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

When Nina's post arrived this morning I considered posting it to the list
because I think, as Steve does, that this is a good subject for wider
discussion. His post prompts me to forward my reply to Nina to the list.

>Luckily for me, I am a fairly experienced cook and so can make good
>guesses about where gluten may lurk in otherwise safe foods like say,
>grilled Portobellos. (I know restaurants that use a marinade that contains
>soy sauce.) I do worry about the grill in breakfast places and sandwich
>shops because so much of what they do is bread, pancakes, etc. Shortly
>after diagnosis, a tiny bit of burrito residue on an incompletely washed
>fork taught me a lasting lesson about contamination. I figure if I can see
>the wheat-containing stuff, it is definitely too much for me to eat.
>
>Like many celiacs, I became more sensitive as my gut healed and the
>antibodies disappeared from my body. This does not mean that I react to
>any bit of gluten.

I do not worry about vanilla and etc. because the amount is so small in a
cooked dish. As for mustards and vinegars -- I'm persuaded by the
scientists who say the gluten molecules do not get through the distillation
process. The other night I ordered a chocolate sundae-which came with a
cookie stuck in the top. So I didn't eat the whipped cream that touched the
cookie, but I ate the stuff an inch away rather than send the whole thing
back to the kitchen.

>I worry more than Steve or Nina does about the cumulative effects of
>gluten that causes no immediate symptom but still does damage to the
>intestines. Many minor but bothersome symptoms that I ignored, pre-celiac,
>have disappeared. This makes me think seriously about the myriad and
>perhaps unpredictable effects of compromised absoprtion.

Iron and calcium are the obvious nutrients that go missing with a little
celiac damage, but it seems reasonable to guess that other nutritional
deficits occur as well. Since I began the gf diet, everything from vagrant
joint pains to leg cramps to mental fuzziness to burping to occasionally
bleeding gums have all but disappeared. Perhaps astymptomatic problems are
also rectified -- no way to know, of course, but it does seem likely. I am
vigilant more because I want to safeguard my ability to absorb nutrients
than because I fear cancer.

Can I be sure restaurants are as attentive to contamination issues as I
ask? Of course not. Do I get some gluten in my system that I don't know
about? I am sure I do. But my antibody tests are clean and my general
health is good. I am as vigilant as I reasonably can be, and am comforted
by the knowledge that a healed gut will not disintegrate with exposure to a
bit of inadvertent gluten.

Mary Brown
NYC