“It’s sad she can’t be a normal kid,” explains Brittany’s mom Teri.

Folks who are gluten intolerant have trouble eating wheat, flour, or oats. Some doctors say one to two percent of the population suffers from a disease called celiac sprue. It’s a deficiency where the ability to digest gluten goes away completely. Those foods can cause indigestion, stomach cramps and diarrhea. They are found in foods such as muffins, cookies, cakes, and of course, pizza.

Brittany Christensen says it’s difficult since many social gatherings include pizza.

“It was hard cause if like you do to a party or whatever you would have to eat before or starve until afterward or bring your own and kind of feel awkward,” Brittany says of the gatherings.

That was until Brittany and her mom discovered Brick Oven Pizzeria in Poway is now making pies gluten free. Instead of wheat flour, owner Ali Torabi says the gluten free pizzas use rice flour.

“We’re the only one as far as we know in San Diego County,” says Torabi. “In L.A., nobodies doing it."

Torabi says the word is spreading fast. His pizzeria started offering the gluten free pies at a customer’s request.

“Demand is getting big,” he explains. “We got customers now coming in from L.A. We have customers coming from Oceanside, all over San Diego.”

Dr. Joseph E. Scherger is family physician who is also the Communications Committee Chair for the San Diego County Medical Society.

“I would say that many people who believe that they can’t have gluten really can,” says Dr. Scherger. He believes less than 10 percent of young people and maybe 20 to 30 percent of seniors have trouble with gluten. He says many others blame gluten when the problem is really something else.

“A lot of those people with irritable bowel have sort of locked on to gluten as the simple cause,” he says.

Dr. Scherger says many times kids will have an isolated incident with diarrhea and parents will assume gluten is to blame. Many times, he believes that is not the case.

“I would predict that many if not most of the people driving for that gluten free pizza would do fine with a slice of pizza from Costco or somewhere else,” he says.

For those who do suffer though, the gluten free pizza is huge.

“They say you have no idea how important it is to us,” says Ali Torabi of the customers who come in asking for the pies. He remembers one family who came in to the restaurant not long ago. Their young son had never tasted pizza before.

“He was pointing to his mom, ‘Mom, mom, mom! I’m eating pizza!’ The lady burst into tears,” explains Torabi.

As far as the taste, customers say they love it.

“Tastes like normal pizza to me,” says Brittany Christensen eyeing the pie in front of her. “It’s yummy!”