Can any people with Coeliac help me please

[Sheselectric77]

Hi,

My little girl who is 9 is Coeliac. We are starting on her new diet asap but we feel clueless. I know things are much better now in terms of the food available but I’m not sure where the best place to shop is, for both cost and variety. Can anyone point me in the right direction please?

Dd already has a very limited diet (probably because she has spent her whole life in pain from eating gluten) and so we need some of her safe foods. I remember trying the bread once and it was like cardboard. Has it improved? My dd is quite particular with textures.

How do people find eating out?
We are going to Spain next month and will be self catering at a villa and hopefully eating out most nights? Is this possible now?

Any advice is very appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

There's a lot more variety of bread these days, I'm not sure which are coeliac safe as my son is gluten intolerant rather than coeliac. But he likes the schar bread and Warburton's do gluten free brioche buns and sandwich thins which are great for parties.

Not coeliac but I can recommend Asda GF flour. It works really well in cakes.
https://groceries.asda.com/product/flour/asda-free-from-self-raising-flour/910000399918?&cmpid=ppc--ghs----google---_-dskwid-_dc&s_kwcid=AL!11432!3!!!!x!!&gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwm4ukBhAuEiwA0zQxk1BvuspllHW7OiQse5WsaHMDIsLzUFe_F2Y2ptSlYz-kf0X8uBG6dxoCzL4QAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Becky Excell has an excellent website.
https://glutenfreecuppatea.co.uk/
She also list accidentally GF items by shop brand so Google accidentally GF in Asda/Tesco or wherever
https://glutenfreecuppatea.co.uk/2020/09/08/accidentally-gluten-free-products-in-asda/

hopefully someone else will be along to advise you re eating out in Spain, sounds like a minefield! I hope DD will be feeling better soon

We find Spain quite hit and miss. Bread is always served with meals. Fried foods also tend to have gluten due to the contaminated oil in friers. Salads are good, fresh fruit, most yoghurt, soups and stews variable. Soups often have a sausage base which can be uncertain. Tortilla is almost always available if she eats egg.
Knowledge of coeliac has improved over the years in Spain but many restaurants especially in rural areas don't seem to know about it.
We tend to take pasta and rice cakes from home (just in case) although GF products are available at bigger supermarkets.

Supermarkets have pretty good free from sections these days. Tesco seems to have the biggest range. Any supermarket GF pasta is a good bet, cook it for slightly less time than specified because it goes really soft. Most supermarkets' sausages and burgers are GF, they will state clearly on the front of pack if they are.

Pataks sauces etc are GF, as are Lloyd Grossman pasta sauces.

DH likes the Warburtons Tiger Bloomer bread. He was toasting it earlier for lunch and it smelled delicious. It's not cheap but if you can afford to pay a bit more it is worth it.

A close family member is coeliac, diagnosed as a young child but now it's second nature what he can and can't eat. With meals out he is generally OK with most Indian dishes but could never go for an Italian or Chinese meal as it's all based on wheat. Avoid anything coated when eating out or eat plain if you're unsure. I'm not sure what brand of bread he buys but there's a lot more variety out there now than there was in the early 90s when first diagnosed.

GF bread/ bread products are always a million times nicer when they are fresh - we like the Schar frozen rolls that you pop in the oven to finish baking so they are fresh. Corn wraps are good as well. Other than that, DS tends to eat GF bread toasted.

Eating out abroad is mixed - UK is generally very good these days, so we were lulled into a false sense of security and ended up struggling in France last year. DS ended up eating chicken/ steak and chips every meal we ate out and the supermarket GF selections were much more limited than in the UK. We'll be taking back up bread/ wraps/ treats with us this year! I'm not sure about Spain though.

Warburton's tiger bloomer loaf is the closest to normal bread that we've found.

All the major supermarkets have a free from range -certainly for dry goods. Some have chilled and frozen too. But check they are gluten free rather than eg dairy free etc

Don't forget lots of food is naturally GF (so no more expensive) eg rice, potatoes, veg, meat etc.

You will get used to checking labels - sauces, soups, processed food like sausages, pies, ready meals etc can all contain gluten. Check stock cubes. Use cornflour for thickening sauces etc. Anything which contains barley, rye, oats and wheat is a no-go. You can get GF oats but mane coeliac still react to them so may be stay clear for now.

Lots of helpful Facebook groups/pages - Becky Excell is great. Coeliac eat out too for GF safe restaurants.

Thank you all. Very helpful. Luckily dd will eat fruit and plain meats. She dislikes sauces anyway so that’s ok.

Dd loves tiger bread so that’s good info.

