Why Food Anxiety Is So Common When You’re Gluten-Free And How to Feel Better

If food makes you nervous now that you are gluten free — if you overthink menus, hesitate at social events, or feel a pit in your stomach when you’re not in control of the food — I want you to know this first: you’re not broken, dramatic, or doing gluten-free wrong. Food anxiety is incredibly common when you’re gluten-free, especially with celiac or gluten sensitivity. 

Today, we’re talking about why that anxiety develops, why it makes sense, and how to start loosening its grip without ignoring your safety.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Safety Disclaimer
• 0:49 Host Story And Podcast Mission
• 1:27 Naming Food Anxiety In Gluten-Free Life
• 2:02 Why Gluten Triggers Confusion
• 3:10 When Food Becomes A Threat
• 4:18 Body Warning Signals And Headaches
• 5:46 Medical Dismissal And Hypervigilance
• 7:09 High Stakes And Real Consequences
• 8:07 Trusting Others And Cross-Contact
• 9:07 Judgment, Shame, And Control Loops
• 10:33 Caution Versus Consuming Anxiety
• 12:20 Practical Steps To Regain Confidence
• 13:34 Community, Newsletter, And Support
• 14:28 Be Kind To Yourself And Closing

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:00

Quick reminder before we get started on this episode. This podcast is based on my personal experiences and isn't medical advice. If food makes you feel nervous now that you're gluten-free, if you overthink menus, hesitate at social events, or feel a pit in your stomach when you're not in control of the food, I want you to know first you are not broken. And this is so normal. And I've gone through this, I've heard other people go through this. You're not traumatic or doing gluten-free wrong at all. Food anxiety is incredibly common when you're gluten-free or have an allergy, especially with celiac or gluten sensitivity. And today we're talking about why that anxiety develops, why it makes sense, and how to start loosening its grip without ignoring your safety so that you can feel calm around food again. Let's dive in. Welcome to the Gluten Free Engineer Podcast. I'm your host, Kiri Saunders. In 2011, I was diagnosed with celiac disease, a moment that changed everything. But I was determined not to let it hold me back. With my two engineering degrees, I set out to reverse engineer the gluten-free lifestyle, breaking down recipes, safety tips, travel hacks, and everything in between to rebuild a life I love. Whether you have celiac disease, gluten intolerance, or simply choose to live gluten-free, this podcast is for you. Join me each week as we simplify the gluten-free lifestyle, make it fun, and prove that you don't have to miss out on anything. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about why food anxiety is so common when you're gluten-free. I feel like for me, the root of this is the fact that most people don't understand what gluten is. They understand food allergies a lot more than they understand gluten. And I think part of this is due to the fact that gluten is in several different types of grains. It's not like it's one thing, it's not like it's just peanuts or all the nuts, which are a bit more obvious, especially visually, to recognize and to really kind of think about it because that's been around a lot longer as you know, food allergies. And so I think part of why people get so anxious when they're diagnosed with gluten, is it just hides it so well in so many things. I'm absolutely not dismissing people with allergies. I know that can cause such anxiety too. I've had many friends with um children with severe allergies as well. And it's it's just any sort of food issue like that can cause so much anxiety. So I want you to feel completely normal and that you're not alone in this because you're absolutely not. I know that I still will sometimes have food anxiety. I'm so much better now, but it has been like 12, I don't know, I've lost track. Gosh, it's probably been about 14 years now. I just did the math a little bit better, 14 or 15 years now. And I can still get food anxiety still. But I do know that it's so much better now than I was when I first started going gluten-free. So I want to talk today about how do we transition out of that anxiety without, you know, make being laxed and not making ourselves safe. And one of the reasons that it's it starts and why you have this, and it's the same for allergy people, food becomes a threat, not just fuel. That food that can cause harm to your body can be a threat, which can cause you anxiousness when you go on to go to eat. And before diagnosis, food was just neutral or enjoyable. You didn't have to think about it. You didn't have to think about everything that you put in your mouth or around your mouth or you know, any way that could potentially get into your mouth. But after gluten reactions, and especially once you start healing and really noticing how severe those reactions can be, food can become linked to pain, sickness, or consequences, you know, headaches. Maybe you feel anxious, maybe you feel angry, maybe you feel super tired, maybe you just can't function. They can cause such anxiety of being afraid that if you eat something, you're gonna dis you know debilitate yourself for a few days. And your brain has learned to associate eating with danger. It is a protective response and not a fall on you. I've had so many people with celiac or severe gluten intolerance tell me, because I warn them, I'm like, you know, you're probably gonna get to a point where going down the bread aisle is going to give you a temporary headache. And they'll come back to me months later, especially if there's diagnosed with celiac and go, oh my