Gluten Free is not a FAD for ME!!

It is not often that I use this as a soap box or a place to rant.  I use this as a place to educate and share recipes.  I love to cook and create and thru the process of learning that I CANNOT eat gluten, I have come to learn that so many out there do not know much about gluten or what it means when someone says "Do you have a Gluten Free Menu?" 

I read labels... All labels, from food, to cleaners to shampoos and soaps.  Anything that has a label that enters my home, is GF!  This is not because I have "jumped on the GF band wagon to lose weight" but because thru process of elimination and after many years of being sick, we have figured out that the culprit is GLUTEN!  There is no magic pill but it is fairly simple... don't eat it or ingest it, don't put it on your skin if it irritates it!  So that is what I have done.  And I feel FABULOUS! 

So, I was very surprised when I opened my "People Magazine" Best and Worst of 2012 today and saw a very small notation about "Gluten Free" in it! Trends of the Year (page 22) under  5 Tastes of the Town  - #5 was GF - Miley Cyrus and Elisabeth Hasselbeck followed the food fad. 

Now, I will say I have not read Elisabeth Hasselbeck's book... I have heard of people who read it and those people have had mixed opinions.  I will not give one because I did not read it.  I do not support individuals who chose the GF diet simply to lose weight. 

Those of us, who with or without an "actual diagnosis of Celiac Disease" but are still Gluten Intolerant and cannot handle Gluten in their diet know the affects of the Gluten on their bodies.  This is very upsetting to me.  When a celebrity uses the GF diet as a way to lose weight and puts it out for the world to see, the rest of us who are GF for an actual health reason lose credence.  The restaurant staff wonders if we are just on a "diet"?  This is a serious health concern for many of us... This is not for weight loss, though it may help, it is for our life! 

Please remember when someone asks you if there is a GF option available that they probably are not on a diet but have an actual health concern!