Well…2020 is off to a nice start. We have already seen a number of products on the market that are labeled gluten-free…yet contain gluten. The FDA is ignoring everyone’s tweets regarding the situation (blog post to come). And now we have Lisa Ensor, who decided to tell everyone on Facebook that European flour is safe for those with gluten issues.
Happy New Year!!! (sarcasm font)
Here’s her post:
Now in these situations…I always try to give the person the benefit of the doubt. So I sent her a private message. Here’s how the brief conversation went.
Me: Hi Lisa. I saw your post about the European bread being safe to eat. Do you have celiac disease? Is the European flour gluten free? Thanks.
Dude note: My intention here was to seem like I was interested…not pissed.
Lisa: I don’t have celiac but I have 3 friends who do and tried the European flour without any reaction. Both doctor confirmed celiac disease!
Dude note: Her friends are idiots. And is it 3 friends or 2?
Lisa: The European flour does have gluten but their food has higher standards and Americans don’t seem to react to their gluten.
Dude note: This may be the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard since my diagnosis. So it’s only AMERICAN flour that affects those with celiac disease. Riiiiiight.
Me: Thanks for the information. I appreciate it. Please understand that no reaction does not mean it’s safe. There is no safe gluten for those with celiac disease. I’m a big advocate and just want to make sure people do not get the wrong information.
Lisa: [silence]
So look…no big deal right? I mean who is Lisa Ensor anyway? She only has 147 followers so I’m sure it didn’t reach too many people.
Wait…what?? It was shared over 1,500 times. Yes…over 1,500 f***ing times.
And the comments? Here’s a sampling that will make you want to cry/scream/puke:
Wow!! Why didn’t i think of that??
Dude note: Cause it’s not true.
Following! Allergic to gluten and wheat.
Dude note: There’s no such thing as a gluten allergy.
I am in a FB group for intermittent fasting and shared this experience and several other people who are celiac in America didn’t have a reaction with European flour either!!!!
Dude note: For the zillionth time..and I’ll shout for those in the back…NO SYMPTOMS DOES NOT MEAN NO DAMAGE.
Lisa I’m the same!!!! Artisan flours and European pasta and breads don’t bother me a bit! In fact I lost 5 lbs on our Italian adventure.
Dude note: Maybe because your intestines were so inflamed, you weren’t getting any nutrients in your body.
You can eat the Russian and UK flour. I only tell you this because we have a kid at school who is gluten intolerant and he also has celiac disease. I made him cookies because he wanted some so bad. He had zero issues with it. In fact he begged for more before Christmas break. He was so excited to be able to eat it with no problems.
Dude note: You’ve…got…to…be…f***ing…kidding…me. You gave your child with celiac disease gluten and you will continue to do so? No words.
Our wheat here is too modified, sprayed and messed up!
Dude note: While I’m not disagreeing with this, celiac goes back thousands of years, though it wasn’t until the 1970’s that celiac disease was labeled an autoimmune disorder. Was it modified and “messed up” in the year 1398?
And on and on it went. There was not one person who said this is absolute bullshit and she was putting the celiac community in danger. So here are some facts for Lisa and for those who simply wanna believe they can consume European flour.
- Fact #1: Gluten is a protein in wheat, barley and rye (and a few other grains).
- Fact #2: Celiac disease is an immune disease in which people can’t eat gluten because it will damage their small intestine.
- Fact #3: European flour made from wheat is not gluten-free.
- Fact #4: See Fact #1. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
Let me wrap this up with some final comments:
To Lisa: Your information is dangerous and now you’ve put 1000’s of people at risk. Do you really want that responsibility on your shoulders? Do the right thing and take your post down.
To Lisa’s followers who have celiac disease: Lisa is not qualified to say what is safe and not safe for you. Please be your own best advocate. I just don’t understand why you would listen to one person and then jump all over it. Read. Research. The right info is out there.
Is it 2021 yet???
This misinformation drives me crazy. I don’t care how clean, ancient, organic, biodynamic, spray-free, non-GMO, fair-trade, palm-free, free range, or European your gluten is. It’s still gluten.
