Post by kickingfrog on Feb 9, 2011 10:52:09 GMT
Thu Dec 4 11:44:54 2003 Pacific Time
Students With Celiac Disease Find Personal Touch at Elizabethtown College
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa., Dec. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- When students Kristi Sannuti and Jared Morris visit Elizabethtown College's dining hall for something to eat, they sometimes go directly to the kitchen. That's where the two first-year students find food specifically chosen for them that is stored separately from everything else that passes through the facility.
Both Sannuti and Morris suffer from Celiac Disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages or destroys the lining of the intestines in reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and possibly oats. The two cannot eat anything that contains gluten, nor can their food touch anything derived from grain. While that presents some challenges to the folks in dining services, accommodating students like Sannuti and Morris is the rule rather than the exception at Elizabethtown.
"When we talk about our dining facilities, we describe them as our students' kitchens," said Michelle Shirk, director of dining services.
"When we work with our special-needs students, such as those with food allergies of those who are vegetarians, we want them to find their food as they would at their homes."
Shirk and her counterparts at other college and universities have been meeting the needs of vegans, vegetarians, and those with a variety of food allergies for some time now, but they are seeing the number of students with special needs, like Celiac disease, steadily increase.
"Industry trends show that the number of special-needs students with food allergies and intolerances is on the rise," she said.
"We've trained our staff and prepared them now for what we know will be more prevalent in the future."
www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20031204.113635
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Students With Celiac Disease Find Personal Touch at Elizabethtown College
ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa., Dec. 4 (AScribe Newswire) -- When students Kristi Sannuti and Jared Morris visit Elizabethtown College's dining hall for something to eat, they sometimes go directly to the kitchen. That's where the two first-year students find food specifically chosen for them that is stored separately from everything else that passes through the facility.
Both Sannuti and Morris suffer from Celiac Disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages or destroys the lining of the intestines in reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, and possibly oats. The two cannot eat anything that contains gluten, nor can their food touch anything derived from grain. While that presents some challenges to the folks in dining services, accommodating students like Sannuti and Morris is the rule rather than the exception at Elizabethtown.
"When we talk about our dining facilities, we describe them as our students' kitchens," said Michelle Shirk, director of dining services.
"When we work with our special-needs students, such as those with food allergies of those who are vegetarians, we want them to find their food as they would at their homes."
Shirk and her counterparts at other college and universities have been meeting the needs of vegans, vegetarians, and those with a variety of food allergies for some time now, but they are seeing the number of students with special needs, like Celiac disease, steadily increase.
"Industry trends show that the number of special-needs students with food allergies and intolerances is on the rise," she said.
"We've trained our staff and prepared them now for what we know will be more prevalent in the future."
www.ascribe.org/cgi-bin/spew4th.pl?ascribeid=20031204.113635
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