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Hello Celiacphiles,
I received many very insightful answers to my question: Why......?
I learned a lot about human nature!
I will split the replies into a number of emails.
Thank you again everyone for your replies.
My reaction is like yours but after 13 or so years of compliance the diet
has gotten easier to follow and the GF products have increased in both
brands and variety and the overall quality of them has improved vastly. But
the diet is always presented in a negative way so all people can think about
is how hard it will be to follow and all the favorite dishes they will be
giving up.
In a nutshell, I think your husband is correct. I have encountered this
horrified resistance many, many times from others at the thought of giving
up wheat/gluten over my years of being gf. I think people would rather give
up ANYTHING (money, sex, fame and fortune!) than their favorite foods. Most
of those things that people eat and love routinely, they are
psychologically addicted to and nearly go crazy when you suggest having to
give them up or sub them out. I was so desperate when I found out my
diagnosis that I burst into tears of relief and gratitude. Like yourself, I
could not wait to stop the gluten. I also have other difficult intolerances
and by now, I find the whole thing a big drag and i hate it. BUT, I would
never go back to eating gluten, ever..........I believe that the truth is
this: if you are desperate enough, you will do the gf diet and be totally
glad that you have a solution, no matter how tough it is to follow. If you
are getting by, you will find any excuse not to do it........best wishes,
Leslie in Atlanta
People today are used to having things easy. Instant meals that come in
cardboard, or a tin or the cute little boxes from the Chinese Restaurant. We
have learned to place a HIGH value on convenience, economics and "free
time". The foods that Celiacs have to give up, are all the CONVENIENCE foods
that are supposedly designed to help us have a better way of life. They are
supposed to be more cost efficient which helps us to save money, they are
quicker to prepare leaving us more time to spend with our families and they
are readily available. It's hard to give up something you have spent most of
your life learning. Most of us in my generation on down (I'm 31) have grown
up with all these convenience foods and think we will DIE without them...we
don't know any better. Now that I have found out that my sons and I are
Celiacs, it takes a lot of effort, dedication and diligence to make sure we
DO NOT ingest gluten. I spend more money on food, spend more time in the
grocery stores reading EVERY label, hardly eat out any more because it is
VERY difficult to order directly off a menu, and I spend MUCH more time in
the kitchen. Who in their right mind would WANT to give up spending less
money, less time shopping, less time cooking and more time with their
family??? I sure didn't want to, and honestly, if it hadn't been for my kids
being sick also, I am not sure how GF I would have remained. So, in a
nutshell, people don't want to be diagnosed with Celiac because the
lifestyle changes are pretty immense. You have to forget all you were taught
about savvy grocery shopping and meal planning and relearn it. I say IT'S
WORTH IT!!! My kids and I are on the road to recovery and after only being
GF for a month the improvement is DRAMATIC.
Hmmm ... well, human beings are NOT terribly good, in general, about
looking out for their self-interest, even when it is fairly obvious what
they *should* do! Either they lack willpower or willingness or are
convinced of their own immortality, but to look at some easier examples,
look at how many people:
-- continue to smoke
-- won't wear seat belts
-- take illegal drugs
-- fool around on their spouses
and I won't even get into advisory stuff like exercise, seeing the dentist,
savings accounts, or philisophical stuff like environmental damage or
overpopulation. So even if a person is CONVINCED that wheat is causing,
say, fibromyalgia, that does not mean they will give it up, any more than a
smoker will give up smoking after a lung is removed or a diabetic will give
up candy.
Wheat opioids ARE addicting and I don't think that is even controversial
any more: if they get into your brain, they will cause cravings. There may
be other routes that make the stuff addicting too, like the effect on
seratonin, I don't know, but I'm convinced from my own experience that it's
as much a drug as whisky or beer.
And how do you convince a person anyway, when the whole culture and
advertising media and even the US government and medical community is
saying wheat is "the staff of life"? It's like saying you are un-American,
not pro-apple pie and you don't pop pretzels like the President or pop in
for Happy Meals or a pizza and beer after the game. Going wheat-free is
making a major cultural statement (unfortunately): probably it is groups
like this one that give people the backbone to be different at work and home.
No, the miracle to me is that the thousands of people on this list actually
HAVE given it up and work really hard to stay free of the stuff, and the
percentage of success seems a lot higher than for the average smoker or
drinker or person trying to lose weight.
So what made you'all give this a try? (Ok, for some people it was because
they were on IV tubes at the time and it was an extreme circumstance! But
how many were 'mildly ill' and decided to try going gf to get better?
And, what makes you stick to it?
-- Heidi
P.S. I did read an article that tied gall bladder disease to celiac.
Something about the inflammation closing off the outlet from the gall
bladder (same problem with the pancreas).
Um, just venturing a guess here, because CD is so rare? You know, only 1 in
111 people here have it. More awareness of it by the general population here
I think is not the answer, and points to the bigger problem of a lack of a
comprehensive national testing program here, similar to what Italy does. In
Italy they identify it by the age of 6. Undiagnosed CD there goes 2-3 weeks
before it is caught by their doctors. Here with no testing program at all,
average time to diagnosis after onset of symptoms is 10 years.
If we had a system of testing similar to Italy's we wouldn't need to make
the general population aware of the hidden epidemic we have here now.
Because it only afflicts 1 of every 111 people here, I can see the other 110
people who don't have it thinking, "Do I need to know about this? Or is it
just another disease like MS, MD, Lupus, etc, that I'm not likely to ever
have to deal with..?"
Know what I mean?
I'm finding that a lot of people think that they already have the right
diagnoses and treatment for their pains and illnesses.It's like hanging on
to a life preserver.They don't want to here anything else.
Then others have tried everything that something as simple as eliminating
gluten and allergins seems to good to be true.
I'm glad that I listened.Hopefully getting well will get the message across.
Then again if we acted like our secret to feeling better was really a secret
everyone might want in on it.;-).
more replies to come......
*Support summarization of posts, reply to the SENDER not the CELIAC List*
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