<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>>

Suzanne,

I'm in the same position as your husband.  Frankly, if he
wants you well, he has to learn to do things properly.

In our house I have a special cutting board and a small
area where I try and keep the majority of my
gluten-containing material.

We have found that proper washing up will remove the traces
you are discussing.  Certainly crumbs will make you ill.
The work on re-reading scientific papers I have been doing
recently shows that the level of 10 mg gluten per day CAN
be tolerated by the majority of coeliacs.  Now normal wheat
contains from 6 to 10 grams gluten per hundred grams of
flour, so the ABSOLUTE maximum you could risk in crumbs and
all other intake (if you breathe in flour dust from a
broken bag in the supermarket, your body systems mean that
it gets swallowed and there is hidden gluten everywhere) is
going to be 0.1 GRAM (28.6 grams in one ounce)!  Now crumbs
don't weigh that much less than this.  Our rule is to
ALWAYS clean the worktop of all crumbs before any cooking.
We work on GF cutting boards etc for all GF cooking.  We
also use a non-stick coated cooking sheet (Du Pont make
this - I expect it's available in the States.  It's a bit
pricey but lasts and lasts and lasts).  I always line the
tin with this when I make a pizza and this means the tin
doesn't tend to get very messy and is easy to clean.

We don't make a fetish of removing absolutely every trace
of gluten but where it is relatively easy, we remove as
much as is possible.

Oddly enough the rules in our house are that we both
organise the dishwasher but all other washing up is my job.
(I'm a recognised expert in getting things a lot cleaner
than needed in normal household work - see my "sign-off").

Do put your husband in contact if he'd like to discuss this
with a fellow coeliac-widower (this is a JOKE - truly).

Regards

David

David J Walland
University of Bristol Radiation Protection Adviser
[log in to unmask]
Tel +44 (0)117 928 8323
Fax +44 (0)117 929 1209

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Support the Jubilee 2000 movement.  Remove the debt burden
from third world countries.  See http://www.cafod.org.uk/petition.htm