I'm a coeliac, but I'm also a 21 year old student. I can't
afford to spend £2.50 on a bag of pasta or £3 on a loaf of bread that will last
3 days and crumble into sawdust as soon as I try to make a sandwich. So I turn
to the easy option, ignore my allergy and live as my fellow students do... on
vast amounts of reduced crumpets and plain pasta.
Obviously I don't go crazy, I
generally don't eat bread as I know it's the worst thing I can have; I also
tend to bypass biscuits but some things, like the cheap crisps in the shop,
will contain gluten and I get round it by just ignoring the ingredients
information. I tell myself daily that once I graduate I'll change, but right
here, right now, I'll take the quick and easy option of cheese on toast over
half an hour cooking in a grimy, practically condemned kitchen - does this make
me a bad person? I don't think so, I think I'm the reality of young people with
food allergies, if it's not going to have bad side effects immediately, I'm
happy to play the ignorance card.
It's a constant internal battle that one day
I hope I'll win, but who wouldn't pick chicken nuggets after a night out when
the alternative is waiting until you get home and having a rice cracker!
I did the same at age 20ish...I am now over 50 and after 30 years of ignoring it I have just gone back on my diet, I used to think it was not doing me any harm, however a bout of depression made me think again (poor intake of nutrients can cause this I am advised)
ReplyDelete