Gluten Intolerance is a thing: it is where there is a reaction to gluten (resulting in feeling sick, bloated, there may be intestinal distress and pain, and mood issues), probably as a result of being unable to properly digest the gluten, just as lactose intolerance is an inability to digest lactose.
Celiac is an immune condition, where there is an active allergy to gluten.
But that’s not to say that Gluten Intolerance doesn’t exist.
The BS lies in people deciding they’re “gluten intolerant” because they want to be dicks to the waitstaff and get special meals. They’ll order something from the pasta menu, and demand that it be gluten free, and ask about whether there’s flour in the bechamel, and then scarf down all the breadsticks while they’re waiting.
I’ve just witnessed a completely civil and righteous rage against the machine by an elderly man (80s+) at supermarket self-service checkout here in small city Aotearoa #NewZealand and it was a little bit wonderful.
He’d just finished paying for his groceries when the machine started saying “Please take your items” every 15 seconds or so. At first he just says “I’ll do it in my own time thank you,” while bagging things up.
The machine keeps telling him to take his items. After around the 5th time, he starts really arguing back:
“I don’t have to do what you tell me to do.”
“I’ll take as long as I need thank you.”
“I’ll thank you to stop harassing me.”
On around the seventh or eighth request that he take his items, he stands back, crosses his arms and says loudly snaps, “No! Not until you be quiet!”
The machine keeps going. The man just stands there, crossed arms, chin stuck out. A standoff is on. Staff come over and ask if they can help and he tells them that if they switch the voice off, he will continue bagging his things and go. If they don’t, he’s retired and can wait all day.
Machine is turned off/down with sympathy from supermarket staff. Moments later the man leaves the supermarket with the air of someone who’s just won a war, expression completely stoic.