Agree with the Warburton tiger bread and Asda is generally cheap. Make sure your follow a gf recipe for any baking. Spain tends to have good awareness of coeliac as I think they test more routinely there. The bread though is not generally as nice. Wraps can be useful instead of bread but I would probably try to plan to prepare meals when away that are naturally gluten free. Pasta can be a bit hit and miss in my experience.

Coeliac U.K. have an app (it’s a small cost) and then you can scan all supermarket food and it will tell you if it’s safe to eat.

Well Spain is super easy, google the nearest McDonald’s and your daughter can have a burger there. Most supermarkets in spain will have good selection of things sin gluten. In addition most of the local food chains will have gf menu items.

As for the UK it’s easier if you haven’t had something for a while then you don’t remember what it tastes like. I recommend getting a separate toaster, butter anything at risk of double dipping.

My daughter was diagnosed at 18- during the covid lockdown so we really struggled to shop around to find what she likes.
three yrs on and not sure if he’d taste buds have adjusted as u still think gf bread is cardboard she likes the Genius loaf. Morrison is good value for money and tesco has a great variety of snacks. Warbarton wraps are nice.

side note- has your daughter been diagnosed following a biopsy? I ask as if the consultant wants a biopsy you will need to put gluten back in the diet which will be painful later otherwise test will show negative to coeliac so don’t go gf until all tests completed

Most online supermarkets have the ability to sort by gluten free. You don't have to buy online; it will tell you what is ok while you get used to the things that work. I'd second tiger breads and rolls.

Free from sections are good in Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsbury. Asda etc. I remember being totally bewildered when I was firat diagnosed, but it does get easier. Chain restaurants are a good bet, as they are normally well trained and with GF things marked.

Good luck, and do ask away if you have specific questions.

I've been coeliac a long time, and my biggest advice would be that what one person likes in gf pasta/ gf bread will not necessarily be what your dd likes. So give everything a chance once (bread is always better the fresher it is and toasting or warming always helps) and she might like certain things better for different things.
Ocado is brilliant for a big range of GF brands, and you can get a lot of things which are otherwise hard to track down on Amazon - I got some rice paper wrappers for spring rolls this week

You've already had lots of good advice above which I won't repeat but here is some advice for your holiday:

In Spain most supermarkets have a quite limited range of gf goods, but health food shops carry more range. I'd suggest bringing some bread, crackers, cereal and pasta (if you are self catering) from home though. Cheaper.

You can go on the coeliac UK website and print off some information for use in restaurants that they provide in Spanish (explaining what your dd needs).

Luckily lots of Spainish food is naturally gluten free. Bread is served with almost anything mind, but separately.

I found I could buy a lot more regular food once I got the app from Coeliac uk They also send you a book each year with Aldi gf foods and other shops.
Coeliac UK
I still buy bits in the free from isle like bread and biscuits and pasta. But many things you buy cheaper in other isles in places like Asda.
Spain does pretty good for GF food I usually shop Mercadona .

Thanks again everyone who has commented. It’s honestly really helpful and I feel slightly less stressed with it.

Join the Becky Exxcel Facebook group. She's brilliant and the group is a hive mind if support and information.

Get a gluten free travel card for your holiday. It's credit card sized and says that you need to follow a gluten free diet and explains what that means in different languages. You can then show it in restaurants and don't need to worry that people won't understand you.

www.coeliacsanctuary.co.uk/shop/product/spanish-and-italian-gluten-free-language-travel-cards

Morrisons seems to have the best gf range. Reasonable prices too. Best bread for me is Warburton, although Schar and Genius can be OK.

Main thing is NOT to panic. You'll actually get used to gf stuff pretty quickly. Would recommend toaster bags though so you can all use the same toaster.

The Warburtons range is the nicest but not cheap. The bloomer abd tiger loaf is lovely. Go free cereals are nice. There are hundreds of nice cakes and biscuits in every supermarket, I eat a lot of rice based food. Curry, Spanish chicken and rice etc. I have a limited diet as my taste buds have changed since diagnosis.

My nearest Italian restaurant is really good with their GF pasta and foods. There's a lot of coeliac in Italy and they're miles ahead with producing alternatives compared to here.

last time I went to Spain I had McDonalds gluten free burgers in a gf bun. All Spanish McDonald’s have them although you have to specifically request them and they take a bit longer to arrive.

Agree with pp that Italy is the best place to go on holiday with coeliac disease.

I recommend M&S for gluten-free food - they have many sorts of bread, which don’t have preservatives in, unlike Warburtons. I keep it in the fridge.

Beware of things like chips when eating out. Sometimes they are coated in wheat batter to make them crisper and, as said above, they may be cooked in the same fryer as wheaty things. Also, read vinegar labels carefully. Barley malt vinegar might be safe, but I prefer to avoid it.