February 17: Gluten-Free Research

NEW VOCAB: ataxia: loss of balance
The weather today was so nice and warm, and quite honestly I felt a little bit disappointed at first that I had to spend 3 hours of my afternoon sitting inside working on projects (F). However, the research that I did today turned out to be very interesting! Kelsey (college intern) and I were both at Strawberry Fields today, and we are working on a project together: Next Thursday, we are setting up a table in the store section of Strawberry Fields. We are going to be sampling some gluten-free cookies that are on sale this month and also making one recipe featuring whole grains for people to sample (D). We are also going to create some pamphlets about the benefits of having a gluten-free diet and the benefits of whole grains and inform people about them as well (D). To make the work load easier, Kelsey focused on the whole grain research and I focused on the gluten-free research. This helped me realize the importance of teamwork, because having one person do both parts of the research would have been pretty overwhelming, but by splitting it up, the project was manageable (A). Since I knew very little about why people need a gluten-free diet, I immediately got to work researching the topic both online and in books that my sponsor has in her office's library (D). I found out that there are two main reasons people eat a gluten-free diet: if they have Celiac disease or if they are gluten-intolerant (there is a difference!). If they have Celiac disease, it means that eating gluten actually causes the villi on the inside of their small intestine to be damaged, which makes nutrients unable to be absorbed properly into their bodies (D). However, if they are gluten intolerant, the small intestine isn't damaged. It is just like an allergic reaction and causes symptoms, but it is not causing any permanent damage to your intestines (D). I found this topic very interesting, and I even brought home a book to read more about it this weekend! One thing I remembered before I left was that a past intern had a ton of fliers and information about gluten-free eating already saved on the computer, so I didn't have to do quite as much work as I did (D). I felt frustrated when I realized this, but then again, I got to learn a lot more by doing the research myself (F). Overall, a great day!