One of the first problems of celiacs are… celiacs
I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and honestly it’s a bit frustrating.
One of the biggest issues for people with celiac disease is… other celiacs spreading the wrong message.
I often read comments from celiacs recommending places to eat saying things like:
“I eat there because cross-contamination doesn’t bother me”
or
“I’ve never had issues there, so it’s fine.”
But that’s exactly the problem.
Celiac disease is not about “feeling bad” or not. It’s an autoimmune condition. Even if you don’t feel symptoms, damage can still occur. Saying that cross-contamination is “okay for you” creates a dangerous narrative that it might be okay in general.
And this has real consequences.
I’ve personally called restaurants asking about their procedures, and sometimes they reply with things like:
“Many celiacs eat here, especially those who aren’t sensitive to cross-contamination.”
That sentence alone shows how misunderstood the disease is.
There is no such thing as a celiac who is “fine” with contamination. There are only celiacs who may not feel immediate symptoms — but the risk is still there.
When we, as a community, normalize this kind of messaging, we make it harder for everyone:
• Restaurants take the issue less seriously
• Standards get lowered
• Newly diagnosed people get confused
• And overall awareness gets worse
Of course, everyone makes their own choices. But publicly recommending unsafe practices as if they were generally acceptable is a different story.
If anything, we should be the first to educate others correctly — not the first to dilute the message.