I got a lot of great feedback from yesterday’s post regarding the cross contamination study. I want to give some additional information.
Cross contamination is not something to be taken lightly. It can make us sick and wreak havoc on our bodies. However, it can be taken too far. I’ve heard of people going to unnecessary extremes – bringing bottled water into a restaurant because they don’t know how well the dishes are washed or replacing their china or non-porous dishware or only using paper plates and plastic dishware – seems extreme to me. It’s my blog, so I get to say this. 😉
The article I linked to is also another piece to this gluten free/celiac puzzle. I feel like we often operate in the dark with strange conspiracy theories and anecdotal information with little regard to facts. I wanted to provide another piece of information for people to realize that some of the things we take as fact, may not really be true or could be different.
The first thing in every article about cleaning out a kitchen from gluten is to remove the toaster. EVERY ONE I’ve seen. Seems logical and reasonable. But that article put that in “fact” into question. So, am I 100% convinced that toasters don’t need to be replaced or that pasta can be rinsed to a safe degree, no. But it is something to think about and consider.
I read a lot about people taking suitcases full of food and cookware on vacation. This makes me sad because it seems as though these people are taking this gluten free thing to the extreme. Sometimes it is hard to find some gluten free foods on vacation – but you are on vacation. Can you go a week without eating gluten free bread if you couldn’t find it in a grocery store? But I couldn’t go a week without gluten free soy sauce. Everyone has things that are important to them and that they need to take. But taking cookware and a suitcase of food seems extreme to me. The article confirmed for me that those practices are extreme. If you can wash a knife in soap and water, it is safe for celiac use – and so are dishes, pots, pans, and cutting boards.
I want people to live their lives. I want people to live with a reasonable amount of skepticism and knowledge about how to navigate this gluten filled world without always being afraid. I want people to get on an airplane knowing that there are some gluten free snacks they can pack in their bag, but that they don’t have to bring a day’s worth of food. I want people to travel and see the world knowing that they can eat safely just about anywhere easily and especially in the US, there are so many naturally gluten free options, there isn’t a need to bring massive amounts of food when traveling.
Anyway, my point is, I was not saying that the article was the end all and be all study of cross contamination. It just is another piece of the puzzle and we should take the information in, process it, and use it to our advantage. That is all. I read it – I still am not going to use a shared toaster or gf pasta boiled in gluten water. But at least I know it is possible that I could be okay if I did either of those things.