Eating gluten-free food in 2011 is nothing like eating gluten-free food in the 1970s.

“There’s a lot more stuff that we can have now,” said 12-year-old Cera Walker. “They make more gluten-free deserts. Actually, I think most of the gluten-free deserts taste better than the regular ones.”

The Vernal Middle School student has heard the stories from her grandmother, Flossie Walker, about the gluten-free diet of days gone by. The Walkers have both been diagnosed with celiac disease. Five of Flossie Walker’s seven children also have the genetic disorder.

Walker had taken her eldest daughter to about 20 different doctors before the girl was diagnosed at age 6.

“When she was diagnosed, I went to the grocery store hoping I could find anything that she could eat, and aside from the vegetables and fruit and dairy products that we knew was safe, there was nothing that I could feed her at the grocery store,” Walker said.

At least one in 133 Americans suffer from celiac disease, or gluten intolerance. Gluten is a protein substance found in wheat that causes dough to be sticky, and for someone with celiac, it is something to avoid.

“It would take less than two or three grains of wheat in a fairly good sized amount of a gluten-free flour to make you sick,” Walker said.

If a person diagnosed with celiac continues to eat gluten, studies have shown it will increase the chances of gastrointestinal cancer.

Cera Walker was diagnosed with gluten intolerance in February 2009. In second and third grade she used to call home often because of headaches, one of her symptoms of too much gluten.

She said the first time she was told she probably had celiac she was eating pizza and bread sticks at her grandmothers. She told her grandmother she had a headache and her stomach hurt, and Flossie Walker suggested that she ate too much dough and may have celiac.

The girl’s father also has the disorder. He and others in the community attend meetings the first Tuesday of every month at the Vernal City offices to share recipes, new findings and their own personal stories about living with celiac disease.

Cathy Tesar of Vernal was one of the originators of the group, along with Vernie Heeney.

“We thought, we need to get a group together for all these people,” said Tesar, who was diagnosed 18 years ago. “It was nice to have the support from other people, knowing you’re not the only one out there with it.”

Heeney was diagnosed with celiac about six months prior to the forming of the group in July 2010.

“That was really nice that we could pass on some of our information so that it wasn’t so stressful for them, too,” Heeney said about exchanging recipes and stories.

The group brings in food for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter parties.

“Kind of nice to get together and know that whatever is brought in you can eat because they’re all going through the same thing,” Tesar said.

Both Tesar and Heeney are the only ones in their families with the disease and both say they enjoy it when others bring food because it is difficult for them to make loaves of bread and cookies when they are cooking for just themselves.

According to group members, one of the people who has perfected gluten-free cooking is Flossie Walker.

“The supreme test to good gluten-free food is if you can serve it to someone whose not gluten-free and they don’t know,” Walker said.

She said over the years she’s learned to create tasty breads, pastas and deserts for her family. For her children’s birthdays, or other special occasions she always made sure to bake a dessert her children could enjoy.

For the Oct. 4 meeting, Walker will be coming in to show how to make her now famous hamburger buns. To make them she has to use two key ingredients: Expandex flour — a modified tapioca starch — and xanthan gum, which is used as a binder for the dough. Expandex is a new kind of flour that’s hard to find locally and xanthan gum wasn’t well known in Utah until Walker introduced it.

“That’s my only claim to fame,” she said. “I was the first one that brought xanthan gum to the general public in Utah.”

Of course at the time, to purchase it she had to buy 100 pounds of it at $7 per pound, when she only needed one teaspoon of xanthan gum per cup of flour. She ended up finding everyone she knew with gluten intolerance and giving it away. She also baked a lot of bread and took it around.

Walker said eating gluten-free used to be a life sentence, and centered around the thought of not being able to eat palatable food anymore. But that’s not the case anymore because gluten-free eating has become a fad.

“It costs a little bit more and you have to make a little bit more effort but you can still (eat what the stuff you like),” Cera Walker said.

She enjoys going to the monthly meetings because she’s glad to know she’s not the only one her age with gluten intolerance.

At the September meeting, members of the Uintah Basin Gluten-Free Awareness Group discussed how much their children, gluten intolerant and non, love many of the modern gluten-free packaged desserts such as new Coco Pebbles and Fruity Pebbles snacks and the new flavors of Chex cereal.

The group has been trying to raise awareness for gluten intolerance in the Basin and hopes to spread the word by holding a Gluten-Free Awareness Day event Saturday at noon at the Searle Pavilion in the park off 500 North. Gluten-free treats and foods will be available to sample and people can find out more about the group.

For more information about the group contact Vernie Heeney at 435-789-1903 or Cathy Tesar at 435-789-0568.

In addition to the Uintah Basin meeting, a Gluten-Free Expo for the state of Utah will be held in Sandy on Oct. 8 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the South Towne Expo Center at 9575 S. State St.