gosh, you're right. It's been like three months, and now if I smell bread, it gives me a headache. And I tell them, that's not, you know, in your in your imagination, that's your body being such a good body to you and recognizing, okay, I recognize this smell, the smells associated with gluten, and gluten gives me migraines or headaches, or gluten is bad for me. It's just like people I know that have had kids that have peanut allergies, they will get a headache sometimes first. If they start to smell, you know, like say there's peanut oil, some, you know, being fried, and they can smell it up in the air. Um, they'll start to get headaches. It's it's our body's warning system that there's something wrong. So you're going to get some odd symptoms like that when you've been gluten-free long enough. And it, you know, it might be a little bit alarming and you might feel a little crazy. I know I kind of felt a little crazy at first until I found other people going, yeah, that happened to me too. So I want you to recognize that this is just a normal response to your body having either you know headaches or just general anxiousness if you're going to go eat and you're not confident that it's free of gluten so that you can feel safe. So this also goes back to the fact that you were very likely hurt before you had answers. Most of the people I talked to who have celiac or severe gluten intolerance were sick for years before diagnosis, sometimes decades. I was sick for 30 years, more than 30 years before I figured out, and then the doctors confirmed that I had celiac. Many times symptoms are dismissed or unexplained, or you're told you have something else that can create some hyperprotectiveness in yourself because you have been dismissed for so long, and you have, you know, been told you have something else, and not been validated as to what is wrong with you. Your body remembers what your mind didn't understand yet, and it's very protective of yourself. And that's that's one of the reasons why you can have such anxiety around this. The stakes are really high with gluten whenever you do get them accidentally. A mistake doesn't just mean discomfort for most people that I talk to, it many times means days or weeks of symptoms. I have one friend that she many times will go into the ER if she gets gluten accidentally. She's very, very, very symptomatically um celiac. And she many times lands her in the ER. She will have other things flare up, and it her just is her body just goes to a wreck whenever she gets a little bit of gluten. And that pressure will naturally increase your anxiety or like you know, really skyrocket your anxiety if you're one of those super severe people whenever you get gluten. And that's why caution makes sense when consequences are real. You know, for our kids, they're totally different. My oldest child, he will go into what we call a gluten coma. He will sleep for hours, if not a day and a half or more. We've seen him sleep for at least a day and a half as the longest time, was about 36 hours from severe gluten exposure. And they're really, really real. You know, can you imagine not being able to function for a day and a half or two? And even after that, he was like so brain fogged for I would say for about three or four days after that. Um, so you know, that can cause such true anxiety whenever you just feel that terrible for that long and really can't enjoy your life. And it can also cause anxiety when you're asked to trust people with your health. For example, when you go to a restaurant or friends and family or school events. While many times these people have well-intended meanings, sometimes they don't understand where gluten comes from, how you can get cross contact and things like that. So you putting your trust in them can be hard sometimes, unless you know you're really close to them and you know they understand this. And you've learned many times that I promise that safe isn't always accurate. I know I have fallen into that before, and it's nothing against them. Again, they are trying to do their best, they just don't understand all the nuances behind it. So having that anxiety is very, very normal. And then some people we've heard talk to us or our family members or friends that have celiac or gluten intolerance, they'll hear things like, just don't stress, or a little won't hurt, or a crumb won't hurt, or you're being too careful. So we also can feel very judged and we can feel very ashamed sometimes by our need to be gluten-free. And it's not a choice for most of those listening to this podcast. It's it's a need. Or if it is a choice, you choose to do it because you feel better not having the gluten, or it's helping you with another ailment that you have, like hyperthyroidism or or diabetes or something like that. And so this conflicting, you know, advice or or um how they perceive you can really erode confidence and fuel anxiety in yourself. And control can feel like safety. And this is just so such nature here is that when we feel in control, we feel safer. So reading labels repeatedly can happen, which can cause anxiety. Avoiding new foods can happen, which can because that can cause anxiety if you try new food. Eating the same meals over and over. This is actually something I did as a child. I ate the same meals over and over again. I still do this as an adult. I have the same breakfast every single morning. Now I do it now because of I don't want to have decision fatigue. I don't need to decide what I'm gonna eat in the morning. I just want to eat and get on with my day. But many times eating the same meals over and over again is so that you can control what you're eating because you know it's safe. Completely