This has been a busy week for me:

  I posted an article called “A Gluten Free St. Patrick’s Day”. You can check it out by clicking on the name or by clicking on the word HOLIDAYS in the bar at the top of the page.

I launched “The Successful Celiac’s Guide to Bakeries”. Thelist is far from complete but at least it’s a start. Please send me an e-mail at gfceliac@gmail.com if you have information that should be added.

  I started adding the note “verified on-line” —  followed by a date to indicate day I last checked the information on-line— to some of the statements  on my site. A DISCLAIMER: I can’t guarantee that the information was accurate on that date. I am merely promising that it matched what was posted on-line.

  The most important thing I did this week was to identify and begin to correct a problem that could result in a person moving from my site to a site featuring gluten toxic products. The best way to explain the problem is to use an example: Many of the ads on the internet are placed there by a computer, not by a human being and certainly not by someone who is living with celiac disease. Apparently, there is no  computer sensitive enough to differentiate between the phrases “pizza” and “gluten free pizza” and therefore the automated system was posting ads on my site for pasta that is unacceptable in our lifestyle. I can filter out these offensive ads but only after Google posts them and I become aware that they exist. I thank the person e-mailed me at gfceliac@gmail.com telling me that people were coming to his pizzeria and expecting gluten free pizza which he had never promised to provide.

  I could claim this problem on modern technology, but I won’t. I will do everything I can to avoid having my visitors move from my site to sites that useless and possibly harmful to them.  I have removed the offending pizza ads from my site but I suspect there are others ads on other topics lurking somewhere. Please let me know if you find any (gfceliac@gmail.com). I promise that they’ll be off my site within 24 of the time you contact me.  Thanks.

published 02/09/08