Coeliacs (and Others) Assemble!

[NeverDropYourMooncup]

Inspired by another thread where somebody wants their dietary needs/wishes catered for (and for some posters, to permanently restrict the diet of other people whether they like it or not), I thought maybe those of us who have absolutely bugger all choice about the matter for medical reasons might want to vent, suggest decent foods that aren't just made of sadness and disappointment - or simply plan to take over the world?

I'm pissed off. Been feeling rough recently whilst waiting for my biologics delivery, skin crawling, horrible pain - and found that my happy discovery of Tesco's Free From Snacks, including Cheese Flavour Balls and Bacon Rashers - specifically labelled Gluten Free - contain, guess what? That's right. Fucking Gluten.

https://www.coeliac.org.uk/information-and-support/your-gluten-free-hub/food-and-drink-information/food-alerts/tesco-recalls-free-from-snacks-because-of-undeclared-gluten/

you can get a refund if you haven't actually eaten the bastard things yet. Anything if you have eaten them? Of course not.

This follows close on from Eat Real Gluten Free Lentil chips where the manufacturer gave the wrong batch numbers as being contaminated first time round. And of course, they are sold under different names for some supermarkets.

And the Gosh falafels (vegan, by the way) and pakoras the month before.

And Suma lentil soup, and Alpro Rice Milk, and all the other things you're supposed to be grateful for paying an ridiculously high price for in exchange for something vaguely resembling food....

It would be far easier if gluten/avenin/etc were just banned for everybody, wouldn't it?

There are only so many jacket potatoes and homemade chips (because you can't trust oven chips, 95% of which are dusted in wheat to make them crunchier and browner) one person can consume before they get a tensy bit bored...

Who's with me? What shall we call ourselves?

How about the Coeliac and Allergy Liberation Front?

Fellow coeliac here and absolutely agree. All these posts resonate, it is s* sometimes 😔

I'm so sick of it too. And to be honest, after 20 years of it, I barely acknowledge the 'May contain' any more as if I did I'd hardly eat anything.
However, on a positive note - Pieminster do still do a gluten free veggie pie, but sadly not the Heidi whicg was the best one. Might have to sell a kidney and order direct from their website tho.
And today, I ate at a totally gf restaurant in London called Pandalar which was incredible and totally safe. But yeah - mostly it's crap

Joining in, still new to this and struggling with it. I'm not coeliac so I feel a bit of a fraud but I'm still getting positive blood tests for it, despite trying to be GF for 2 years now. So I need to do better in my #lifestylechoice.

My latest frustration is that the whole pulse shelf in Sainsbury's seems to be "may contain" s now. The internet seems to think quinoa and lentils are a great idea for a GF diet, but if the Sainsbury's packs are potentially contaminated with wheat then is it the same with other brands?

Yes! I’m still raging at Schar over their “gluten free pain au chocolate”. Guess who had a hideous reaction to it? So I double checked the ingredients and it contains “gluten free wheat starch”. Huh. Not happy, Schar. What is the point of being a so called gluten free brand if you sneak in wheat starch? I see from reviews others have also reacted to it.

Anyway. In the spirit of more positivity, I recommend as excellent:

• Promise bread
• Warburtons tiger bread
• Garofallo pasta

I email Pieminister about the gf Heidi on a regular basis but so far they have not cracked and reinstated it.

Because wheat starch can be gluten free. There will be less than 20ppm for it to be gluten free. You maybe have a separate wheat allergy

If you rinse lentils before use it’s meant to be ok. Not sure about quinoa.

I used to love a tapas dish from M n S which was tortilla based with no wheat but corn flour then had an awful reaction to it a whike ago to find they’d changed the ingredients n now contains wheat
waitrose have quite a few chill cabinet dishes that aren’t advertised as free from but are wheat and gluten free as do the fabulous Booths
Aldi please bring back the gluten free fish goujons I used to love
warburtons squares of all variety are the best of the GF offering
I just avoid most things except fresh meat, poultry, fish vegetables and fruit on the whole and love eggs
However I now am wondering if I have a dairy allergy too so that will limit me further

Another Coeliac here. I wish they would bring back NHS prescriptions. I used to get loads of really good stuff. Apparently, tho if you live in South Yorkshire they've reinstated some GF products - for Coeliacs only.

Thank you @HaveYouHeardOfARoadAtlas

Schar do this with bread as well. Utter bastards ill for a week vomiting all over the place.

Fellow joy free. Long term lactose, more recently gluten and all the migraine C's.

