Help!!! Dairy & Gluten Free Snacks...

[torgrosset]

Hi, I've not posted for a while, however my dd (who's just turned 1) has recently being diagnosed with coeliacs disease. She's now on a dairy & Gluten free diet. However, due to the coeliacs disease she's very underweight & dietican says we need to give her foods to gain weight. Breakfast, lunch & dinner are all Ok but I'm struggleing with what to give her as a snack. I don't want to give her junk. She's only just really getting to grips with finderfood (her development is also behind due to coeliacs disease) & will eat GF bread/toast fingers with Pure dairy free spread, rice cakes, cooked veg & fruit sticks, but that's about it. There's no point in giving her snacks that she wont eat as I need her to gain weight. She doesn't like the GF foods you can buy in shops (biscuts etc) & isn't keen on rice based food either. It's a bit of a worry. Any help or sugestions nwould be gratefully apreciated. By the way, we've joined the coeliacs society & have received all their bumph. Thank you very much, Victoria x

Hi there my son has been gluten and dairy free for some time, he is now 21mths old and I can understand how hard it can be. Im not sure of availability of the foods over there but we do as snacks....
Meatballs (good protein, iron and calories)
Meatloaf (see above)
Fish bites (coated in gf crumbs, good omega3, protein)
Hummus as a dip and as a spread
Smoothie with rice milk (some soy milks contain gluten) fruit, a little oil and a little molasses
Dried fruit
Fresh fruit
I make gf corn fritters (using the gf mixed flour as a substitute)
Cold meat (from your own roast, deli meat often has additives which include gluten)
Add olive oil to anything and everything.
If iron levels are low (common in coeliac children) cooking in cast iron can help add iron to foods as can molasses and we can get a spread similar to marmite but gluten free which is great for iron.
I make my own bread and cakes which he likes much better and can use the bread to make french toast which is quite a good bulking food.
Will add more as I think of them. Good luck.

Organix do some nice snacks that would be okay (carrot stix and such). Have they tested dd for oats as lots of coeliacs are able to cope with them..then you could make flapjacks. I've made my dd2 some cupcakes this afternoon using gf flour, rice milk and Pure (we even have an egg substitute) and she really loves those (with sultanas etc). Rice pudding with rice milk or your MPI formual is also fairly palatable. Don't worry...it seems big at the moment but you'll soon get into the swing of it...we[ve been doing this restricted diet since December and most of the time it's fine

Again if the little one is okay for oats, Sainsburys do some nice organic snacks, Four Fruits, Four Nuts, Four Seeds. My ds scoffs these like a demon (he isn't coeliac, but his dad is wheat-intolerant, so they eat them together).

Wheat is everywhere, but you will soon learn to adapt. Imagine my amusement when my hv told me recently "do you know, biscuits contain wheat". YOU DON'T SAY. Anyway, I digress.

I assume you have looked online, but Goodness Direct is very good, and you may want to subscribe to the Food Matters magazine, I can't find a link online just now, will dig out a copy of the mag and post soon.