Monthly Archives: June 2007

Going somewhere? Try the Celiac Handbook

I may be late to the party here, but I’ve only just come across the Celiac Handbook site.

In case there’s anyone else who doesn’t already know it: this looks like a great resource.

It lists restaurants that provide gluten free food in countries across the world – so if you were visiting a country, it would give you some ideas for where to eat out – and, perhaps almost more useful, gives a list of supermarkets in different countries that stock gluten free food as well as links to the coeliac society for many countries.

The supermarket section is mostly US-based, and could do with some expansion (I can think of a couple of supermarkets in Spain that aren’t included, for instance – Supercor, Mercadona and Iranzo all stock gluten free food) but is a great start, and would be very helpful if you were visiting the States. As far as the UK goes, it lists Sainsbury’s, which does indeed have a good Free From section, but none of the others which have a Free From section (Tesco’s, Morrison’s, Waitrose, Asda). But Sainsbury’s is the best for gluten free, so perhaps they’re just going for quality!

I was disappointed to find that there were no restaurants listed near me (but not at all surprised, as I don’t actually know of any myself) – nor is there a listing for the celiac society for Greece, the country we’re visiting next week. This may be that there isn’t one – the Coeliac Youth of Europe site doesn’t list one either – and Greece is a country where it is very easy to eat gluten free. Perhaps Greece doesn’t […]

By |June 18th, 2007|Living Gluten Free, Travel|2 Comments
Read More
  • weetabix
    105% mistake 105% mistake

    105% mistake

105% mistake

The worst holiday I ever had was a week in Tenerife about 10 years ago.

We’d booked an apartment by the beach, and taken our 14-month-old daughter. Sounds good, yes?

No. She woke up early, she wouldn’t go to sleep, she woke up screaming in the night. She’d always been colicky and a bad sleeper, and we just thought it was more of the same … we did everything we could to keep her quiet in this apartment block with paper-thin walls, from reading stories at 2am, to dressing dollies at 4.30am. Plus, of course, we had the nightmare nappies to deal with, endlessly. We took it in turns, but oh dear, were we tired.

Our lowest moment was walking up and down the unlit road outside the block in the pitch black – when all the party people who were actually enjoying their holiday had gone to bed – desperately trying to feed her Weetabix, with the idea that perhaps she was hungry.

Yes – there’s the mistake. Weetabix.

Don’t get me wrong – Weetabix are great, they mash down beautifully for weaning, they absorb lots of lovely calcium-rich milk, and 2 out of my 3 children love them. But they contain 105% wheat. Yes, you read that right. According to the Weetabix site, they are made with 105g of wheat per 100g of finished product.

So we were unwittingly the cause of this disastrous holiday – unwitting, because she was not yet diagnosed as coeliac, and needing a diet that is 100% free from wheat (and barley, and rye). So I don’t feel guilty, except about […]

By |June 14th, 2007|Gluten Free Child, Living Gluten Free|3 Comments
Read More

Gluten Free? Genetic testing one step closer

A new genetic risk factor for celiac disease has been found, and the researchers believe it could lead to improved diagnostics and treatment.

People with celiac disease (coeliac disease) do not have a protective DNA sequence in a particular gene region – people without celiac disease do have this. The researchers say that this DNA sequence leads to the production of proteins which control inflammation – without this sequence, there would be fewer anti-inflammatory proteins.

This study was headed by David van Heel, Professor of Gastrointestinal Genetics at Queen Mary, University of London, and was funded by Coeliac UK and the Wellcome Trust.

This is a great finding – but it will take a long time for this to filter through to improved diagnostics and treatment, as it always does. Still … bring it on! It would be great to know who else in a family group has the genetic deficiency, and even better if there were treatment available.

Watch this space.

By |June 13th, 2007|Diagnosis, Living Gluten Free|3 Comments
Read More

How GF-friendly is fix-and-freeze?

I’ve been intrigued by these companies for a while now, though there are none here in the UK, so I’m not sure how they would work in practice …

tomatoes.jpgThe idea is that you schedule a session to prepare a number of meals to be frozen at home, picking the meals from a monthly menu. The company prepares the ingredients for you in advance, you collate the ingredients, mix and prepare the meal, then package it up with cooking instructions – and drop it into your freezer when you get home.

The meal, here, usually means something like 12 meals to feed six, or 24 to feed 3. That’s quite a lot of freezer space needed, and I don’t suppose it’s cheap. But the benefits are no shopping, chopping or washing-up.

Now that is quite appealing. But how easy is it to create gluten free meals?

I’ve looked at 10 of these sites (links go to a menu for this month, June, where possible). All of them indicate that the meals can be customised, but this is usually accompanied by an example of more/less onion/chilli, not the rather broader customisation that might be needed for a special diet.

  • Dream Dinners: offer to review ingredient lists with you, and to show the product labels to help you decide. The only one to mention cross-contamination
  • Let’s Dish: FAQ says that all meals may be customised, but asks the customer with special requirements to review the menu and make their own choices
  • Sayrelyn’s: no mention of food allergens
  • Super Suppers: no guarantee that any food will be allergen-free, but will discuss the ingredients to help you decide
By |June 10th, 2007|Living Gluten Free|4 Comments
Read More

Going green can increase gluten contamination

Great article by Donnachadh McCarthy in today’s Independent about minimising your domestic waste … I agree with many of his suggestions, but sadly some of them aren’t going to be possible for some of us, as it is just too dangerous.

market1.jpgDonnachadh’s message is reduce, reuse and recycle, and we do try to do all these – composting, Freecycling etc. But one of his key suggestions we’re just not going to be able to follow, and that is to reduce packaging by buying food from a local co-operative.

He writes:

… the rest of my fresh food comes from Fareshares, a local food cooperative that has large bins of loose organic muesli, rice, cous-cous, dried fruit and nuts. You bring your own bags, and fill them up, thus eliminating loads of wrappers.

Green heaven – unless you also have to be gluten free. What stops the customer before you using the cous-cous scoop to get some raisins, thus contaminating the bag of raisins? What if a bag of normal flour splits on the shelf above the red lentils?

It is important that gluten free food remains free from contamination, from the production line to the shop shelf to the cupboard at home to the stomach.

Those of us who need to be gluten free will have to be brave about the extra packaging this entails … and get to work on all the other areas where we can cut down on the waste we produce.

By |June 7th, 2007|Living Gluten Free|6 Comments
Read More