Making Your Kitchen Safe for Gluten-Free Visitors

What to Do when Your House Guests Have Celiac Disease

If you have friends or family who have celiac disease and therefore maintain a gluten-free diet, there are a few steps you can take to make your home a more hospitable place for them. Obviously, which steps are necessary depend on the severity of the gluten sensitivity involved and the frequency and length of visits. While most people who have celiac disease will always carry some gluten safe products with them (I always have snacks with me, and usually bring some food supplies as well as safe soap and shampoo with me on longer visits), you can make a celiacs life a lot easier with a few simple steps to protect them from gluten in your home.

If you bake, store all flour either in mason-jars or similar canisters with a tight seal. If you keep your flour in the refrigerator (please don’t; it risks contaminating everything with gluten), store it in two layers of plastic bags. When celiac’s come to visit, consider buying non-gluten flours for making and cooking – potato, almond, rice and amaranth are all examples of gluten-free flours that can be found at health food and gourmet stores.

If you keep bread in your freezer, clean out all the crumbs and consider double-bagging the bread to prevent gluten contamination. Many gluten-free baked goods spoil more easily because of a lack of preservatives, and for this reason many gluten-free foods must be stored in the freezer. It is important that this area of your house not be a source of gluten-contamination.

Your toaster is also another major gluten-contamination risk. While any sane celiac will not toast their gluten-free bread in a device used for regular wheat-based bread, the fact is toasters accumulate and distribute crumbs that can contaminate other food with gluten – especially if you have a small city kitchen. Clean the toaster out before guests arrive, and if you can, move it farther away from your main food preparation area to reduce this gluten risk.