I was surprised to hear GP's story about the Midwest, but not surprised to hear an anecdote of West Coasters being kinder to strangers than elsewhere.

Any one of those stories is worse than anything I've experienced in decades of living in large California cities

Chicago isn't the midwest, we disavow it.

Culturally Chicago has more in common with NYC than it does it’s Midwest neighbors

As I've said in a different reply, the KYS guy was definitely on drugs - his demeanor was abnormal even before he opened his mouth. And every city will have characters of that type. But the other people were just average run-of-the-mill folks from afar who decided to make her day worse.

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> is eating some junk food really the only reason they have to live?

I doubt it. But it’s probably high on the list of things they would miss most.

Not being able to walk, meh. Not being able to eat pizza?!

Gluten free pizza does exist and is perfectly adequate to me. Certain styles of crust work great (gf ingredients are good for making something crispy, but not so much doughy and chewy). But yeah, specific pizza or other people’s pizza is out of bounds. It’s very inconvenient, but not total doom.

Ironically, the disabled student I went to Chicago with, was Celiac as well. We actually had such a fun time finding Celiac-friendly places to eat, and I enjoyed trying new forms of familiar foods. The one advantage to going to a huge city is that there WERE Celiac-friendly places, and the smaller city I lived in at the time had nothing dedicatedly GF. I'm sorry there are people who said that to you. It's disheartening how people can't think outside the box and realize if human beings are creative enough to build the Coliseum and the Great Wall, we can figure out a way to make a gluten-free version bread. Might not be exactly the same as wheat, but it's decent, and we're innovating all the time. I wish you a flourishing life!

Thanks, and that’s cool! Always good to hang out with other people with actual Celiac. I often meet people who say they have it, but then are “oh, not officially diagnosed, I don’t get real sick, so I just, you know, pick off the croutons…” which is not my situation.

I’ve picked where to live partially because of the amounts of restaurants that are dedicated… Portland was fantastic in that regard, and Denver is not bad, though generally I just don’t eat out much these days.

You’re right that it is easier to adapt to than some people would think. Overall, some people are very strange about food. One, I’ve talked to people who don’t understand that white flour is made from wheat… they thought I only had to avoid whole wheat bread (ha!). Some people think gluten is some basic food chemistry ingredient, like vegetable starch, or maybe a food additive. Other people have acted like no other food besides wheat exists, kind of like saying you’re a vegan (“what do you eat then??!”).

I really have no problem with various GF foods or substitutes. It helps that my favorite foods were already things like tamales and nachos. GF pasta and pizza are great, and even beer. I like to think of it as “alternative grain” rather than define it by what it does not have.