Tip of the ice berg

This week seemed to be a bit of a roller coaster. Since I had not really been that busy this week I spent a fair amount of time researching celiac and learning quite a bit about it. For instance, once I go gluten free it won't just be for less pain in my gut and less time on the pot - it'll be because if I continue to eat gluten my odds of getting cancer go up by 10,000%. For comparison (since that is such a huge number) the odds of a smoker getting cancer are only 2,000% higher than a normal person.

In addition to this, there is a ingredient that is common to many foods called 'natural flavor'. These are basically various compounds taken from who knows where and put into food to give it a distinctive flavor. Like in pop, for example, it's the natural flavor that separates a pepsi from a coke, and it's also the natural flavors that they fight over accusing one of copying the other. Obviously, with the specific natural flavors being such a closely guarded secret they aren't just going to tell some kid which ones they put in their drinks. The part of this that poses a problem to me is the fact that some natural flavors have gluten in them, and since I can't have gluten I can't safely eat or drink anything that has 'natural flavors' as one of the ingredients.

Mountain Dew, my sweet lover of many years, happens to be one of them. I had known for a few days many of the things I couldn't have and I was willing to part ways with them - even Doritos - but Mountain Dew was a difficult one to swallow [pun intended, lol]. For a couple days I was bummed out over having lost it to this disease. I even posted my lamentations of facebook inviting the world to join in my mourning of the one whom I would miss the most.

Fortunately, after a period of mourning it was brought to my attention that only some of the flavors have gluten, and so even if I don't know what favors are in my beverage I could atleast find out (by asking the makers) if there were any gluten based flavors in there. So I emailed pepsi and they replied with the following:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting us at Pepsi with your inquiry.

While this company does not make gluten-free label claims, none of the ingredients in Pepsi-Cola products are derived from grains or flours that have been linked to malabsorption syndrome associated with gluten sensitivity.

We want to assure you that our products continue to be suitable for gluten-sensitive individuals with Celiac Disease. Please know that we fully understand the seriousness of this issue, which is why we have shared this information with Celiac Sprue Association and the Celiac Disease Foundation.

Please visit www.pepsiproductfacts.com for additional ingredient and nutrition information on all our beverages.

Thanks again for writing and for your interest in our products.

For the entire day after that email my countenance was lifted. Of course I was aware of the bad that came with that good news - mainly that it will not be as easy to lose weight on this new diet as I had hoped - but I was happy regardless.

Also this week I learned that my mother (who has lupus, liver disease, blood clots, colitis, terminal colon cancer, a stoma, diabetes, osteoporosis, and probably a few things i'm missing) may have gotten some of her ailments from celiac. As it turns out some of the things she has are actually long term results of untreated celiac. Of course, as far as either of us know she has never been tested for it, so it's hard to say if it's true, but celiac generally runs in the family so strongly that if one family member has it there is a 1 in 22 chance that another immediate family member does, too.

On a slightly happier and out of order note, one good thing from the pepsi email is that they mentioned other celiac organizations which seem to be an ever better source than what I had already been using!

Well, that is basically all I have for right now. Please be praying for me that the trials I face would not be lost on me, but would rather work towards making me mature and complete, trusting God in all I do.

Good Night.