food friday involving something other then high starch high sugar high toxin foods that I as a parent don’t want to feed my kid like ever – gluten or not!?

My celiac kid, she know she is different. She knows she has to eat only her food. She knows junk is bad. We go to extreme lengths to make sure her food is highly nourishing, packed with vitamins, and mainly sugar free, organic etc. We think 11 pneumonias is enough and we do what we can to strengthen her system, her body. So what message does it send when school wants to serve junk and on top of that they choose to call it fun!

Don’t even get me started on birthday cake celebrations. WHY? I am sending my kids to a private school to be educated, I never asked for them to be served cake. Again, its just another time my child gets to feel different, not just my child, many children. I am paying for my children to be educated….. not to sit and be made to feel different. Hate what I say all you like, this was my opinion before our Celiac diagnosis also. We actually chose our last school (before diagnosis) partly because of their food policy! Their policy allowed no junk, fizzy drinks, cakes, donuts, chocolates etc in lunch boxes, no nuts, no food sharing, and no birthday cakes. No birthday parties during school hours (woohoo). For childrens birthdays, parents were allowed to bring in a small sealed bag with a treat or toy for each child, it was given at the end of the day and any food items were not allowed to be eaten in school. The school soon had half of Dubai’s allergy kids in it, because the policy is fantastic, and guess what, no one ever complained! Those were the rules and thats that!

We couldn’t choose a school here in Wroclaw based on food policy because the schools we visited did not have a policy. I asked about food policies and birthday (cake) policies and was met with shrugs and question marks.

Its 2014! Aren’t we, parents, teachers and educators more aware then this? Shouldn’t every school have a healthy eating policy? Should we not stop giving kids unhealthy foods as treats? From the PTA meetings it seems that I am in the wrong and Im just alienating myself talking about it….. even more reason to have a policy set by a school, because this way you are taking away my choice of what to feed my child. Because obviously if the other kids eat junk I will replicate that junk best as I can, and she will still feel different and it is just so not ok.

Just one last thing, my children are not deprived. They eat nice food, they eat good food, sometimes its even fun. But its not junk, so shoot me!

-Linda

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Wroclaw, I think I love you!

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Have you ever visited somewhere and felt instantly at home? You know, that almost ‘in love’ feeling where you walk around with a silly smile on your face and just want to inhale the air even further in to your lungs, almost inhaling the actual place? If you’ve never felt that way, then feel free to think I’m a lunatic, and I wish you luck in finding your ‘at home’ place.

We went to visit Wroclaw because the school situation here in Poznan was getting to a point where we have to leave. So quick, we must find another town, another school! I didn’t expect to find another ‘at home’ place in the process, a city that Im sure will always live in my heart.

Where Poznan at times feels half asleep, Wroclaw feels alive, pulsating, moving! Where at times I feel like Poznan is in black and white, Wroclaw is totally 100% in colour! And they have gnomes! (I will have to do a full post about the gnomes one day, they are awesome!)

Poznan is nice, I like our house here and its been fine, but is fine enough? I guess that if the school had lived up to our expectations, and our children had been educated well, cared for well and been happy, then fine would have evolved to good. But unfortunately the school situation has been a total disaster. We visited two schools in Wroclaw and my kids would be lucky to go to either one of them.

So, we are moving to Wroclaw!   – insert jumping up and down exited smiley here –

-Linda