Wednesday, May 4th was the big event—a Gluten-Free Food Labeling Summit. The purpose of the event was to draw attention to the FDA’s inaction on finalizing standards for gluten-free labeling.
As a symbol of what a big deal this is, the event featured the world’s largest gluten-free cake which was unofficially measured to be 11 feet 2 inches tall.
The summit was planned and executed by Jules Shepard and John Forberger, but of course, with an event and cake this big, many people were involved.
Jules & John
The cake building team
I had trouble hearing the speeches and missed the name of the congresswoman who spoke. The Food and Drug Administration was represented by Mike Taylor, Deputy Commissioner for Foods, who assured us that they are taking this seriously and will get it done.
Dr. Fasano, who was there with his mother, spoke. It was his mother’s birthday and a special cake was made for her and for Cynthia Kupper of the Gluten Intolerance Group whose birthday was last week.
We also heard from representatives of a few companies such as King Arthur Flour, who now has a gluten-free line of products, and Glutino.
Dr. Fasano in the center
I carpooled to the event with other members of my local support group. We arrived about 11:00 a.m. and spent the day stuffing 300 goodie bags to be given away, helping to assemble the cake, icing smaller cakes, cleaning up the bar area where the cake team was working, and anything else that was needed.
The event was well attended and I particularly enjoyed meeting a couple of other bloggers, Valerie of City|Life|Eats and Brittany of Brittany Angell. Both are sweet ladies and I was thrilled to meet them.
Linda, Valerie, Brittany
I also met Heather of Celiac Family, and Sylvana Nardone, author of Cooking for Isaiah, and I got to chat with Vanessa of Celiac Princess who I met last November.
Brittany was there with other people from PBS. A local news station, ABC 7 was there early in the day and ran a short piece about the event on the evening news. You can see that video here. I also spoke with someone from Time magazine.
Here is a brief video of the cake with the last layer being put on top.
The day was a great success for the entire gluten-free community. Thank you Jules and John for making it happen!
Yippeeeee! What an awesome event! I’m so glad that you could represent those of us who couldn’t be there. I’d say this summit made a big difference already! BTW, the lady in the photo with Dr. Fasano is my friend and support group member, Dr. Delise Dickard. She did an article for our local paper recently and had an interview with Dr. Fasano and got to mention the Summit. She’s a true delight and super passionate about the gluten-free cause since she was diagnosed! 🙂
Thanks so much for doing this historic work and sharing, Linda!
Shirley
And the handsome man to the left of Fasano is Dr. Dickard’s husband, Norris!
Thanks for letting us know! 🙂
Linda,
Thanks for such a great and timely post! Such a fun and important event. It’s always great to see good coverage, and it’s fantastic that you were able to participate!
So awesome Linda! What an amazing event! That is so cool you could be there for all of us who couldn’t!! Thank you for your great post! I can’t wait to see the implications of this event!! Here’s hoping for REAL gluten free standards!!
It was such a delight to meet you 🙂 I am so glad I could be there for parts of this amazing event 🙂
That is so neat. I hope some new standards really happen! Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much for increasing the awareness. We have several people in our family that can’t eat gluten. I wish I could have been there.
Thanks so much for the recap! I so wish I could have been there to support such a great event. My aunt was able to go and give her support. Let’s hope our voices have been heard!
Linda – your help at the event was invaluable! Thank you so much for coming and for all your support! Hope to see good gf labeling regs soon — we’ve all had a hand in the progress to date, but we have to keep pushing until they’re finalized!
Thanks again Linda!!!
~jules