ST. ANSGAR, IA - Wheat is a staple of the American diet.  The food pyramid suggests the average adult should eat six to eight ounces of grain per day.  That's six to eight slices of bread or three to four cups of cooked pasta. But if you have celiac disease or any level of a gluten-wheat allergy, what you put in your mouth could destroy your body.

Sam Vervaecke loves his monster cookies but they're on a short list of the treats he can eat.

“Before he puts anything in his mouth that's not from this house he asks is it gluten free,” says Mindi, Sam’s mom.    

The four-year-old cookie monster has celiac disease.

“Sam was really, really sick. He wasn't even walking at seventeen months.  He had very loose stools all the time and he had a big distended belly.  He got really, really thin. Basically, he was malnourished,” remembers Mindi.

The Vervaeckes narrowed down what was wrong with their son and went to Iowa City to get confirmation.

“It requires a biopsy of the small intestine and so we got the biopsy and within a week of non-gluten diet he was walking,” she said.

Sam's disease changed the whole Verveacke family.   With celiac disease the body attacks gluten, which is a protein found in grains, like wheat, barley, and rye. The gluten damages the intestinal lining.

“I bought everything gluten-free possible. This is forever, it's a lifetime allergy.  The whole family has gone gluten-free but he's the only one who has too,” explains Mindi.

“When we first started we had one shelf of pasta bread, flour, hardly anything and the stuff tasted horrible, and we had five customers,” says Joyce Pinke with a laugh.

Pinke owns Health Country in Mason City.  Over the past twenty years she’s seen a lot of people come in with food allergies.  She says her research suggests there are a lot of people out there who don't realize what they're eating is making them sick.  At least three million people across the country have celiac disease.  The Celiac Disease Center estimates one out of every one hundred people are celiac but, only five percent of them know it.  There are also other levels of intolerance.

“We kinda think one out of two people have some problem.  There is wheat sensitivity, wheat allergic, wheat intolerant.  You might be gluten sensitive, gluten allergic, or gluten intolerant. So that plus full blown celiac disease makes seven variations,” explains Pinke.

The key is what happens when your food is being digested.

“You have little villi in your colon that move food along and the gluten, there is so much gluten in our food it glues done the villi, and so you're not absorbing your food.  It's moving right along and that means diarrhea, or it's getting stuck, constipation,” says Pinke.

There are other side effects.   A gluten rich diet is linked to skin rashes, depression, and problems with conception.  Then there are the side affects of starting a gluten-free diet. It's expensive.

“Your prices are going to way different of course, you can get wheat for 89 cents a pound.  This gluten-free flour is $5.95 a pound,” says Pinke.

It requires you to carefully read labels.

“The new federal guide lines have a very strict guideline to how they have to identify it. If it has wheat, it has to say it, so a lot of grocery shopping just requires reading that bottom line label,” explains Mindi.

It's also challenging to eat gluten-free in a gluten rich world. 

“They're making it easier and easier but the hardest thing is eating out.”

“We have happy meals, no bun, no chicken nuggets, but he can have french fries.”

The Verveackes have also mastered a gluten-free Thanksgiving.

“We have to make special buns and special stuffing.  Gravy always has to be made with corn starch. You can't use regular flour.  Pumpkin pie? No pie unless you do a different crust. You can't even have gram cracker crust so pie is really tough.  None of those french fried onions on your green bean casserole,” says Mindi.

Right now Sam doesn't seem to miss the french fried onions.  Give him a can of cheese wiz and a few gluten-free pretzels and he's content.

But his mother is already concerned about his future when pizza and beer often become staples in a young adult’s life.

“I worry more about him when he's in college. When he doesn't want to follow the rules and doesn't care about how he feels.  There's a risk that you can increase your risk for cancer,” says Mindi.

“This is one of those diseases that people can live with and live long lives with and we feel fortunate that that's all it is. It's an allergy.”

Gluten intolerance is such a big health concern in Italy that the government requires every child to be tested for celiac disease. Some doctors maintain the biopsy that tests for celiac disease is unreliable and research is now being done on a blood test that detects the disease.  The only known treatment is a life long gluten-free diet.  However, there are two medications that can help with the symptoms caused by gluten intolerance, but they are still being tested.

For more information check out these websites and speak to your doctor if you think you may have a wheat or gluten allergy.

Celiac Disease Foundation

Celiac Disease Center

Web MD

The Food Intolerant Consumer