Chefs: Is There Gold in Going Gluten-Free?

If Lyndhurst resident Melissa Van Riper wants a night out to eat with her husband, friends or family, her options aren't very plentiful locally. It's not that Lyndhurst doesn't have any good restaurants; you could throw a stone and probably hit one decent eatery or another offering everything from Chinese and Italian to Portuguese fare and Turkish cuisine. The problem is Van Riper has Celiac disease and unless a restaurant has a gluten-free menu, she doesn't dare go near it.

"I travel for gluten-free," said Van Riper, who is 27 weeks pregnant with her first child and fears her daughter will also have Celiac disease, which is a genetic disorder. "We go to Boonton, we go to Pompton Lakes, we go to all these places that have gluten-free food."

Celiac disease is a digestive disease that damages the small intestine and interferes with the absorption of nutrients from food. When Celiac sufferers eat foods containing gluten, a protein in wheat, rye and barley, it destroys the intestine's nutrient absorbing lining, or villi. If a person with Celiac eats gluten he or she suffers severe stomach pains, and prolonged gluten intake can cause malnutrition, no matter how much someone eats.

Adhering to a gluten-free diet is essentially the only way to tame Celiac disease's effects, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. About one in 133 people have it and many don't know it. Van Riper was diagnosed just over a year ago, having been through about 10 doctors before one actually performed a genetic blood test and colonoscopy to give her the proper diagnosis after years of suffering from severe stomach woes.

"I could have had it my whole life. I was gastrointestinal sick for seven years," said Van Riper. "Because I was so young, no one ever did a colonoscopy. People can have bloating, eat something and it doesn't agree with them; you keep getting stomachaches and may not know that you may have a genetic disease."


Lyndhurst's Health Administrator Joyce Jacobson, after hearing Van Riper's story, wants to do something about the problem. When Van Riper called about a month ago asking how she could obtain her marriage license, she also wanted to talk to someone about gluten-free awareness. Jacobson answered the call and found the issue confounding, but noteworthy, because the health department was in the midst of holding food handling courses. In her two previous classes with 42 attendees, not one, she said, offered anything gluten-free at their eateries. She had Van Riper come in and speak to the third class of 15 to inform them about the benefits of offering a gluten-free menu option. The two are now going to embark on an awareness campaign starting with an open community support group in May to any residents of Lyndhurst and surrounding communities that have Celiac or want to know more about it. Then they want to bring evidence to restaurants that Celiac is more common than thought and restaurants would benefit from offering gluten-free menu options.

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No Meat, No Dairy, No Problem.

Or at least that can be the case if you know what you’re doing, according to nutrition experts.

The vegan lifestyle requires people to avoid consuming animal products in their diets. That means no meat, no eggs, no cheese and no milk. For many vegans, it also means not using anything made with leather or other animal products.

With Vegan Awareness Month taking place through November, animal rights proponents and vegans around the country are campaigning on the positive aspects of a diet consisting of fruits, vegetables, beans and grains.
Health and nutrition experts say it’s certainly possible to keep a proper diet and take in all the required nutrients and vitamins to stay healthy without eating meat or dairy. Studies show that vegetarians and vegans tend to have a lower-than-average risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, cancer and other preventable conditions.

But it does take a little more work to keep a proper diet, especially in some specific areas.

“If someone is going to decide to be a vegan, it can’t just be taken lightly, that decision,” said Hannah Richter, a dietitian with Auburn Memorial Hospital. “One would hope they’re making it because they’re choosing a healthier lifestyle, and therefore making smart decisions about the foods they choose.”

Those two don’t inherently go hand-in-hand, Richter pointed out. Avoiding meat doesn’t necessarily mean avoiding processed and unhealthy food.

“In any eating plan, it’s important to choose and focus on whole foods,” Richter said. “You can be a vegan and still eat a lot of sugars and high-fat things that aren’t good for you.”

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Not Intolerant to Special Diets

Many restaurants are adding gluten-free options to menus

By Julie Balise, Globe Correspondent | May 15, 2010

About two years ago, Carla Pallotta’s best friend discovered that he had celiac disease.

The diagnosis, which meant that he would no longer be able to eat foods containing gluten, presented an opportunity for Pallotta, a chef and co-owner of the North End’s Nebo Restaurant, to stretch her culinary skills.

“He was so disappointed, and I said, ‘You know something, I’m going to make something gluten-free for you,’ ’’ said Pallotta, who used trial and error to adjust her own recipes for chicken Milanese, eggplant timballo, and a fried seafood platter for her friend, before deciding to roll out a gluten-free menu at her restaurant.

Last July, Nebo unveiled a new gluten-free menu complete with six pastas, chicken, seafood, and more than 20 varieties of pizza, joining the slew of restaurants across the country that are adapting their menus with gluten-free options, including big chains such as Uno Chicago Grill and PF Chang’s China Bistro.

These eateries cater not only to the 1 percent of the nation’s population who suffer from celiac disease — an inherited autoimmune disease that requires a lifelong diet free of gluten from wheat, barley, rye, oats, and spelt — but also those who have other gluten sensitivities and people who want to go gluten-free for other reasons.

“Restaurateurs are very much in touch with their guests,’’ said Peter Christie, president and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. “As more and more people are becoming aware that they have gluten intolerance, restaurants are responding with gluten-free items in order to accommodate their guests.’’

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