Gluten sensitivity and Celiac disease are two different things. Just like being lactose intolerant and having a milk allergy are two different things. If you're sensitive to gluten, eating it might cause some indigestion, gas, stomach pain, vomiting, but you're not causing damage to your intestines. Having Celiac disease means that your body cannot digest gluten at all. We saw pictures of Ryan's small intestines and nearly all the villi were gone and there was scalloping on his intestines signifying (according to our pediatric gastroenterologist) significant damage caused by the gluten. When Celiacs eat gluten it causes physical damage to their bodies and a higher risk of stomach and intestinal cancer as they get older. Not to mention it causes all those other symptoms too, as mentioned above.
The great thing is that Celiac Disease diagnosis starts with a simple blood test. If you think you might have it, you can just go get a test. But don't stop eating gluten if you're going to do this! As I mentioned above, no gluten, no disease. In order to get an accurate diagnosis, you have to have gluten in your system to get positive results (there's a lot of scientific stuff behind this as to what the test is looking for which you can find here). If you get a positive on the blood test, the next step is an endoscopy which will biopsy your small intestine. If the biopsy comes back positive, you've got Celiac Disease! Yay? Wait, that's not right...
One reason that a diagnosis can be important is that gluten free alternatives can be tax deductible. Yes, you heard me right. That's because the only treatment for Celiac Disease is a gluten free diet. That's the good news. The bad news is that some of those gluten free alternatives can be pretty expensive. I've found that brown rice noodles can be anywhere from 2-4 x the price of regular whole grain noodles. Gluten free crackers, cookies, pretzels, and other pre-packaged goods run about the same. Finding alternative flour types has been easy, but the price.... whoa! Oat flour, Almond flour, Soybean, flour or mixtures of them are anywhere from 4-9x the price of regular old wheat flour. Right now that's not such a big deal for me, as my kid is small and is in his picky eating phase, but as he gets older and I have to make him real meals, it is going to get pricey. As long as you keep receipts and keep that doctor's diagnosis note on hand, if you get audited, its no biggie.
Eventually, we will probably be a mostly gluten free household. However, right now, since Ryan's meals are almost exclusively oatmeal (yes, oats are safe!), rice noodles and broccoli, I haven't had a ton of chances to experiment. Today, however, he poo-pooed his normal lunch and I thought, well, he's been interested in cheese, maybe he'd like some cheese on his noodles! He was very excited by this idea until the cheese sauce was actually ON the noodles. Then he freaked out and looked at me like I had lost my mind. How DARE I put anything on his noodles. So, I made this mac & cheese. I my Mom's recipe used oat flour instead of regular flour and used brown rice rotini (from Trader Joe's *love*). Instead of breadcrumbs I used... Rice CHEX! Mom always said that's what kept it nice and creamy, so I had to find something. Chex is great because nearly all their cereal is gluten free. I haven't eaten any yet because I took it out of the oven and I was so excited by how gorgeous it was that I had to come share it. I will update with the taste reviews.
