Welcome

I’m Lucy: mother of a coeliac. I’ve been dealing with the diet since 1996, when my daughter was diagnosed aged 1.

Since then, we’ve learnt a lot about how to live gluten free, and how to manage the day-to-day issues involved in raising a gluten free child—everything from birthday parties to expeditions, Brownies to school meals.

Whether you are recently diagnosed or been living gluten free for a while, and whether you are a coeliac or caring for one, I hope you’ll find something useful here.

Do explore – and if you have questions or comments, please feel free to add them or to contact me direct.

Planning gluten free meals

After over 20 years of cooking gluten free meals for the family—and with children with very different food preferences and dietary requirements—there are often days when I just can’t think of anything to cook. It’s as though I’ve just run out of steam...I open the fridge and see some basic ...
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Ingredients and terminology: US vs UK

Some of you may know that my second daughter is studying in the US this year. I've had a number of messages over the last few months asking for help with deciphering some of the American cooking and ingredient terminologies—which are almost, but not quite, the same as they are ...
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Coeliac UK: 50 years old in 2018

Did you know that Coeliac UK, the charity that supports those who need to eat gluten free, will be celebrating 50 years in 2018? The charity must have started back in the days of tinned bread—and way before many people had heard of coeliac disease or the gluten free diet ...
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Looking for a gluten free restaurant in the UK?

Whether you live in the UK or are just visiting, and you need to eat gluten free, it's useful to have a list of recommended places to eat. Obviously there are a number of ways you can find suitable places...

• You can ask a local (always a good option!)
...
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Looking for gluten free panettone?

If panettone is one of your Christmas treats—but you need to find a gluten free version—do check out this list (Christmas 2017). But you’d better move fast, as some of these are in short supply. Don't forget you'll need to add postage if you buy online... Carluccio’s will sell you ...
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Raising Your Coeliac Child

Many of you know that I do my best to answer your questions that come in via email. I spend quite a bit of time replying by email, and more time researching some of the more specific questions. Some of you know that I’ve been working on a book aimed ...
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Allergy and Free From Fair North 2017

After years of attending the Allergy and Free From Fair in both London and Liverpool, I'm very excited that as well as visiting all the stalls, I've been invited to speak at the Liverpool one next week (on Saturday at 2pm, in case you're interested). I'm going to talk about ...
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Gluten Free Food and Foodbanks

I was very interested to see this article from FreeFromHeaven today, about a teenager who has organised a gluten free foodbank in America. I have wondered in the past about how someone with coeliac disease would manage—or indeed other dietary requirements—if they had to use a foodbank. I contacted the ...
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Things can only get better

Coeliac Daughter was talking at a conference yesterday, about what it's like to be a free from Millennial. Odd: I don't think of her as a Millennial! But it did make me think about how much things have improved since the days when I made her gluten free look-a-like "tinned ...
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