My parents were visiting this past week and they slipped me this article from the Chicago Tribune they had brought along to read on the flight.
A website called glutenfreehosts.com has set up shop to make sure people can get their wafers gluten-free. There is a tad of controversy as the Catholic Church is rather precise about its recipe concerning hosts/wafers and tampering with it isn’t taken lightly, but the website assures that it follows Vatican policy.
According to the article, over 50% of purchases from glutenfreehosts.com come from individuals, not churches. I’m kind of curious how that works: do you just order your wafers and then give them to the priest ahead of time to be blessed, etc.?
And, as usual, there are Celiacs that aren’t happy because the hosts aren’t 100% gluten-free, but comply with the standard less than 20 parts per million. Still, I think it’s a pretty big step for churches to start catering to their gluten-free parishioners.
Amy x
It’s interesting how some places are so accommodating for one thing (gluten-free) but not for others (vegan). As a gluten-free vegan I find that people are MUCH more accommodating about gluten (since it corresponds to a disease) but when it comes to veganism they really don’t give two hoots since it’s ‘voluntary’!