Gluten Free Child

So our coeliac daughter has set off on the first of her Silver Duke of Edinburgh expeditions. She has to do two, each involving 3 days walking and 2 nights camping: one practice, and one for real.

I’ve been watching—with some trepidation—the flash floods, massive thunderstorms and golf-ball-sized hailstorms that much of the country has been dealing with recently. You just have to love England in the summer. I dropped her off this morning in the Peak District and drove off leaving her standing in the rain…

She did the Bronze (two days) last year, and perhaps she’ll do Gold in the future (four days/three sleeps). But whichever the level, the girls have to carry everything they’ll need, including tent, sleeping bag, trangia, fuel and food for the whole of the hike, and navigate for themselves between points.

So what has she packed to eat? Always a key question for coeliacs, and I thought you might be interested to know what she’s chosen:

• Warburton’s white bread rolls (found in Tesco)
• Roberts Bakeries Yes! You Can brown sliced bread for sandwiches, with a variety of potential fillings (tuna/cheese/hummous) – Tesco
• a variety pack of miniature cheeses, each individually wrapped
• cucumber and satsumas
• Sakata crackers – because they pack down nicely, which crisps don’t (and Pringles are a no-no these days) – Sainsburys
• Look What We Found sachets of chili con carne, which will only need heating through – Sainsburys
• Part-cooked express rice sachets (because they’ll only take 3 minutes to cook)
• Tesco Belgian Chocolate Wafers
• plus jelly babies and chocolate

Not ideal nutritionally, but it should keep her going for three days.

How many of you have seen the film ‘Bedtime Stories*‘?

We watched it on DVD last night (we’re always slow to see films, because the nearest cinema is so far away) and I was saddened and taken aback by the fun being poked at gluten free food. The mother, portrayed as a health freak who wouldn’t let her children watch TV or eat junk food, had provided a gluten free cake which no one had eaten. There were repeated comments about how bad it smelled.

How offensive is this?

Already children who have to eat gluten free for their health are feeling ‘different’; how is making fun of their food going to make them feel better? It just confirms in people’s minds that this diet is a joke. My family of five (one coeliac child) sat watching this together, and we caught each others eyes, smiled, and pricked up our ears at the first mention of gluten free cake, only to go quiet when the negative comments came.

Then there was a lot of by-play about adding wheatgerm to everything these children ate. Hello? Wheatgerm? And a gluten free cake? Clearly this is inconsistent, and simply adds to the idea that living gluten free is a lifestyle of choice, usually opted for by ‘dippy hippies’.

The film was fun, and the children laughed a lot – we have four guinea-pigs, so they really enjoyed the scenes with Bugsy. But I was sadly disappointed by the cheap cracks at what – for many people – is a medical necessity, and not a fad […]