Two absolutes in life are food and people. We all have to eat, and we all have to co-exist. But it is more complicated than this. How we choose to eat and the nutrition choices we make can present challenges when we’re with others. As someone who has been on a strict protocol for many years, I’ve experienced how my choices can sometimes cause misunderstandings. This has been a wake-up call about how we all need to practice greater empathy and healthy boundaries when it comes to our health.

One of my greatest learnings happened a few years ago when my friend, Rachel, stayed at our house. Rachel and I knew each other well. Our children played together frequently, and I told her all about my health journey and how I was following a food protocol. By all accounts, we were well informed about each other’s lives.

At the time, I had been on the SIBO Diet for seven months, and I was working extremely hard to heal myself of various ailments. To achieve this, I was abstaining from a wide variety of foods, including grains, complex carbohydrates, and any processed sugar. I had made progress, and was feeling better and healthier every day.

While hosting Rachel, I had been working for a large part of her stay. Therefore, I wasn’t fully keyed into all the happenings around the house. One day when I came home, I saw a plate of cupcakes sitting on the kitchen counter. Lightly pink and topped with frosting, these cupcakes looked just like the SIBO-approved, grain- and dairy-free treats our nanny and my daughter make from time to time.

I was hungry and so grateful for the gift. I picked one up and started eating it. The cake was crumbly. The frosting buttery. It was delicious. I was so distracted with settling back home and the other hundred things on my mind, that I didn’t give the cupcake much thought—until the realization hit me: These weren’t our usual cupcakes. They were made with good intentions, but also with so many ingredients I had worked hard to avoid, including grain, dairy and refined sugar. They were left unlabeled on the counter, which is why I mistook them as something I could eat. It was a small oversight that set me way back on my work and healing. I had a considerable flare-up that led to severe illness. I was in bed for about two days. It took another two to three weeks before I began to feel wholly myself again.

After I told Rachel what happened, I learned that the cupcakes were not brought by her but rather her mother. I would never have expected her mother to know my dietary restrictions, but after all the meals we had shared together in the past, I didn’t see how my friend could forget to mention something that was so important to my health. But we can never assume. Mistakes happen. People forget.

This issue taught me why boundaries around our food choices are so critical. They need to be announced, clarified, and reminded. Not because it’s a matter of preference, but because it’s a matter of health. This issue begs the question: How do we navigate our interactions with people when our choices aren’t always compatible?

I’ve spent a long time thinking about this. I’ve come to realize that we can’t second-guess ourselves. We can’t apologize for eating a certain way or feel like we need to defend our decisions. We can contort our needs to make others comfortable. We have to be vocal about them. As anyone who has been on the gut-healing journey can tell you, there are highs and lows, setbacks, and sacrifices. But these become harder when others interfere—even with the best intentions.

You expect that the one place you can eat safely to be your own home. Home is the one environment where you don’t have to remind the chef, the server, or the food runner at a restaurant of your allergy or your dietary restriction. For someone suffering from dietary issues, this can be a very vulnerable position. That is why it is so critical to have this safe place to eat—even if it’s only one shelf in your pantry. In our home, I’m clear about the necessity of food labeling and how important it is to communicate what the food is, what it contains, and that it has a correct place to be stored.

I’m also clear about what guests can and cannot bring into our home. When I host a dinner party or have guests come to visit (pre-COVID days) I make a point to announce our strict diet rules. I tell everyone that we’re a gluten and dairy-free home, and that if they bring any food into the house, it must be labeled. And the lesson goes both ways. When I’m a guest in the homes of others, I’m very conscious of explaining my needs ahead of time.

It’s important to speak up. And it is even more important to do this without any sense of shame. That’s why I am perfectly comfortable with being the weird one—until it’s no longer weird. As a society, we will never fully accept sensitivities around food protocols until they become the norm. And it won’t be the norm until we begin talking about these more openly.

Food and people: These two absolutes must come with boundaries and clear communication.