Allergy, EoE, and Coeliac Awareness month.

Gluten is not the only food people need to avoid!

I am getting increasingly fed up with the monopoly that is 'Gluten Free'!

I have Eosinophilic Oesophagitis, and have to follow the Six Food elimination Diet, under the supervision of a specialist EoE Dietitian. That means I have to avoid lots of foods! Gluten grains (wheat, rye, barley and oats), egg, milk, fish (including crustaceans and molluscs), peanuts, tree nuts (almond, Brazil, cashew, hazelnut, macadamia, pecan, pistachio, and walnut), and soya. I also cannot eat beef, black pepper, or pineapple.

I am well aware that the Government and NHS estimate on the number of people that have a problem when they eat gluten is 1 per cent, and that this is vastly inaccurate. This figure is relevant to those who actually have a diagnosis of Coeliac Disease. There are, however, many more who are Non Coeliac Gluten Sensitive and there are even more who are allergic to wheat, and these people are not included in the figures because they do not have a clinical diagnosis. I have a personal understanding of why they do not have a diagnosis, and that is because they refuse to put themselves through the process to 'prove' that they are intolerant of wheat or gluten or what ever food causes them a problem.

There are a few issues here.

1) There are 14 listed allergens, which, as of 13/12/14, must be declared when present in foods.

2) Many people suffer from more than one food allergy or intolerance.

3) Getting a clinical diagnosis is a very long-winded affair unless one is anaphylactic, and even then, it is not straightforward.

4) Many clinicians do not accept the impact that the symptoms of food allergy or intolerance has on a person's daily life, saying that 'It is not serious'. I would like to have them live with it on a daily basis, having to avoid certain foods, chemicals, environmental factors etc.

5) Gluten is not the be all and end all of the problem.

The 14 allergens that must be noted if they are in a dish are: Milk, Eggs, Fish, Crustaceans, Molluscs, Soya, Sesame, Celery, Gluten Grains (Wheat, Rye and Barley), Mustard, Sulphites, Peanuts, Tree nuts and Lupin. This is the list as defined by the Food Standards Agency, but there are many other foods to which people may react. This is serious! People die every year because of coming into contact with something that their immune system reacts to as an invader.

PLEASE, spare a thought for those of us that need to avoid foods other than Gluten grains! It's not as simple as Gluten free. Someone who is allergic to eggs or fish or nuts, and nothing else, is NOT helped by a gluten free diet.