Today is Celiac Awareness Day.  I won’t bore you with a ton of details, but I do want to introduce this to any of you who may be unfamiliar.

Celiac Disease is a particular inability to digest glutenin, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye.  (Usually people refer to it as gluten; this isn’t quite accurate, scientifically, but it’s the common usage.)  Consumption of this “gluten” causes damage to the intestines, producing an ongoing inability to absorb nutrients from food, as well as other symptoms throughout the body which vary from person to person.

Celiac Disease is thought to be genetic.  Personally, I’m not sure if this is the entire answer, or if researchers just don’t know enough about it yet to know otherwise.  (I suspect that modern diet and/or the alteration of our modern foods may play a large role.)  True Celiac Disease is, at least given what we currently know and can/can’t do, permanent.

Not all gluten sensitivity is Celiac Disease.  This is an important distinction to make!  For someone with Celiac Disease, gluten is like poison.  Cross-contamination is a very real issue.  That is not necessarily the case for everyone with gluten sensitivity/intolerance.  (I can’t eat something that contains gluten, but a smidge of flour dust that lands on something, or a crumb in the peanut butter jar, won’t bother me.)

If you know someone with Celiac Disease (or with gluten intolerance with some other cause), you can be a huge blessing to him by learning about it and including him in group activities with safe foods!  If you have unexplained chronic health issues, or mental health difficulties, you might consider a trial of a gluten-free diet to see if it helps.  And pray for wisdom and insight for researchers as they seek to discover why some people can’t eat this God-given, otherwise healthful, food – and how to fix that.