This commentary is by Jessica Allen, a stay-at-home mother and substitute teacher who lives in York, Maine. I was diagnosed with celiac disease at 30, but my body had been trying to tell me something for years before that. By the time I was 25, my joints and face periodically swelled for no obvious reason. I was exhausted all the time. Everything hurt in a low-grade, constant way that’s easy to dismiss when you’re busy building a life. I didn’t know then that gluten was quietly wrecking my body.  I have Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, so the joint pain made sense. The swelling in my face? I’m allergic to celery, so I assumed I had brushed up against the wrong ingredient somewhere. I thought my bowel issues were normal because they’d always been normal for me. It wasn’t until my mother and my sister were both diagnosed with celiac disease that my doctor tested me for it. READ MORE There are more than 200 known symptoms associated with celiac disease, according to the Celiac Disease Foundation, and some people have what’s sometimes called “silent celiac,” where there are no obvious outward symptoms even though intestinal damage is still occurring. My own experience varies from mild to moderate, depending on the level of contamination. But “mild” can still be painful. Even trace exposure can cause my joints to swell, my face to puff up enough to nearly close my eyes, and leave me feeling like I have the flu. Usually, within a day or so, I start to feel better, but that day can feel very long. As a mother of four young children, the hardest part of living with celiac disease isn’t the diagnosis itself; it’s the daily decisions that come after it. Especially the one I still wrestle with: Should we be a fully gluten-free household, or is this just my burden to manage? On paper, the answer seems simple. I’m the only one with celiac disease. Why should everyone else suffer when they don’t medically need to? But celiac disease doesn’t live neatly on paper. It lives in crumbs on countertops, shared toasters and cutting boards that look clean but aren’t. It lives in so-called gluten-free meals that aren’t always safe because of cross-contamination. It lives in the overthinking and anxiety every time I eat something I didn’t prepare myself. Will I offend someone if I ask about their kitchen practices? Am I inconveniencing everyone? If I eat this and get sick, will it be worth it, or should I just go hungry?  I watch how food is handled. I listen carefully to how someone answers when I ask about cross-contamination. Do they truly understand what gluten-free means for someone with celiac disease, or are they thinking of it as a dietary preference? If I’m not sure, I have to decide whether to decline politely or quietly take the risk. Every choice has mental, physical and social consequences. Even at home, the calculations don’t disappear. We landed where many families do: mostly gluten-free. Not perfect, but intentional. It’s the middle ground between protecting my health and letting my family feel like our kitchen still belongs to all of us. What pushed us there wasn’t fear; it was information. Using a portable gluten-testing device allows me to check foods, turning guesswork into facts. Instead of relying on instinct, I have data to help me decide what’s safe. Food testing also opened my eyes to how often food I thought was safe actually wasn’t.  I experienced this firsthand on New Year’s Eve 2025 at an event in Boston, watching the line cook prepare the food. The ingredients for my salad were technically gluten-free, but the chef was using the same utensils to assemble wraps with wheat pita. Each time he filled a wrap, he scraped the spoon across the pita, collecting gluten particles, and then put the spoon back in the shared ingredient container. Cross-contamination in real time.  My sensor confirmed it, and that clarity helped me stop second-guessing myself. It also made me realize how misunderstood celiac disease still is. Eating gluten-free is not a preference. It’s not a diet trend. It’s about avoiding trace exposure that can cause real damage, even if I don’t immediately look sick. I don’t expect the world to be gluten-free for me. But there are small, meaningful steps that make an enormous difference. For restaurants, understanding cross-contamination and having a clear allergy protocol would change everything. That might mean changing gloves, using fresh utensils, pulling from untouched ingredient containers, or preparing food in a cleaned space before handling items containing gluten. I don’t know what the perfect system looks like for every kitchen. I just know the relief I feel when I say, “I have celiac disease,” and the response is immediate: “We’re familiar with that. Here’s what we do to keep your food safe.”  For friends and family, inclusion means more than labeling something gluten-free. It means telling me you cleaned the kitchen first. That you used separate utensils. That gluten-containing foods weren’t prepared alongside mine. It means not pressuring me to eat something simply because it’s gluten-free.  I am always deeply grateful when someone makes the effort to itemize ingredients for me. But sometimes I may still feel unsure, especially if I don’t know the preparation process or the exact brand of an ingredient. Having the option to test food discreetly makes it easier to ask questions without feeling like a burden or putting someone on the spot. And if I decide not to eat something, I never want anyone to feel hurt. The thought counts. The effort counts.  I don’t expect perfection. I don’t expect the world to revolve around my diagnosis. But I do believe that awareness paired with thoughtful action can make life with celiac disease safer and less isolating. When restaurants train their staff, when friends understand cross-contamination, and when new tools empower us to verify what’s on our plate, it tells people like me that our health isn’t an inconvenience. It tells us we belong at the table. Read the story on VTDigger here: Jessica Allen: Celiac disease turns every meal into a risk. ...read more read less