High schooler’s senior project leads to a gluten-free path

Hugh McMillan

Special to the Gateway

Not too long ago, I learned about a very impressive young lady named Meghin Spencer that a friend of mine told me I had to meet.

“I just knew you’d want to talk to her,” said my friend, Donna Lee.

She was so right.

Lee served as a judge for Spencer’s Gig Harbor High School senior project. Spencer graduated last month with a 3.972 grade-point average ranked 12th in her class of 343.

Among other accomplishments, Spencer took honors and advanced-placement classes, was on the girls swimming team for three years, participated for three years in World Awareness and Youth Services, has played piano for 10 years (including a four-year stint with the school’s jazz band), and has played trumpet for four years.

When I half facetiously asked what she did in her “spare time,” Spencer responded: “I know I did more, but other things aren’t as significant.”

Instead, Spencer wanted to talk about her senior project and celiac disease, which she was diagnosed with in May 2007.

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that is triggered when a person eats gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Problem is, gluten can be hidden in hundreds of different ingredients.

The only way to treat celiac disease is by maintaining a gluten-free diet.

If someone with the disease continues to eat gluten, they can acquire lifelong health issues such as osteoporosis, anemia other autoimmune diseases. In rare cases, it can lead to cancer.

“While on the gluten-free diet,” Spencer said, “you have to be careful of even the tiniest bit of gluten. Cross contamination is a big problem. You can’t use a spoon to stir regular pasta and then stick it in a pot with gluten-free pasta.”

Spencer also said it’s genetic.

Celiac disease is difficult to diagnose. Doctors were taught it would be so rare they would likely never come across it. Patients often have no symptoms. Someone who seems perfectly healthy can have it.

“I got stomach aches after I ate,” Spencer said. “There are many reasons for stomach aches. It took eight months to diagnose me.”

Some symptoms are bloating or gas, itchy skin rash, delayed growth, headaches, diarrhea, tingling/numbness, poor weight gain, depression, constipation, pale mouth sores, thin bones, irritability, fatigue, joint pain, infertility or discolored teeth.

Celiac can be diagnosed by blood test or biopsy of the lining of the small intestine.

One in 133 people in the country has celiac, most of whom don’t even know they have it.

For her senior project, Spencer chose to go to each Gig Harbor restaurant and speak with a manager.

“When asked if they had gluten-free foods, most had no idea what I was talking about,” she said. “I gave a brief explanation of celiac, listed some gluten-free foods they might have and gave them a flier detailing celiac.

“Some said that they would have to get back to me, so I gave them my phone number and e-mail address,” she said. “Others listed some foods they believed to be gluten-free. Some did not want to help.

Spencer said her goal was to make it easier for people with celiac to eat out in Gig Harbor.

“I also aimed to educate Gig Harbor about the disease,” she said. “At each restaurant, I asked the managers to share the information on the flier with their staffs.”

“I was only able to visit about 30 of the restaurants,” Spencer said.

Laureen Lund, marketing director for the City of Gig Harbor, served as Spencer’s project mentor and put her information on the dining section of the city’s Web site, www.gigharborguide.com/dining.aspx.

“At this time (Lund) and I wrote an article and sent it to a few newspapers,” Spencer said. “We received no responses.”

Enter Kids’ Corner!

“I want the world to know the difficulties of living with any array of food allergies,” she said. “Dozens of people have celiac, wheat, corn, dairy, fish, bean, egg and banana allergies, even one with intolerance to sugar.”

Corn or wheat allergies can be incredibly difficult to avoid,” Spencer said.

“My hope is that Gig Harbor and Washington and our nation — and maybe even the entire world — can learn to accommodate the millions of people who suffer from food allergies and intolerances,” she said.

Most Gig Harbor restaurants can make those accommodations — they just don’t realize it.

“The hard part about eating out for people with allergies is getting servers to help find a safe food for them to eat,” Spencer said. “Customers do not know everything that goes into food and must rely on what servers tell them.”

Spencer listed the Harbor Rock Café, Spiros, Harvester and Narrows Landing as the most helpful. She also said the Great Australian Bite has gluten-free cookies.

“A friend with celiac disease who did not abide by the gluten-free diet stopped growing for a while and did not grow much hair on his legs,” Spencer said. “Now he tries a little harder to eat gluten-free.”

She said she influenced one of her mom’s friends to eat gluten-free as well.

Spencer hopes she can convince a friend of hers to pick up her project where she left off.

As for the future, Spencer said she’ll be living in a dorm room at the University of Washington this fall, and she’ll have to do a lot of her own cooking.

“They do provide a separate toaster, George Forman grill and some gluten-free cereals, but are far behind some other colleges when it comes to accommodating students with food allergies,” she said. “Hopefully I can influence the U to make some much-needed changes as well.

“All we need to do is spread awareness, and eating out would become exponentially easier for so many people. And that is what I tried to accomplish with my project.”

Hugh McMillan is a longtime freelance writer for The Peninsula Gateway. He can be reached at 253-884-3319.