Gluten-Free Hackers Collective

I was diagnosed with celiac disease in January of 2025. This came after two years of being so sick that I could barely get out of bed. I could barely think. I couldn’t come up with even the most basic of words. My heart raced constantly, and food always made me nauseous. And to top it all off, I was experiencing extremely high levels of anxiety that I just couldn’t control, even though I was never a particularly anxious person to begin with. Despite countless doctors’ appointments with different specialists, no one could figure out what was wrong with me.

Eventually, I went to a psychiatrist. Rather than diagnosing me with anxiety, they recognized that something physical might be happening beneath the surface and ordered a test I never would have thought to request. The results came back positive for celiac disease. It was a disease I had never particularly thought of until then. No one I knew had this disease, and I didn’t really know anything about it.

I started a gluten-free diet and spent hours researching what this actually meant. Celiac disease means avoiding more than obvious gluten-containing foods. Cross-contact matters too: shared cutting boards, toasters, utensils, and cooking surfaces can all create a risk. That makes gluten surprisingly difficult to avoid, and the consequences of getting it wrong are significant. Symptoms of ingesting gluten vary from person to person. For me, a single incident can leave me feeling sick for days, weeks, or even months.

How do you reduce the risk of accidentally ingesting gluten? For me, the safest option was to keep my home completely gluten-free and avoid restaurants or meals prepared by people who might not understand cross-contact. As you can imagine, this can be particularly isolating and difficult. How do you travel? How do you enjoy dinner with friends or a date night with a significant other?

The answer is community.

Community cannot remove every risk, but it can make those risks easier to navigate. People with celiac disease and other medically necessary gluten-free diets share restaurant recommendations, compare experiences, and help one another find places that take food safety seriously. But these restaurants are sometimes few and far between, and even when people are happy to accommodate you, it can be exhausting to feel like every meal revolves around your dietary needs. Sometimes it’s nice just to feel normal and be surrounded by people who understand.

So, some friends and I created the Gluten Free Hackers Collective. We have a presence at DEF CON and other cybersecurity conferences so that no one needs to feel alone in their struggles. We organize group meals at celiac-safe restaurants, offer snacks to those who need them, and keep electrolytes on hand for anyone dealing with the aftermath of accidental exposure. We want to make conferences, travel, and shared meals a little less stressful for people navigating celiac disease and other medically necessary gluten-free diets.

If this sounds like a community you’ve been looking for, visit our website to learn more.