This is mostly for the celiac people. It's gonna be a little inside baseball talk and a little gross, potentially. I kinda hate that this thread will be publicly accessible and indexed by the greater internet, but the only place that offers that potential are the journals, and this doesn't feel like a journal topic.
An interesting thing happened today with my wife when she picked up some groceries at Walmart. A Great Value house-brand product that we'd purchased in the past, that was historically tagged gluten free, was tagged no more. Worse, it had barley in the ingredient list now. (It was their BBQ chips, I wanted to try another brand I'd liked in the past to see if they also tasted like bitter and disappointment post-COVID.)
At one point, I know there was an executive in Bentonville that had celiac themselves, and for a hot minute there, Walmart was kind of a place of mercy, easily finding GF products at reasonable prices and clear labeling on products. That era has felt like it's been drawing to a close for a bit now. It also reminded me of how much harder it's been finding GF products anymore, especially raw ingredients (like nuts), and how many other products that
used to be safe are now no more. I mean, heck, even infamous sponsor of the Celiac Foundation for years, Blue Diamond, stopped tagging most all their almond products gluten free back in 2021, and I found out the hard way with some low-key *ahem* my apologies for this, but... I found out due to some low-key
gluten poops. Sorry 'bout that.
I've honestly had to manage post-celiac diagnosis on our own without medical assistance or a community to fall back on, through a lot of trial-and-error for over a decade (got the diagnosis in a free clinic - antigen positive, never biopsied, but my occasional ER visits with grossly inflamed small intestines with vomiting and neurological problems literally stopped about a month after we went serious gluten free). Through trial and error and experimentation back in the early days, we figured out my sensitivity fell somewhere around the 15ppm mark. Luckier than a lot, but still potentially problematic with the FDA 20ppm "gluten free" label if the item isn't cut with other food at the same time. I know there can be mineral absorption issues for folks like us, and my own hunt and peck supplementation over the past few years and recent blood work indicate I'm definitely in that camp.
Although I haven't had a serious flare-up from gluten exposure bad enough to shut things down for a couple days for a good long time, I'm now starting to wonder. Some of my tremors have been coming back the past couple years. And I noticed something recently reading up again on celiac patients with vitamin/mineral absorption issues I don't think I caught before. In theory, after enough time going gluten free, your small intestines should heal enough to minimize the absorption issues, leading to needing to take less supplementation. I'm needing to take a crap ton of supplements. The magnesium, potassium, B vitamins, zinc, calcium...
Something's clearly not right in Daleyville, and it's got me thinking and asking questions.
Which brings me to a couple questions for folks here either in the camp directly or adjacent through family members, like
@Frugal Lizard,
@Dollar Slice,
@grantmeaname,
@OtherJen, and
@K_in_the_kitchen (that I've known of who're still active and appear to fall into this category of people): Is it just me, or has you/your loved one's physical/gastric health seemed to be sliding more since the beginning of the pandemic as well? Are you/they finding it harder to find GF foods these days, too? Are you also finding more and more products that used to be safe are no longer?
If there are others kicking around the forums that I don't know about, I'd love to hear your experiences as well.