Why Everyone Needs A Gluten Free Friend

With my best friend, Fiona. 🙂

With Debbie and Nicola

We celiacs are lovely people so of course you would want to be our friend but just in case you aren’t completely sold on the idea here are some fantastic reasons why everyone should have at least one gluten free friend! ( Yes, I’m aware this post is a little silly but I thought it would be a bit of fun. )

We won’t eat your favourite snacks. You will never have to worry that we are going to eat all of your favourite cookies when we visit. In fact, you could leave hundreds of glutenous cookies, muffins and cakes at our apartment and they will still be there when you come to pick them up.

We are very helpful guests. When you invite us for dinner we are always more than happy to help with the cleaning, preparation and cooking of the gluten free meal you are making for us. We want to ensure you’re keeping us safe so what better a way than to get involved.

We will introduce you to delicious new restaurants. If you have lived in the same location for a while you may find yourself getting into a pattern of always eating at the same restaurants or grabbing a coffee at the same cafes. This is what I did when I lived in Glasgow..until I was diagnosed that is. As celiacs we are forced to discover new places to eat, places with safe gluten free options more. We are happy to have found somewhere celiac friendly and you, as our friend, get to check out somewhere new.

We will cook you interesting new dishes. Similar to eating out habits, you may be in the habit of cooking the same dishes with the same ingredients. You like what you make so it makes sense but what if there were other delicious things out there you’d never even heard of? When you’re diagnosed as celiac and given the long list of everything you can no longer eat, the hunt is on for new and interesting things we can have. Amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat for example are foods I may not have tried if it weren’t for a world where I could no longer eat most bread, pasta and noodles. We celiacs like to experiment with what we can eat and you will benefit from this too when you’re invited over for a home cooked meal.

We will increase your knowledge of dietary needs. Perhaps you’ve always been considerate of others dietary needs. Perhaps when someone told you in the past that they couldn’t eat cheese or they had an allergy to tofu you were understanding but perhaps you weren’t. I think most of us are guilty of rolling our eyes at some point when a friend of a friend passes on a snack because of (insert reason here). Once you have a close friend or family member who must follow a 100% gluten free diet for medical reasons it helps you to understand how serious and challenging living with certain food allergies, intolerances and auto immune disorders can be.

Triangle of friends 🙂

All dressed up

If I’ve missed out on any other awesome reasons why everyone should have a gluten free friend, please let me know and I’ll add it to the list! 🙂