False Sense of Security

It's been several years since I last got glutened. A couple months ago I thought perhaps I'd gotten glutened, but I think it was just my food disagreeing with me. This morning though, it definitely happened, and it's my fault, which makes it that much more frustrating.

Last night I did some baking and one of the ingredients was poppy seeds. As I measured out the poppy seeds I glanced at the bottle and noticed that it was Whole Foods brand, which I don't usually buy because there's usually cross-contamination issues. I checked, and sure enough there was a warning about it being packaged in a shared facility.

And here's where that false sense of security comes in. It's been so long since I last got glutened that I thought perhaps I'm not as sensitive as I have been in the past. I am careful about what and where I eat, but there are still times where I could have gotten glutened. Since it hasn't happened, I thought/hoped that maybe I'm just not as super sensitive as I have been in the past. So I went ahead and added a teaspoon of poppy seeds.

The current pain burning a hole in my stomach tells me that I was hoping in vain and I chose poorly in deciding to use the poppy seeds despite the warning. (cue the scene in Indiana Jones and Last Crusade where the old crusader says "[s]he chose... poorly")

For some reason I've had the thought/hope that as time went on and my body healed I would become less sensitive to gluten. But reacting to what must be a minuscule amount of contamination six and a half years after eliminating gluten has dashed that hope.

It's not like I want to cheat. I'm way beyond wanting to eat gluten-filled foods. But it would be nice if I didn't have to be so insanely careful about what I eat.

There's a new gadget coming on the market- the Nima sensor- that measures gluten in food. At $250 for a starter kit (it comes with 3 test capsules, 12 more can be bought for about $50), it's a bit expensive for something that can only measure 20 ppm or more. While 20 ppm is the US industry standard for gluten free, I'm thinking even that must be too much for me to handle. So I don't think the sensor would be helpful for me. Though it would be fun to play around with, if it wasn't so expensive. I'd like to see if it could detect contamination in shared facility products, or if that contamination is under 20 ppm and therefore wouldn't be detected.

Would you spend $300 to test your food? Would you trust the results, or would it give you a false sense of security? It's not in our budget right now, but I'm thinking it would give me a false sense of security that might end up with me getting glutened anyway since I'm so super sensitive. So even if it was in our budget, I think I'll stick with being as careful as I possibly can be.