Who's Glutarded Now?

I worked as a server for years.  Working in the service industry will make even the happiest and well-adjusted person bitter. I’ve dealt with way too many high-maintenance people with unrealistic expectations of the dining experience.  And on the busy nights, there’s nothing that sucks more than special orders.  I don’t mind it in the case of food allergies, and certainly things like peanuts and shellfish usually were in the kitchens I worked in.  I never wanted a guest of mine to get sick.  But then along came gluten.

The gluten allergy.  It seemed like just another diet trend.  I’d watched the guests on Atkins come and go.  Now, it seemed that all the (I’m going to generalize/stereotype) soccer moms and skinny mean girls were jumping aboard the no gluten train.  After dealing with this “trend” for months, I coined the word “glutard.”  This was for the women who would come into my farm-to-table organic restaurant, as me if there was gluten in the salad dressing, gluten in the chicken marinade, and ask the croutons to be left off of their salad.  Then, they’d order a side of organic mac and cheese.  I’d slowly look up from my server pad, (pen and eyebrow raised) and say, “you know that has gluten.”   To which they’d giggle and say, “Oh, I only want a bite.”  Thus, the birth of the glutard- a person who was slow on the uptake when it came to gluten. 

I know.  Not a nice name.  But these ladies represented all that I hated.  Gluten wasn’t an actual allergy- these ladies were using it as a diet tool.  Then I met Sarah.

Sarah is a gorgeous human who I had the pleasure of doing a production with in Chicago in 2008.  She’s a coloratura soprano, she’s a great actress, and she has a wickedly dry sense of humor.  We bonded, as actors do, during the rehearsal process.  And one day she started telling me about her disability- celiac disease.  Again, as a server, my eyebrow raised as she told me about her issues with gluten.  And I remember thinking, “is this allergy really a disability?”  And, I realized, hell yeah, it is.  And I felt like a jerk.  Because celiac is not just an allergy- it’s an auto-immune disorder. When exposed to gluten, an abnormal immune response may lead to the production of several different autoantibodies that can affect various organs.  In the small bowel, this causes an inflammatory reaction and may produce shortening of the lining in the small intestine which affects the absorption of nutrients, frequently leading to anemia. If untreated, it may result in cancers such as intestinal lymphoma and an increased risk of early death. Yikes.

Sarah was ill for years before she was diagnosed.  She had chronic diarrhea, and a distended tummy.  She lost weight due to her body’s inability to absorb nutrients.  Often, she didn’t want to eat at all, because she always felt ill afterward.  She did office work and after licking stamps would be ill for days- who knew there was gluten in stamp glue?  Once she was diagnosed, it required a big lifestyle change.  She had to have separate pans for cooking and baking from her boyfriend, because traces of gluten left behind on cooking wares could make her sick.  And the one that broke my heart- she couldn’t kiss her boyfriend if he’d been out drinking beer, as the traces of gluten in his mouth could make her ill.  It was wild- and I had no idea. 

People who think that celiac (or any other medical condition that requires a restricted diet) isn’t a disability are nuts.  The ADA defines “and individual with a disability” as a person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity, has a record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such an impairment.  Major life activities like, I don’t know- EATING like everybody else!  Sarah can’t grab a latte at Starbucks or grab a burger at McDonald’s like most people I know can.  Because celiac, like a peanut or shellfish allergy for example, severely impairs people’s ability to eat “normally” or what is considered in Sarah’s words, “a normal cultural manner.”  She likened it to people who can’t walk in “culturally recognized manner” or something similar- basically, like everyone else. 

Celiac became recognized by the ADA as a disability in 2013.  This is super important for many reasons- but two stuck out to me as Sarah and I continued to have conversations about this. First, it ensures coverage of people with “invisible disabilities”, such as epilepsy, diabetes, heart failure, schizophrenia, depression, and cancer.  I investigated further some of these “invisible disabilities.” As we chatted about briefly in class, people who climb out of their cars from the handicap spot and do not get directly into a wheelchair are often given the side eye.  But some people get the handicapped spots because of risk of over-exertion.  For example, at the grocery store, pushing a shopping carts increases their risk of seizure, which in turn could leave them seizing in a parking lot where they could be run over.  Often people in wheelchairs get a ride instead of using their designated space as they fear that navigating large parking lots in a low wheelchair might get you hit by a car.   Again, yikes- these are things I didn’t necessarily think about.  Second, while awareness has been raised in the past five years about celiac/gluten-free diets, the ADA DO can play a role in one’s professional life.  For example, Sarah’s day job is in fundraising.  A big part of fundraising/development is going out and schmoozing, having meals with donors, etc.  Her job, therefore, is required to ensure that she gets a gluten free meal at required work events.  And they are not allowed to fire her because her chicken and vegetables cost $2-5 more than their standard catering plate.  Without the ADA they would be able to fire/fine Sarah for the additional cost.  And prior to the ADA recognizing Sarah’s disability, she did have issues with employers fining/firing/or in general giving Sarah a hard time about her disability, which she had no control over.  She told me about bosses she had that were “playfully nasty” or passive aggressive, and would tease her about “minding her gluten in front of other people (often donors) when then impacts her ability to do her job.  She said, “think for a second, Drea, if someone went like, ‘Watch that cancer!’ or ‘mind your can-legs’ to someone with a physical disability or a disease.  Now ay would that be accepted.  But because my medical diet is also a middle-class white girl trend, people think it’s funny to joke about it.”  (See Jimmy Fallon below)

