Coaching you on a Gluten-Free Diet...

Welcome to Celiac Shack

The night a “gluten-free” menu nearly took me down — and why I built this little corner of the internet.

This evening I took the kids to a restaurant with a gluten-free menu. I ordered three entrées off it for them and a salad for myself — all from the gluten-free menu the waiter himself had handed me. When the food arrived, some instinct made me ask, almost at random, whether the kids’ pasta was made from rice.

“Oh,” the waiter said. “You didn’t specify that you wanted rice noodles.”

“…What are these made of?” I asked. “Are they gluten-free?”

And he said — I promise I am not making this up:

“They’re not gluten-free. You needed to specify that you wanted rice noodles.”

Ummmmmmm. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!

I ordered directly off the GLUTEN-FREE menu, expecting — call me wild — that GLUTEN-FREE food would arrive at my table. Those were WHEAT noodles, carried over by the very same man who’d given me the gluten-free menu and taken my order. If I hadn’t asked that random little question and had simply taken a bite thinking it was safe, I’d likely be flat on my back right now instead of typing this — maybe too weak to even drive my kids home. (Deep breath. In ten years gluten-free, I’ve never met a waiter quite that clueless. But still. YIKES.)

And here’s what really got me thinking. What about a child with celiac or gluten sensitivity — something my two oldest show signs of? Picture a mom who orders what she believes is a safe, gluten-free meal for her little one, and then feels frustrated when that child turns tired and cranky and irritable an hour later. It’s hard enough for a grown adult to drag through a “glutenized” day (that’s our family word for it). Imagine being a small child whose body and brain suddenly aren’t getting what they need, with no words to explain why everything feels so awful. Grace for those kids. And grace for their mamas, too.

Normally you’ll find Larabars, raw nuts and seeds, and water tucked in my car at all times — my little emergency kit. But that afternoon I’d rushed out to meet my husband and get something notarized before the bank closed, and I never restocked my snack bags. So when everything ran long and the kids were melting down with hunger, I took a gamble and trusted a stranger to feed us safely. Lesson relearned!

This isn’t the first time someone else’s kitchen has cost me. Years ago, when I was dating my husband, he’d take me to visit his grandma in Tooele, and she always insisted on feeding me — always assuring me it was gluten-free. And I always got sick. On my last visit before she passed, I gently declined… and then, after she begged, I gave in. I still remember taking a deep breath and sighing, quietly resigning myself to losing a whole day of my life just to make my sweet future grandma happy.

But this time, I got up, followed her into the kitchen, and simply WATCHED. It didn’t take long. AH HA! There it was: she was searing my husband’s flour-dusted meat in the very same pan as my “gluten-free” meat — same skillet, same spatula, same everything. I gave her a quick, loving Gluten-Free 101 lesson — and for the first time ever at her table, I didn’t get sick.

You really do have to be careful about who you trust to cook for you. We assume people understand how careful they need to be… but most of them, bless their hearts, are genuinely clueless.

And it gets trickier still. Some celiacs wear gloves, or even masks, while preparing non-gluten-free food, and when I first heard that at a National Celiac Convention here in Salt Lake City years ago, I thought it sounded ridiculous. Then I kept getting mysteriously sick, had some testing done, and learned I react even to airborne flour. Every time I ground wheat berries for the kids in my Vitamix, a fine cloud of flour would hang in the air — and for a sensitive celiac, that airborne flour settles on your hands and your food and drifts into your mouth, where it gets swallowed. THAT was the culprit. I’d get the kids dressed and fed for church, and then — because my husband was away with the military — I’d have to call my dear babysitter to take them for me, because I’d suddenly gone down again. That mystery took months and months to solve. Crazy, crazy.

Hard-won tips for eating out (or at Grandma’s) with celiac:

• “Gluten-free menu” doesn’t always mean prepared safely. Ask HOW a dish is made, and ask to speak with the chef or manager, not just the server.
• Ask the questions that catch cross-contamination: shared pans, shared fryers, shared cutting boards and utensils, floured surfaces.
• When a loved one cooks for you, offer to help — being in the kitchen lets you catch problems kindly, before they land on your plate.
• Always, always keep safe snacks and water in the car, so you’re never forced to gamble on a hungry, rushed day.

So I keep coming home to the same simple answer: eat food that is NATURALLY gluten-free. No labels to decode, no hidden wheat, no clever imitations — just real food, the way the earth makes it. It’s become my whole approach, and I’ve been asked to teach classes on wellness and gluten-free living, which I dearly love to do.

And that, really, is why this little blog exists.

Welcome to my Shack. My wonderful, not-remotely-perfect, forever-a-work-in-progress Celiac Shack.

Here’s my honest promise, and my honest disclaimer, all in one. I can’t protect you from a waiter who hands you a gluten-free menu and then brings you wheat, or from a grandma who loves you far too much to let you leave her table hungry. For those blunders — and the thousand others that happen whenever we trust someone else with our food — I truly can’t promise you’ll feel well every single day. But I CAN share everything I’ve learned the hard way about eating real, naturally gluten-free food. And for those of us who react to gluten, that knowledge can be the whole difference between dragging through your days and actually feeling alive again.

If that’s you — or if you simply want to eat closer to the earth and feel your best — pull up a chair and stay a while. I’m so glad you’re here.

“Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health…” - 3 John 1:2

With much love,

Steffanie

Celiac Shack shares our family’s personal experience and is not medical advice. If you suspect you have celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, please get properly tested and work with a qualified provider — and remember that a gluten-free, real-food way of eating is genuinely life-changing for those who react to gluten, but it isn’t a cure-all for every condition.