Celiac disease

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sbradshaw
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Re: Celiac disease

#21

Post by sbradshaw »

You may need to ask them to sit together in a certain section of the chapel and have gluten-free bread (broken first to avoid contamination) on the tray that goes to that side.
Samuel Bradshaw • If you desire to serve God, you are called to the work.
Michaeljefferyjones
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Re: Celiac disease

#22

Post by Michaeljefferyjones »

We dealt with this by buying only gluten free bread so all members eat the same bread. I am aware that it is more expensive. However as ward clerk I buy a number of loaves,(not a cracker or rice crisp)and put in the freezer and then give the receipt to the Bishop who then reimburses me in the normal way. That is the Bishop and a Counsellor does the tithing and expenses for that week. It works very well. However this is in the UK so the USA supermarkets might not be able to provide this type of bread.
healthnut1
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Re: Celiac disease

#23

Post by healthnut1 »

The solution for our ward - along with the regular bread, a plain rice cake was used. We used 4 rice cakes on 8 trays. The teachers would carefully place a rice cake so it rested on two trays. Regular bread was placed on the the trays away from the rice cakes. The priests would break the rice cakes first - each rice cake was broken in half with the first half broken into small pieces into the corner of one tray and then the other half was broken up into the corner of the second tray. All rice cakes were broken BEFORE handling/breaking the regular bread into the other corners. Every tray had broken rice cakes and regular bread. Also, BEFORE each sacrament meeting the teachers were instructed to rinse and dry the sacrament bread trays to ensure they were gluten free. Unused rice cakes were stored in the clerks office with attention on making sure we always had enough for the next Sunday. We did not use a napkin or other partition to separate the bread from the rice cakes, the people with the allergies would take the pieces that were furthest from the bread. Small children or visitors without allergies took the broken up rice cakes but occasional reminders by the bishopric over the pulpit helped to ensure we had sufficient rice cakes for those who needed it.
leevb
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Re: Celiac disease

#24

Post by leevb »

At the UK & Ireland Single Adult Conference in Manchester there a number with celiac disease, rice cakes are broken up and put in dishes and each dish goes on the sacrament tray and the celiacs take from the dish.
rmrichesjr
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Re: Celiac disease

#25

Post by rmrichesjr »

Fwiw, in the ward where I attend, because there are several good-sized families with at least some family members who have celiac disease, the ward leaders have settled on a paper cup similar to a larger muffin paper in each tray and apple chips in that paper cup. As far as I have observed, the teachers pour the apple chips (probably directly with no hand contact) into the paper cups. The priests break the wheat-based bread for everyone else but (as far as I am aware) do not break or touch the apple chips. I don't know at what level the ward leaders might have (or might have not) received direction or approval for that arrangement.
drepouille
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Re: Celiac disease

#26

Post by drepouille »

My ward simply buys a special bread that is free of gluten as well as dairy. It's not very tasty, but it makes the membership happy. Everyone eats the same bread.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
mike_andrus
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Re: Celiac disease

#27

Post by mike_andrus »

In our ward we have two approaches. For those with gluten sensitivity (not celiac), we have Rice Chex in about half the trays. We put them in small paper cups (like a small cupcake liner - purchased from a restaurant supply like "Cash and Carry" or "Smart and Final") to keep them separate from the bread/gluten. 4-6 Chex in a tray is adequate. This is easy and inexpensive to manage. A box of Chex will last quite a while.

For those with Celiac or high sensitivity to gluten, they will package the Chex at home into a very small ziplock bag (like a jewelers bag) with as much care as needed. A member of that family brings the individual bag to church, hands it to the priests, and and tells them where they are sitting so the bagged Chex get into the right tray. When it is passed, someone in the family opens the bag carefully and dumps the Chex into the hand of the person with Celiac. That way, the individual/family has confidence that they won't have to deal with cross-contamination.
munaish
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Re: Celiac disease

#28

Post by munaish »

We had someone in one of my past wards who had Celiac disease back in 2009. She had a rice cake that was set aside on the tray, in its plastic wrapper.

