Almost two decades ago, Olivia Mills fell ill during a cruise with a friend, but the culprit wasn’t seasickness. It was bread — and her friend’s dad just kept telling her to eat more of it.

He was a firm believer in the once-popular solution to an upset stomach, the BRAT diet — bananas, rice, apples and toast. But there was a problem: Mills had celiac disease, and she didn’t know it.

A person who has celiac, an autoimmune disease, is hypersensitive to gluten. Ingestion of the protein, found in grains like wheat, barley and rye, can damage the small intestine.

“Her gluten was off the charts. She did not feel good for 10 days plus,” said Mills’ mother, Penny Pettit. “When she came back, we went straight to the doctors.”

With the doctor’s visit came a diagnosis, which may as well have been terminal for the amount of devastation it brought Mills. She cried over boxes of Oreos, her favorite treat, which hadn’t yet come out with a gluten-free cookie in 2009.

These days, Mills can be found in Heber City food truck Family Food Wagon, wearing a snarky sweatshirt reading “Gluten Hates Me,” and serving gluten-free dishes to other people with celiac disease. But it was a long journey to get there.

Mills’ diagnosis had certainly explained a lot, like why she refused to eat pizza at parties and always asked her mom to make an ice cream cake for her birthday. But with that understanding came a hurdle for her parents — what on earth were they supposed to feed her?

At first, it was the blandest of dishes: rice with butter. But with trial, error, and a lot of cornstarch, the family began transitioning to a gluten-free lifestyle. Mills’ dad, Todd Pettit, has even managed to pull off gluten-free pot stickers.

“My dad has bought rice papers and rolled them up and been pissed off and trying to keep it all together, just so I could actually enjoy something that they’re eating,” Mills said.

Eating out became another challenge, not only in finding the gluten-free menu items, but also in preventing cross-contamination. For example, many restaurants prepare French fries in the same fryer oil that was used to make celiac-unsafe foods like onion rings or chicken nuggets.

“With your friends, they’re like, ‘Where can you eat?’” Mills said. “I almost had built up this fear … if I didn’t eat at home, I was going to get sick.”

In Heber City, the only restaurant Mills has found that is diligent about preventing cross-contamination is Dairy Keen.

Providing peace of mind to those with celiac disease is just one reason the Pettits opened their gluten-free food truck, Family Food Wagon. They even had the truck custom-made instead of buying a used one to ensure that there would be zero chance of cross-contamination.

The food truck’s regular offerings are fries, fettuccine and fowl dishes from chicken parmigiana to orange chicken to chicken tenders. The menu is still expanding, with ideas flying around for special events like pizza nights.

Family Food Wagon uses gfJules flour, which they discovered at the 2023 My Gluten Free World Expo at the Mountain America Expo Center.

“You walk through an expo for gluten-free, and literally it’s just bread, cookie, bread, bread, bread,” Penny said. “And by the time we hit gfJules, I said, ‘Dude, that’s the best bread I’ve had all day.’”

While the Pettits may have become masters of gluten-free cooking, it wasn’t until Mills’ husband, Brien, entered their lives seven years ago that the seed for the food truck was planted.

At first, Brien didn’t even realize the Pettits were feeding him gluten-free dinners.

“I’d only heard the horror stories about gluten-free food being nasty, and everything that I’d ever tried that was gluten-free was nasty,” he said. “I was just commenting on the (Pettits’) food all the time, about how good it was. And my mom would cook, and I’d eat dinner there, and then I’d come over here, and it was so good, I would eat the whole thing.”

Those repeated positive reviews soon turned into a half-joke, half-dream of going pro, which finally became reality in November, when the Pettits purchased their food truck after spending last summer operating out of a tent. Todd retired from his job at New Star General Contractors, and Penny quit her job as a cashier at Smith’s to pursue the food truck full-time.

The family is primarily targeting events with big crowds, like last month’s Pro Skijor competition in Heber City. That was the food truck’s greatest turnout yet, requiring all hands on deck on a very busy Saturday.

“(Mills) called her husband. I called Todd. And we’re like, ‘Dude, be here now. Five minutes ago would have been better,’” Penny recalled.

The food truck being parked at an event like Pro Skijor fills a need the Pettits are very familiar with. Any time they would plan to go to an event, they would have to either pack a dinner for Mills or go hungry until they got home and could make a gluten-free meal. Providing an option for other gluten-free families is the reason why the Pettits do what they do.

“Even if just one person in your family (has to) eat gluten-free, the rest of your family can still come and enjoy it and not be like, ‘Oh, this food is gluten-free. I want something else,’” Mills said. “They all can sit down and enjoy a meal and be like, ‘We all ate the same thing tonight. How cool is that? We didn’t have to go to six different places.’”

The family has high hopes for their food truck. Todd and Penny’s dream is to travel the country in the Family Food Wagon while leaving a second truck behind for the Mills to run in Utah. Maybe it could even become a franchise.