I have had celiac disease for over 30 years. I can’t go near wheat without bad side effects. I just went to Spain and was told do not be surprised if you can eat anything you want. I swear to you I ate more bread and pizza and pastries and pasta than I ever ate in my life just 8 days ,every day and had ZERO SIDE EFFECTS . EVEN WHEN I CAME BACK NO SYMPTOMS until I ate the poison America feeds us and within 3 days symptoms were back. In America even when you are careful you get side effects because all of our food is not fit for DOGS !!!!!! . THE PROBLEM IS THE SHIT THEY FEED US IN AMERICA IS TOXIC POISON . WHILE IN SPAIN I WAS MYSTERIOUSLY CURED ? BULLSHIT !! FUCKING DOCTORS ARE FULL OF SHIT !!! THE PROBLEM IS THE SHIT THEY FEED US IN AMERICA !! NO SUCH THING AS BULLSHIT CELIAC DISEASE IN SPAIN FOR ME ANYWAY !!
Thank you!
I have Silent Celiac. No symptoms but it reeks havoc on your insides. No systems doesn’t mean no damage! Stay away from all wheat, barley and rye. Only a scope will show the damage. Wise up people!
I just found out that I have cd after 36 yrs!!! My dr told me my villi is sooooo damaged I was being treated for an ulcer for over a year and no relief so they sent me to a new gastro and low and behold I have CD and all my issues are all tied with that!!!!!
My son and I do not have celiac, but are extremely gluten intolerant. His autism symptoms increase in severity, and my GI tract gets very unhappy. We can have European flour without reactions. Gluten intolerance is a real thing, but the more I’m looking into it, the more I think GMO intolerance or pesticide intolerance or whatever else is the real issue, not gluten after all… But they come packaged neatly together here in the US so it’s tough to tease out which is the real culprit.
If I packaged the US flour in a European bag I guarantee you would say you had no issues. If I put the European flour in US bag you would claim to have an issue.
We have several markets in Atlanta that import products from Italy like pasta and flour and they have always given me a problem.
Schar Gluten Free bread has been made in Italy since 1980. If the flour from Europe is safer then who do they sell GF products in Europe?
For the last 5 years 70% of the wheat in Italy has come from the USA due to drought conditions there.
Correction for Fact #2: Celiac disease is an immune disease in which people can’t eat gluten because no body part is safe from damage.
Literally from ur hair to ur feet!!! Like every ailment I have is from celiac disease some of it is not reversible
YOUR FEET ? YOUR HAIR ? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT ? SINCE WHEN ? CELIAC HAS NEVER EFFECTED EITHER ON ME !!
Celiac can absolutely affect every inch of your body and here’s how: the microvilli that line your small intestine are damaged when a person with Celiac eats gluten. These little microvilli are ESSENTIAL for nutrient absorption. This is why Celiac can cause malnutrition in a multitude of ways. Vitamin deficiencies caused by malabsorption can damage skin, hair, nails, etc. Nutrition is the basis of every structure and function of the human body, and when Celiac disease compromises one’s nutrition, you’d be surprised what can go wrong.
Here’s the thing being one of the 2
Percent that actually deals with vertigo as well as purging from all orifices. I can honestly say that no reaction is NO REACTION. Also being that I am aware that Celiacs has been correlated with ALS. I can promise you that the more cross contamination the more likely the damage will be irreversible. Now with all of that being said I truly believe that no one has the right to say whether someone is putting others lives at jeopardy. Last time I checked my choice is just that MY CHOICE! If condemnation is necessary please have a doctors degree to back it up.
I have the non Celiacs variety and suspect pesticides are causing part of the health problems with American wheat. Also have problem with dairy/soy allergy, after extensive self testing I found that small to large amounts of organic cheese over a short period of time didn’t cause the usual psoriasis, depression, and panic attacks that commercial cheese will induce right away. Eating organic cheese over a week steadily however started the psoriasis in small amounts but without the depression/panic attacks. Haven’t tested European wheat as I’ve given up on the gluten entirely, even sourdough is something I can’t tolerate.
Conclusions from a self diagnosis only lead to more misinformation. Self diagnosis is inherently biased, skewed due to a sample group of 1, and greatly swayed by placebo effect! We all know of experimental results by reputable labs that were later shown to be false due to misinterpretation. Biology is extremely complex.