I actually had to go on a strict gluten-free diet shortly after that, coincidentally. I used a certain brand of corn tortillas that didn't give me issues (*Mission brand); I put them in zipper bags or something (but if I had to do it again, I'd probably use the small clear bead bags by the crafts they sell at Walmart, or something else; the plastic bag I used made some noise). I don't have Celiac disease, though. I can eat wheat, other products containing gluten, and milk products as long as I don't eat very much rice, now, and as long as I take food grade diatomaceous earth every once in a while (but back then, I didn't know that). I don't have to take the DE very often at all anymore (maybe once a month).

I think a lot of people didn't believe me that I had issues with gluten, especially as I didn't have issues when we first met (which made it kind of hard). To be fair, it wasn't just gluten, though (but also lots of other things). I pretty much could eat cabbage, baked vegetables, bananas, corn chips (Mission brand), corn tortillas (Mission brand), corn generally, yogurt, meat (sometimes), rice (or so I thought; I was fine with rice as long as I wasn't eating wheat), and a few other things. My favorite things to eat ended up being baked vegetables/meat and vegetable corn bread (no wheat flour) tied with it. The baked vegetables were so much healthier-feeling than stir fry, and tasted better, too (you could even bake rice with it, and it could turn out better than in a rice cooker, as long as it was a convection oven). I baked stuff in an 8-inch cast-iron pan in a toaster oven, and a glass pan when I did rice.

It's a good thing I don't have to be on that diet, still, because I probably would have suffered a *lot* from malnutrition, eventually (although I certainly did notice a huge difference when I was on the diet). However, now I know a lot of things that would have made things nutritionally easier for me back then (like lacto-fermenting food is one way to enhance nutrition, and provide extra flavor—and probiotics). I could have made all kinds of sauerkraut, which probably would have helped me with other issues I had, too (but I wasn't very trusting of fermented foods at the time, since I didn't know much about them). FYI, even yogurt is lacto-fermented. Plus, it really helped me to be the one to lacto-ferment my own food to begin to appreciate it.

As to what condition I have, I don't know, but it's probably something like chronic (as opposed to acute) mercury toxicity, since mercury (lead, and perhaps other heavy metals) can block enzymes needed to digest wheat gluten and milk casein (and food grade diatomaceous earth is really good at chelating heavy metals; plus, I had a lot of symptoms of it—but you never know). Rice is really good at absorbing toxic metals in the soil if they're present, too (and a number of foreign rices tested had high levels of mercury and arsenic).

*I don't know if Mission brand corn stuff is still free from gluten-contamination, but it was at the time I ate it. I did make sure to verify stuff like that, and contact the manufacturer if necessary.
marivenezohner
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Re: Celiac disease

#29

Post by marivenezohner »

I have a daughter & a grand daughter who are celiac. There are multiple ways to handle the problem. In my current ward, a member of the bishopric is celiac, as well as several other members, & there is a very small ziplock hard container on the corner of each tray, which contains several pieces of rice Chex cereal. This has worked well, because the container protects the contents from cross contamination. In one of our daughters’ college wards, there was a Cheeto piece on the corner of the tray for the member with celiac, but that would probably not work in a family ward. Our daughter with celiac lives in a small branch, & the solution there has been for her to provide home baked gluten free bread for the sacrament, since they bake all their own, anyway. In a worst case scenario, remember that when providing the sacrament in rest homes, touching the bread to the lips is acceptable for those who cannot swallow. Our granddaughter has used that solution a couple of times.
drepouille
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Re: Celiac disease

#30

Post by drepouille »

marivenezohner wrote:In a worst case scenario, remember that when providing the sacrament in rest homes, touching the bread to the lips is acceptable for those who cannot swallow.
Good point! We have a brother in our ward who cannot swallow solids or liquids, and must always carry a spit bottle. I believe he chews the bread and then spits into his bottle.
Dana Repouille, Plattsmouth, Nebraska
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