normal, but this is another form of anxiety that we need to recognize and see whether we need to um address or something, just you know, keep us nice and calm. And these behaviors often start as safety tools and not really problems. So as long as it's in check and it's just, you know, a safety tool and you're not, you know, being too anxious over it, um, you're probably fine. But I just want you to recognize these potential small anxieties in case you need to work with your doctor to get through them. So it's completely healthy and normal to be cautious. That's absolutely, completely normal. And I totally recommend it. It's the way that you stay safe. But we want to be aware when it turns into true anxiety, and we want to work with our doctors if that happens. So if you feel super anxious over, you know, your gluten diagnosis, whether it's celiac gluten intolerance, or whether you're choosing to do it because it causes some other medical ailment, I want you to, you know, make sure that you're mentally healthy too. Because if you're constantly second-guessing, if you're avoiding social events entirely, if you feel panicked instead of prepared, then you may want to work with your doctor. Now, I know for me, there were many times I would sometimes feel so panicked, especially in the beginning. So you know yourself best. Just be aware of these things. I want you to be aware of these because some people, we just don't talk about this enough. And there's a difference between being careful and being consumed by this. I just don't want you to be consumed by it. Now, in the beginning, yes, you may be consumed by it. It's completely normal. But if you don't feel like you're getting out of that, being consumed, I would definitely recommend reaching out for help. Uh help. Obviously, I'm not a doctor and I can't provide medical advice, but I just want you to be aware of what I've seen people experience and what I've experienced myself so that you can go and reach out whenever you need that help. And then how do we start easing that food anxiety without ignoring the safety? We want to, you know, move towards being comfortable having food as fuel again and food as fun, not you know, this big thing that's you know, super scary and you're afraid to do. We want to build a short list of trusted foods and places. We want, you know, practical, compassionate steps here. We want to prepare for events instead of avoiding them. This is something I made sure that we did is we made sure we prepared for events instead of just not going. It's a little bit hard at first, but you're going to feel better in your long run. We want to practice asking clear questions. So if somebody is serving us the food, you know, we have some podcast episodes on what to ask for. So I highly recommend you look those up and you know, practice that. Practice asking those clear questions so you can feel safe and confident. I want you to give yourself permission to keep it simple. This should be something you can overcome. This should be something that we can all work together as a community to feel less anxious, to feel more confident, and to enjoy ourselves again. We want to have that confidence. This is not this is not about exposure therapy. We do not want to be exposing ourselves to gluten or taking risks. We just want to be confident in our next steps and in our decisions. And I'd love to hear from you. If food anxiety has been part of your gluten-free journey, it's something I know. I've experienced so much. I believe my kids probably have experienced it, whether they've told me they have or not. And I know others definitely experience it. Be sure to join our newsletter at theglutenfreeengineer.com forward slash newsletter and let me know about it. I would love to hear what your story is. We can even feature on the podcast if you would like. Just let me know. I will not do that without your permission. And I want you to go ahead and join our Facebook group too. You can also find the link to that to the gluten on the glutenfreeengineer.com. It's a great safe place where you can share what's going on in your life. What are you struggling with? Are you having this food anxiety that we're talking about on this podcast episode? What wonder, you know, what do others do to help themselves with the food anxiety? It might give you some other ideas besides the ones I gave you on this podcast episode that might resonate with you even more. And then I want to tell you that one last thing that helped me the most was realizing that my anxiety wasn't something to fix. It was something to understand. Please be kind to yourself when you're trying to understand this and be compassionate. Once I stop judging myself or being cautious and start building confidence slowly, food became less scary again, and I want it to become less scary again for you as well. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Gluten Free Engineer. If you found value in this story, please share it with someone who might need encouragement on their own gluten-free journey. For more tips, recipes, resources, and even links to my YouTube channel, head on over to theglutenfreengineer.com. It's your one-stop hub to make gluten-free living simple, fun, and full of flavor. And don't forget to subscribe so you never miss out on an episode. And we will see you next week. The Gluten Free Engineer Podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. I share my personal experiences and stories about living with celiac disease and navigating a gluten free lifestyle. This podcast does not provide medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional for medical questions, concerns, or advice specific to your health.