                     

“Well, guess what,” she continues, “that’s really a lawsuit waiting to happen.  So, ADA has some serious power to protect people like me, and I am so grateful for it!”  It was at this point I shamefully told her about the “glutards” I had waited on at my restaurant.  To my sincere relief, she giggled.  “Yup,” she agreed.  “As I said, those stupid bitches who use the gluten thing as a diet plan make it really hard on people like me. I think ‘glutard is a great name for them.

As far as those ladies who come into my restaurant, Sarah isn’t one of them.  She doesn’t want to be annoying or tasked with “performing’ her disability.  She is supremely resourceful, and before dining out, already has scoped the menu of the place and decided what she can eat.  She also usually calls ahead to verify if there are things she can safely consume.  She hates “making a big deal out of it” to the server who often is misinformed by their chef/managers about the menu.  She simply informs the staff that she has celiac.  And she doesn’t go to restaurants where they can’t accommodate her, because she doesn’t want to get sick.  This made me feel bad, as I worried that that left her out of socializing with people.  But she said she’d rather just not run the risk of having an unaccommodating chef, an uninformed server, or a kitchen with cross-contamination (or a combo of the three.)  She also said that while it’s difficult in Chicago (a city where most fraternizing revolves around food) that she’s found other great ways to connect with people socially- be it theatre, art classes, a jog/walk in the park, book clubs, etc.  She is also pleased as punch to talk about her disability with anyone who has question- as evidenced in my blog. 

Thinking about celiac and other food allegories led me to think about what food might be like in a “vision of the future.”  I think in the next 50-100 years, our food norms are going to shift. They already have significantly in the past hundred years.  We’ve witnessed the desire for fatter cows, bug-free fruit, and sugar alternatives.  As a result, we now have hormones and pesticides in our food, or we must pay more expensive prices for organic, hormone, free-range food.  We’ve seen margarine (more plastic than food) and high fructose corn syrup in everything (even baby-formula).  We’ve seen obesity become rampant in our children and poor- mainly because, again, healthy foods tend to be costlier.  What if, in the future, animals die out and everyone must become vegetarian or vegan?  What if we’re able to conquer all the food allergies, such as soy, dairy, wheat, nightshade? Perhaps advances will be made, but if not, the future may give us our daily sustenance in the form of pellets or pills.  In my mind, I see myself on a conveyor belt (a la the Jetsons) where I will be showered and clothed, and then a pill or pellet will drop out of a chute like I’m a hamster.  Maybe I’ll get three pills a day instead of meals, or maybe there are pill combinations taken throughout the day.  By then, will the pills have become allergen free for everyone?  No meat, shellfish, peanut, etc.?  I’d hate to think that I’d no longer get to sit and eat a tasty hot meal, but maybe in the future, when we’re all part cyborg, eating won’t be as important any longer.  Our “fuel” may come in part from alternative sources.

But, until the pellet food future is upon us, I ask everyone, particularly those who work in food service, to have the patience that I myself didn’t always have when dealing with a gluten allergy.  While there may be the “glutards” of the world who are a bit slow in their dieting trend, a gluten intolerance/celiac person doesn’t have the “grab-and-go” ability with food that most of us are so accustomed to.  To conclude, my mom was diagnosed with a gluten intolerance several years ago.  While initially sad that I could no longer make her a cake for her birthday, it’s become a fun and inspiring challenge to learn even more about where gluten is snuck into food.  And I happily check the menus at restaurants ahead of time so I can take her out for a nice meal without feeling like I’m pressuring a server.  But again, even if I must ask the server questions, it’s for the greater good, and I hope for empathy. Because everyone deserves the right to eat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsjgGOPanGI

http://deliciousliving.com/gluten-free/celiac-and-gluten-intolerance-now-classified-disability

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/what-will-food-be-like-in-the-future