Going gluten free. Any tips or pitfalls to look out for?

[Tailfeather]

Having struggled with my underactive thyroid for years it has been recommended here that I try a gluten-free diet. I started today! So I obviously know the really obvious culprits - bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits etc that are made with wheat flour. But have you found any products you were surprised to find that they contained gluten? And any tips or advice greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

Lots of great advice given already. When my son went to university he was glutenfree/milkfree/eggfree and self catering. I adapted an internet recipe for "Pan bread" which was very useful as he could have a sweet version with ground almonds and cinnamon or a savoury version with sundried tomatoes and basil:

The measuring jug version (to avoid him having to have scales) is:
1/2 pint Dove's Farm white gf flour
l l/2 teaspoons gf baking powder

Mix together in a bowl and add:

2 tablespoon ground almonds
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (adjust to your own taste)
3 fluid oz sultanas

Mix with room temperature rice milk (or ordinary milk if you tolerate it) until you have a thick but moving batter.

Heat frying pan with some oil (we used sunflower), cook over a low/medium heat until firm enough to turn to cook other side( It takes a few goes to get the optimum heat to cook through while getting a nice colour on the outside.) You can add a beaten egg and reduce the milk for a better "rise" if you want.

You will find a lot of archived help - tried and tested recipes, etc. on the supplementary board attached to the link below. You don't have to be a member to read the board: members2.boardhost.com/glutenfree/

You will soon get into the swing of it all - it does seem daunting at first.

I tried to do some flat breads but rolling them out was a real trial - the dough just fell apart.

By the way, Tesco often has GF foods as offers in their money off trolleys. I have twice bought their GF and dairy free Macaroni cheese. It is weird but not unpleasant. Just there is NO cheese of course being dairy. There seems to ber coconut in it (no nutritional yeast like I would have thought) but it does not taste of coconut. However it was cheap!

I only buy the bread when it is cheap as it tastes unpleasant, but useful for the odd sandwich/toast. I try not to eat too much of it anyway.

I tolerate the GF pasta but I am not too bothered about wheat in other products as it seems to be bread and things like croissants (I don't like them anyway) that cripple me.

Sainsbury’s own brand sausages are all gluten free. Plain Pringles are fine (other flavours are not all ok).

Pom Bears, Wotsits and square crisps are all gf.
DD likes the 'go free' cornflakes.

Thank you all so much for your help. It wouldn't have occurred to me to avoid oats or soy sauce or crisps or couscous! And I didn't realise barley contained gluten. I'll definitely cook more from scratch rather than buy gluten-free replacements.

I have been struggling with my thyroid for years. I am in my 30s, constantly exhausted, lethargic, constipated, weight is creeping upwards, find it hard to lose weight and I haven't had a period in months. It just feels like my body just can't be arsed to function. So it will be interesting to see if a change in diet helps.

Tesco has Peroni Gluten Free (beer)

Don't buy a lot of the processed Gluten free food. It's expensive and some of it taste's shit, but I do like the BFree brand. However, cooking from scratch is way better.

I found gluten free pasta pretty usable, whereas GF bread was less so.

I had a recipe I created for savoury gluten free American muffins with ham and cheese. The cheese helped their robustness as lack of gluten makes things crumbly. They freeze well and are yummy to eat with butter. If you want the recipe let me know and I will dig it out for you.

We have two in our household who are GF - we're waiting for blood tests back for Coeliacs :(
I agree on dodging the free from aisle, its mostly a rip off and not close enough to the gluten laden real thing to be worth the £
the one that does succeed is M&S but it is a lot of money.
Naturally GF is a far better way to go - I gained a stone in the first few months & still had indigestion (though lost all the rest of the itches, aches, gas, bloating and less pleasant issues) if I eat the gf bread all the additives to try and make it rise and have texture cause me issues.
Get the app, its good, read labels - Bisto in the jar is ok, the cheaper version isnt, non brewed condiment instead of vinegar.. there is a massive list to get your head round but after 8 months we're doing ok and are feeling great!
Porridge is our default breakfast - fruit, nuts etc added
snack - fruit etc. its the one meal that is difficult without nice toast or cereal that isnt mostly sugar or painfully worthy and tasteless!

I think the issue with oats is cross contamination, so gluten free oats are just oats that are not processed on the same production lines as wheat.

Rice flour is horrible in baking in my opinion (it has a gritty texture) and it is the main component of most commercial GF flour. Oat flour or sorghum flour is much better. Check out some gluten free blogs (Gluten free goddess has great recipes) for advice on mixing your own flour. A mix of oat flour, potato flour and almond or buckwheat flour (this is not wheat!) works in most situations. To make white sauce, use half rice flour and half cornflour to make the roux and proceed as usual. The rice flour seems to cook out ok in sauce.

Genius or Warburton's seeded loaves are the best GF bread imo - best to get 'fresh' bread and freeze it rather than the long life type. I mostly eat naturally gluten free stuff but have something on toast maybe once a week.

I agree with pp that lunch is the most difficult meal, especially if you are out. Some of my faves at home are mixed bean and tuna salad, homemade hummus with veg and oatcakes, and avocado, tomato and mozzarella salad. Oh and homemade soup in winter. Add some lentils and you won't miss the bread!

There’s something in oats that some (small minority) of people can’t tolerate, so even having gluten free oats will still give them problems. Can’t remember the name of it but it’s easy to google.

Oh and the Warbutons gluten free artisan type loaf that you slice yourself is definitely the best and not really different to normal bread but it’s pricey.

It's in everything. Check all the labels. The good news is that common allergens have to be highlighted in bold now so it's easy to pick them out. But check absolutely everything including stock cubes (Knorr are fine), sauce, even some kinds of ice cream have it.

I didn't find the substitute products that nice so try to just eat vegetables, pulses etc. That said, most places will do a gluten free range now. Sometimes things like pesto will be marked gluten free though - it ought to be anyway. It takes a while but you'll get used to it. It helps if you know how to cook and know what goes into food anyway.

I think the issue with oats is cross contamination, so gluten free oats are just oats that are not processed on the same production lines as wheat.

Cross contamination is one of the issues but some people also have a cross reaction to the protein avenin in oats - it's very similar to gluten so some coeliacs also react to GF oats. The dietician advice I recieved was to avoid all gluten and oats for six months then try adding GF oats back in and see if I reacted.

@PoshPenny would you care to share what you've done?

Pringles are not gluten free! They are potato and wheat!

Well it was a long journey, but via here, the healthunlocked thyroid forum and the truly excellent Thyroid Patient Advocacy forum I ended up paying to see a reasonably local private doctor (NOT an endocrinologist - I'd already seen one of those on the NHS who'd told me there was nothing wrong with me and he couldn't help me). I took along copies of ALL my NHS blood tests and left there with a prescription for NDT (natural dessicated thyroid) and some other things and a couple of extra tests to do. I started to feel better straight away on that stuff (like my brain speeded up and my articulacy returned, I'd not been able to respond quickly enough or express myself for ages) I got better and better up to a point, and gradually increased the dose. However I never really got truly back to my Normal. I was buying specialist books on thyroid as well as studying the forums and their vast information bank and eventually decided I would trial T3 which I sourced myself from the Internet. NHS won't prescribe it if they can possibly avoid it as it's ££££. Finally I function as I should! It sounds easy written down like that, but I'm about 5 years down the line now since seeing that private doctor for the first time, and it's been quite a journey.

Oh wow, that sounds tough. Thanks for sharing.