*** Warning! There is a better than even chance that the following post contains satirical content. The authors of this site cannot assume any liability for potential public backlash against Oompa Loompas, Mel Brooks movies, and/or the good people of Norway. Thank you for your understanding. ***
Just been diagnosed? Don’t quite understand what Celiac is and what causes it? Have a broad range of really annoying symptoms and don’t know why? Unless you have an obsession with transglutaminase’s and antigliadin’s,
the nuances of Celiac Disease can be a little difficult to digest.
Ahem, pun intended. Boy I crack myself up sometimes.
Let’s take a stab at explaining this really complex topic in true Celiac Bites fashion. That could be a little dangerous, but here goes…
I think the easiest way to describe Celiac is to compare it to the big fight scene in Mel Brooks’ famous movie Blazing Saddles. Someone punches a horse, things get ugly, and next thing you know, everybody is beating the crap out of everybody else. That’s kind of what happens in your small intestine, only there’s usually not a horse involved. So, given the likely absence of the either a horse or evil villain Hedley Lamarr, how does this battle royale within your small intestine happen?
It’s pretty simple really.When you eat Pop-Tarts, you get sick. Even though Pop-Tarts are mostly made of advanced plastic polymers, they do contain trace amounts of proteins commonly found in wheat, barley, and rye grains.
Thor
And, as everybody knows, wheat, barley, and rye grains are descendants of Thor, the great viking god of thunder. Thor was a raucous warrior, wreaking havoc and destruction wherever he went. After a while, Thor got bored of being fearsome and plundering things, so he settled down with former Beverly Hills 90210 actress Brittany Ashleigh Spelling. Together they had a whole bunch of kids – so many that they gave up on the idea of naming them individually and instead referred to them collectively as the gliadins. So you might say that the gliadins are little offshoots of wheat, barley, and rye grains. Still with me? Good, because I’m not.
Over the years, gliadins have taken up residence in Pop-Tarts all over the world. They also tend to congregate in other forms of yummy food like pizza that have ingredients derived from various grains. While very tiny and seemingly harmless, the gliadins are every bit as irritable and cantankerous as their father Thor – especially when they get eaten. That’s where the trouble starts.
When you eat gliadins, they follow a path straight to your guts – home of the villi.The villi are actually a tribe of miniature people begat by the Oompa Loompas. While Oompa Loompas have a reputation of being hard working and industrious, the villi have no such ambition, so they stand around with their hands in the air waiting for any food that may happen to drift by. Most villi are unemployed and prefer to stay that way as long as they can keep collecting free Pop-Tarts.
oompa loompas
So far, so good, as the often cranky gliadins and villi have no real ill will against each other. As the gliadins float by, they might overhear mundane conversations like this:
“No, but I sure hope we have Brown Sugar and Cinnamon Pop-Tarts again. Mmmm.”
This perfectly civil process turns outright ugly when the auto-antibodies get involved. Antibodies have a chip on their shoulder as they resent having to work so hard fighting things like botulism and the common cold, while their cousins the villi don’t do much of anything. As children, the auto-antibodies were generally abused and picked on by the irritable gliadins. Now that they are all grown up, but still a little on the immature side, the auto-antibodies tend to fly off the handle whenever gliadins pass through their neighborhood. However, old fears are hard to overcome, so the auto-antibodies – more specifically the anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies (tTGA’s) – can’t muster up the guts to confront the gliadins directly. Instead, they throw showy tantrums and beat up the mellow villi – who are much easier targets to bully. Once the tTGA’s start fighting the hapless villi, all hell breaks loose. Next thing you know, you’ve got antibodies all over the place chasing after villi, gliadins, and stray Pop-Tart crumbs.
On Strike
So back to Blazing Saddles. By the time we get to the climactic cafeteria food fight scene, everybody is fighting everybody else and throwing food and furniture for no particular reason. The problem for you is that you own the cafeteria – and the cafeteria gets wrecked in this scene.
As you can imagine, the villi tend to tire of these free for all food fights and eventually go on strike. Beaten down, depressed, and disheartened, they won’t even bother to get their own food, much less do any work for you. You can eat as much as you want, but no goodness is getting through to you. It’s kind of like watching “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.” You can spend hours and hours viewing re-runs, but you most likely will not be registering your yacht in Monaco anytime soon. Ok – back to the villi picket line. In a show of union solidarity, everyone else in your body goes on strike. You get sick, tired, lethargic, and weak – kind of like having that 6am Monday morning feeling all the time. And you know how truly awesome that is.
I sincerely hope I didn’t lose you with all the complex medical and biological terminology. This has been a public service of Celiac Bites.
Join us next time where we will address the question…
“So you’re allergic to bread???”
Thor image: MrDonn.org
After an 18 month adventure through the catacombs of the medical system, I was formally diagnosed with Celiac Disease. The bright side of that journey is that I know 3,712 nasty and horrible conditions that I do NOT have.
This is great! I forwarded it to all my family members, who are doing their best to wrap their minds around this. I wish there was more writing out there on the disease like this. Most of what I read leaves me overwhelmed.
I have a question, which you can ignore, because you’re not running an advice column here, but: I live with my gluten-loving boyfriend, and I’m wondering how much we have to segregate our food and cooking utensils and all that. Do we really have to replace all our pots and pans and colanders? Thanks! Again, ignore if desired, no hard feelings.
