Food Insecurity + Food Intolerance

Both are difficult issues on their own. And when put together?

Photo by author.

Food prices are insanely high right now. And gluten-free food has always been expensive compared to gluten-containing counterparts.

I’m lucky enough to have parents who do so much to financially support me but if I didn’t, I would probably have to choose between housing and enough food — food that would not slowly deteriorate my small intestine.

And what if I had no housing at all? I can just imagine myself lying on the street when someone offers to buy me a Subway sandwich. No matter how much my stomach grumbled, I would politely decline. I could maybe take a chance with cross-contamination, depending on how starving I was, but I would never purposefully eat that much gluten.

I can also imagine that previously well-meaning person scorning me, acting like I was so hoity-toity for maintaining a gluten-free diet when I was homeless.

I won’t describe the gross bodily functions that are triggered by my eating gluten — ones that would made even more miserable by living on the street — but I’m actually comparatively lucky, having been diagnosed earlier than many.

One celiac.com user @mysecretcurse wrote that “eating gluten can kill me. The last time I was…