I was diagnosed with Celiac disease 8 years ago. I also developed a contact allergy to gluten. I have a severe reaction either way. My mother mentioned that we should try European flour as American flour is hard wheat with lots of pesticides and possibly gmo’s, and European flour is soft wheat. Somehow, I have also developed a reaction to gmo’s along the way. I have tried gluten free cereal that was GMO and had a severe reaction. One of the worst reactions I had was immediately after taking a bite of fresh corn. I didn’t realize it was genetically modified. Oh that was a bad day. It takes a month for me to recover after being exposed either directly or through cross contamination. Fast forward to recently, I picked up a bag of the Russian bread flour and my mother made biscuits for us. REAL biscuits. I was hesitant of course. I took the plunge and I touched it. I waited. There was no reaction to my skin, face, no itching, no boils… So then, I took a bite. I know within 30sec. if I’ve been contaminated. I waited, and nothing happened. I happily ate my first biscuit with gravy in almost a decade and couldn’t believe it. I am still baffled that I didn’t have a reaction. I don’t plan on making it a habit but I was surprised to say the least. Could the difference be soft wheat vs hard wheat, plus the glyphosate, gmo’s, pesticides etc?
OMG @ the person who commented that they have a celiac kid in class who they made wheat cookies for and will continue to do so. Maybe I read it wrong, but it looked like this was NOT THEIR CHILD but one whom they teach. I internally screamed and I swear my heart momentarily stopped reading that. I have a 4yo who was recently diagnosed. That, RIGHT THERE, is what TERRIFIES me about leaving him with anyone. I have done it twice, now, and I (the 100% drop and run before they work up a good fit type of mom for the last decade) was a complete nervous wreck…and that was before reading that comment! Just holy cow! The thought of someone being that cavalier with a kid’s health is appalling.
I do think it’s stupid to actually follow her advice… but I can still see why people do it. Many of us desperately want to just be normal again and have the actually good tasting versions of old favorites. We don’t want to be on this horrible diet. We want to feel normal again and experience food in a normal way. We want to be cured, not told to abstain from everything we grew up with and loved or which is part of our culture or heritage.
Here are the facts:
Diagnosis of celiac sprue can ONLY occur through blood testing followed by a gastrointestinal scope to determine possible but very specific damage to the lining of your GI trac. If actual testing does not occur, there is no definitive diagnosis. Period.
If your physician diagnoses you as having celiac disease without these tests, based only on your reported symptoms this is negligent. The reality is that yes, you MAY have celiacs (not yet diagnosed), OR you may be gluten intolerant or gluten sensitive.
As stated by Gluten Dude, celiacs is actually NOT an allergy, it is a complex intestinal reaction to the presence of gluten, (found in wheat rye and barley originating from any ANY country which produces it, ANY COUNTRY). When the intestine senses the presence of gluten, it triggers your own immune system to launch an attack on the lining of your intestines, causing varying degrees of damage. (Similar to your immune system attacking a virus or bacteria, goal of an immune response, regardless of the trigger, is to destroy its target).
Important takeaway points:
1) Those that ate bread from Europe, without any type of reaction, very likely do not have celiac sprue, they more than likely have some type of gluten sensitivity. A sensitivity, by its very definition can wax and wan. This explains how additional reported theories or mitigating factors such as absence of pesticides in flour that made the bread, produce a minimal to no noticeable reaction.
2) if you were definitively diagnosed with celiac sprue and did not suffer a reaction after eating bread from Europe, then the bread you ate was made with flour yes, but NOT with flour made with wheat, rye or barley, unless Europe has GMO’d their wheat, rye or barley to no longer contain gluten, highly unlikely that this has occurred without the rest of the world knowing.
3) Additionally as Gluten Dude stated, no obvious reaction does not mean NO DAMAGE. And yes, it’s a free world and people can give any opinion they want, however, before you drink the koolaid, oops meant eat more “wheat containing” European bread, ask your primary care provider to refer you for a GI scope. And again, if there is no damage present, you did not have celiacs to begin with.