Hi Jess! Welcome to Celiac Bites! While I am not a medical doc, nor do I play one on TV, I am happy to share my experience to help others like you. That’s one of the main reasons I felt compelled to start CeliacBites.com.
We’ve worked out a pretty good system in our house for me and everyone else that seems to work pretty well. Here are some of the high points:
We have two toasters on opposite sides of the kitchen. This is probably the biggest cross contamination risk so having one “gluten free” toaster works well for us.
)
I use one of the drawers in the fridge for my gluten free stuff. This is just a quick and brainless way to segregate things that might get confused (GF food is more expensive and harder to get, so this also keeps my teenagers from eating it
GF leftovers go in the separate fridge drawer. This is handy if you prepare two versions of the same thing, ie BBQ chicken on the grill or something. Then the GF leftovers that may look the same as regular leftovers are easy to spot.
We don’t bother at all with separate pots, pans, utensils, silverware, etc. Even though I have very high sensitivity to Gluten, the dishwasher seems to work just fine for removing any stray gluteny things from utensils and silverware.
I do give our grill a good brushing before I use it every time.
Think of food things that you spread with a knife and get two sets of those – one for GF use only. Examples might be mayo, peanut butter, mustard, etc – anything you dip a knife into and spread on bread. The fridge items of this type are kept in the drawer I described earlier.
I also keep a separate stick of butter in my GF drawer stash to prevent cross contamination with the “house butter”
I use one shelf in the pantry for GF dry goods. Once boxes get opened and such things tend to spill around. I use the top shelf so my stuff spills on the non-GF items and not the other way around.
Those are the biggies that are coming to mind now, but then again its not yet 7am and I need a lot more caffeine, so I will probably add to these comments when I wake up!
Thanks for checking out the site, I hope this gives you some ideas!
Thanks very much! That seems like a sane and do-able system. I appreciate your response!
I am 17 years old and was diagnosed, in February, I just recently found out the diet has not been working for me. It really sucks! I have been sticking to my diet faithfully my mom spends hundreds of dollars to buy me everything she can find gluten free so I don’t go without. What I am wondering is why, if I still have no billion, am I able to gain weight and if keep it on? Does ur body just not absorb nutrients? Can it still absorb fats and sugars? I just want to feel better I’m in my senior year at high school, I had to drop my last 3 blocks last year because I was so sick, and although I was upset at the celiac diagnosis. I was anxious to start the diet in hopes of getting better. Now I have only been in school 3 weeks and already missed 6 days. I just wanna graduate! Wut about toothpaste.? I use crest 3 d white that is what I am resorting to checking toothpast, make up everything.got any advise or answers for me?
Thanks for stopping by! While I am sorry to hear about your diagnosis, I am glad to hear that it’s not something more serious! With time and patience, you can live a normal and healthy lifestyle – even with Celiac Disease!
I’m not a physician, so my first recommendation will be to consult with one who is VERY familiar with Celiac Disease – not all of them are. With that said, here are a few things that really helped me. Discuss these things with your doctor and see if it helps…
1. I’m not sure how long you’ve been on the diet, but it takes time to start to feel better. It could be months for some.
2. It’s CRITICAL to be fanatical about the diet. if you are still having problems, buying food that’s labeled gluten free may not be enough. Unfortunately many food manufacturers have jumped on the “Gluten Free” bandwagon to make a fast buck and there are not sufficient labeling regulations to protect people like us. I only buy gluten free food from companies that make everything they claim to be gluten free in a a gluten free facility. Cross contamination can get you!
3. You may want to try going to a really, really, basic diet for a few weeks. Like fresh chicken and rice type simple. Do discuss any significant dietary change with your doctor first! This helped me a lot as it eliminates any potential source of gluten in your diet. It gets boring, but that’s a heck of a lot better than being sick. You can add other things that either walk, swim or fall off trees as long as they are fresh and not processed. Eggs, vegetables, fruits, fish, meats, etc.
4. Look for other sources of potential glutening (toothpastes, shampoos, other body / cleanser / health / makeup products, etc.) Check your drinks, candies, etc. Consider anything in a can, box, or wrapper to be suspect until you really become an expert on hidden sources of gluten.
Check out this site and others like it for ideas. Always trust your doctor first, but tips and ideas from others of us who have celiac can really help! Keep the faith, it’s a matter of time and patience! People like me do this so hopefully people like you can learn from our mistakes and get better quicker
Watch out for fast foods. Even if they are GF, the oils used for deep frying contain trace amounts of gluten from other foods that were fried in the same oil. Theres a lot of cross contamination with fast food companies who serve gluten free foods as well. Most people dont evenknow what celiacs is and the average food handler isn’t paid enough to know or care anbout your celiacs imho. Also some white rice have a type of gluten that makes them sticky, avoid it as it causes reactions in celiacs patients. Stay away from oatmeal. It too can cause symptoms. Your alvilli in your stomach that absorbs nutrients are usually burnt back from the autoimmune response to gluten in your stomach lining. The alvili do not efficiently absorb nutrients until gluten is removed from your diet and some healing replaces the damaged alvili. Its a good idea to take a “Liquid” multivitamin at this time. Liquid multis absorb faster and more completely than do compressed pills. Be excessively dilligent with your diet. Always seek to learn more and keep up on new data with Celiacs. And share what you’ve learned with others as well. You never know who you might run into that never realized that they are celiacs patients just by talking to you.