Should the Whole Family go Gluten Free?
One of the biggest questions we had when Jamie was first diagnosed with celiacs disease was ‘Should the whole family go gluten free?’ And it is a question that must be asked in any family where one member is diagnosed with celiacs.
Certainly there are advantages to this option: equally there are disadvantages. It is a question that needs discussing and working through,preferably as a whole family, as everyone is affected, the earlier the better.
The first option is for only the affected family member to go gluten free, and the rest of the family to eat as they always have. This may be the most popular option if brothers and sisters object to eating gluten free food - especially if they object to giving up certain gluten containing favourites such as cakes and biscuits! As my daughter used to say on occasion, ‘I’m not celiac- why am I suffering because he is?’
So this option would in some ways maintain family harmony, although it does continually point out the celiac child as being different. It also means that whoever is cooking for the family will often have to make multiple meals which is both time consuming and difficult.
Another argument is that if the rest of the family are eating gluten all the time it is incredibly difficult to avoid cross contamination for the celiac child. The whole family needs to be very aware of contamination issues but mistakes happen - especially when children or teenagers are in a hurry!
On the other end of the scale, the whole family could go gluten free. This has the great advantage of eradicating gluten from the kitchen completely, so cross contamination is not an issue at all. The family can eat together, the cook only has to prepare one meal, and the celiac child is not the ‘odd one out’. This can work well in a family where someone does most of the cooking and also bakes gluten free cakes and biscuits on a regular basis. The big disadvantage of this option, however, is the cost. If pre-prepared
meals are a large part of the diet, or if you buy a lot of gluten free cakes and biscuits, this can be an incredibly expensive option! Gluten free products are generally quite pricey and for the whole family to eat it unnecessarily will cost! You may also get complaints from other family members who neither want nor need to eat a gluten free diet.
We, like many other families I have talked to, have settled for the middle option. We all eat… mainly gluten free! Everything I bake is gluten free: the whole family has homemade gluten free cakes and biscuits in their lunchboxes and there have been no complaints about this at all. Family meals are also gluten free: this is very easy as I do not rely on pre-made sauces etc, and there are so many meals that are naturally gluten free that it really doesn’t take much planning.
However, because of the expense (and my complete failure with the bread maker) my son has his own gluten free bread while the rest of us have sliced (to avoid contamination) bread. We also have a separate tub of margarine with a big red cross on it for using on wheat bread, and two toasters. Also because of the expense, Jamie will have things like gluten free fish fingers while the others have normal, and the normal ones are cooked on a special baking tray. In fact it is the gluten things that are singled out as being different in our kitchen, because most foods and kitchen areas are completely gluten free. It has worked for us. My son never feels any different, and the ‘gluten things’ are kept separately and carefully.
It is an issue that needs thinking through. But life gets so much easier when the whole family knows where they stand with it. And compromises can be reached to ensure that every member is happy.
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A driving factor of whether or not to go g-f as a fam might be the age of the other children in the family when one is diagnosed. In our family, my celiac was nearly 7 at diagnosis while his little brother was only 4. The younger brother has a milk allergy, and which forced us to wipe out dairy from our family meals several years before the celiac diagnosis.
Celiac is more complex, and since I’m not a short order cook, our entire family took the plunge together. My husband eats gluten away from home, but there are no foods in our house with gluten. It’s a tremendous simplifier.
The boys believe that we are blessed that this has happened to our family because we are all so much healthier because of it. (I do a lot of gluten free PR in the house) An unexpected positive side effect is that I’ve never felt better in my life; going gluten-free has resolved many of my ‘mysterious’ health issues. Because there’s a hereditary factor involved, going gluten free as a family may also have surprising benefits for other family members.
As with all things, there is no perfect decision and if our kids were older or the diagnosis was reversed we may have played it differently. While we are happy with our gluten free life, I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss delivery pizza, chick fil a, or girl scout cookies.