Ever heard of Celiac disease? People with the condition can't eat wheat, barley, rye, or most oats. As worldwide rice prices skyrocket, most folks can shift their diet away from rice, but for a person with Celiac, wheat, rye, and barley are not among the choices.
What about people with life-threatening food allergies to soy? Corn? Or the millions with food intolerances? Not life-threatening, as a food allergy is, but life-altering, triggering gastrointestinal issues, fatigue, skin disorders, and a host of other medical problems.
What happens when food allergies, medical conditions, and skyrocketing food prices converge?
Our family is gluten free and casein free. My husband was diagnosed with Celiac disease when he was 41. The only "cure" is a gluten-free diet. Gluten is a protein found in barley, wheat, and rye. People with Celiac disease must avoid commercially-farmed oats as well, for oat fields are often contaminated with gluten crops. There are gluten-free oats, however, if you have between $3 and $7 to spend on one single pound of oats. (Oatmeal cookies are a rare treat here.)
Our two boys (9 and 6) had blood tests that showed elevated ttG levels (a marker for Celiac, though an endoscopy biopsy is the gold standard for diagnosis), so we've gone gluten-free for them as well. We're casein-free (a protein found in dairy) because both boys don't tolerate it either.
Rice, corn, and soy are fine for people with Celiac, unless they have a food allergy or intolerance separate from Celiac disease itself. In our home, we purchase common substitutes. Want spaghetti? We buy corn or rice spaghetti--for $2.19 for 8 ounces (on sale for around $1.59 sometimes).
Cereal? We get corn and rice cereal that is much like the common "Chex" brand, but we can't buy Chex, for it includes barley malt as a sweetener (as do Rice Krispies). On sale I can find a box of corn or rice "Chex"-like cereal for $4.79, $3.49 if I'm lucky. If I find it for less, I buy 20 boxes; it's a treat around here and we parcel out those boxes carefully.
Bread? Rice flour, tapioca flour, and potato starch combined make a decent gluten-free flour mix, and I make all of our bread from scratch. Rice flour runs $1.50+ per pound. That is the cheapest gluten-free flour.
Notice a pattern? We lean on rice and corn as substitutes for wheat. Both, along with wheat, have risen dramatically. 2 lbs. of rice flour that used to cost me $2.99 are now $4.79.
For the average person with Celiac, or for people with specific food allergies and intolerances, the reaction to increased food prices can't be as flexible as that of people without medical conditions related to food.
For instance, we simply can't shift to cheaper grain sources that are wheat-based. We can reduce our grain consumption, yes, but we can't substitute with anything that involves gluten.
Same with dairy; we rely on rice milk, soy milk, and almond milk as substitutes for dairy, and we can only use those brands that don't use gluten-based sweeteners (Rice Dream, for instance, uses barley-based sweeteners). We can shift to more nut-based milks, which are more expensive than rice and soy, or even hemp milk (yes, it exists!), but at $2.99 per quart in our area, it's not as feasible as rice milk--which has recently increased from $1.19 per quart to $1.99 per quart.
Long before food prices were on the rise, people with food sensitivities already experienced high food prices--either by relying on expensive substitutes for common foods (breads, milks, cereals, pastas) or by focusing on a produce and protein-based diet.
Folks without medical limitations on their food supply can always turn to food banks if their personal financial situation becomes dire enough, but when gluten is included as a thickener and additive in so many foods, a person with Celiac disease literally harms his or her body if they do not have the money to purchase 100% gluten-free foods or have free access to 100% GF foods.
A child with a life-threatening peanut allergy; an egg allergy; an MSG intolerance--these are real food-based medical conditions that can be managed, successfully, with vigilance and enough food dollars.
This is where the convergence hits hardest. What happens when people with food-based medical conditions don't have the dollars to manage their food issues successfully?
Our family's food expenses have increased about 20% over the past year, and we've reduced our "luxury" eating (cookies, frozen meals, frozen gluten-free pizzas, etc.). We're fortunate; our budget can handle it. But what about those who can't?
Will we see more demand for food for those with special diets in the requests for donations at food banks? Will food-based medical emergencies rise? Will we bear the greater expense, as a society, for those with food-based medical conditions who must seek medical attention precisely because they experience "food insecurity" on a level that has no line item, no row in a spreadsheet, because it isn't about calories but about a diagnosis?
And then there is the perfect storm: no medical insurance, a food-based medical condition, and no financial ability to eat according to the condition.
How many people will this perfect storm affect?