Pissed off thst M&S have discontinued hair chicken and mushroom crispbakes. Because that was what I had on pie night. They've been replaced by fecking cheese and onion 🤢

I'm a totally GF house due to coeliac disease, DH and severe gluten afaxia and only eat fresh homemade meals as I can't trust manufactured products any more.

Every single time I've been in hospital I've been glutened at least twice which is made my visits even longer than their needed to be. If hospitals can't get it right how can we expect anyone else to? It's fucking infuriates me.

Sorry, should say gluten ataxia, not as above.

Celiac here, and a miserable one at that! I don't bother with any of the processed stuff as it all just tastes so sad, I miss good pasta and bread, and cakes and biscuits and all the good stuff. Who knew gluten was what made things so nice?! If you happen to have a Malcolm Barnecotts nearby, they do actually make a very good GF boule.

I'm vegetarian as well, and I know that part is a choice I made, albeit 26 years ago and way before I was GF, but the options for me are ridiculous! We stayed in a hotel for 2 days this week, day one I had atiny seeving of rubbish nachos and a portion of sweet potato fries, and day two was a bowl of rice, some broccoli and green beans. Depressing!

I had a stay in hospital last year, and they didn't have a single thing they could feed me. Apparently, the only member of staff who was GF had left, and had taken her snacks with her. Oh, I lie. She left a cracker. A single cracker. Fuck right off.

@1stTimeMama hospital stays are awful. Dd is also vegetarian and they can never feed her apart from maybe salad (box of chopped iceberg lettuce and tomato) or a jacket potato. Which if you’re in for weeks is not good. Breakfast is a non starter.

They do offer gf bread I guess but it can’t be toasted as they use the same toaster (and don’t realise this is an issue) and we all know what the bread tastes like not toasted! I did take toaster bags in last time for Dd and the staff did use them.

Coeliac and lactose intolerant here. Also cannot tolerate oats. I find it annoying that oat flour seems to be the go to ingredient in a fair few gf biscuits these days. I've noticed in the past year or so particularly Sainsbury and Morrisons own brands. On the positive side, Morrisons own brand gf oven chips are ok, I always have a bag in the freezer for a meal in a hurry.

Not coeliac (my mum is, I reckon it might happen to me in the end) but I am veggie with food triggered ibs and aversion to spicy food so totally understand.

It is always fun trying to find a restaurant when going out with my family as my mum and I have to make sure there is at least a single option for us 😅

I have found my people!!!!!!! (And what's happened to Amy's Kitchen? I miss their macaroni cheese).

I'm intolerant and what a ballache it is, it's also very annoying when people ask if I'm a celiac and I say no as they assume I'm just fussy... easy to say when you've never experienced it! Re takeaways, the best bet is fish and chip shops imo, not many ingredients to mess up and sep fryers (though I'm sure we've all heard of a few who shove it all in together because 'gluten can't survive in the heat(!)' However I will say that my family have been brilliant throughout (and it's been a long haul) and are extremely careful which makes a huge difference. My husband is brilliant too, it makes you feel less alone. Work events etc. Another ball game entirely!

Work events. 'Bring a dish to share'. Bring a dish for it to be contaminated by everything else before you get a chance to eat some and people scatter crackers, crumbs and breadsticks over everything of vegetable origin that you might possibly have been able to eat, you mean.

'Don't you eat healthily! I'm so impressed!' I wouldn't be, Sarah, it's because I've just seen you trawling through the olives with the same spoon you used to pick up two mini sausage rolls and four quorn bites, only to decide you don't like them and roll them onto the platter that did have uncontaminated grapes on it. That's why I'm sitting in the corner with a sodding banana.

Fellow Coeliac here 👋🏻
aldi skin on oven chips are g/f, not labelled as such but have nothing in the ingredients and have never caused me a problem. Aldi also do g/f tempura chicken which is lovely for a chicken burger!
I like M&S bread and rolls the best but I dont really eat much bread as it’s so pricy.
I really hate g/f pasta and I miss the Juvela fibre penne that I used to get on prescription which seemed to be the only one with an ok texture 😫

Ooh the provisional wing of the Coeliac Society, sign me up!

I've been diagnosed for over 40 years, DD and probably DGS also got lucky. 😡

What pees me off is that since Covid the offering for Coeliacs has definitely got worse. One particular irritation is that there are apparently no proper sized Christmas cakes available in the supermarkets any more, let alone any that look like adult ones. We haven't gone away!

And don't get me started on the teeny tiny cakes, slices of bread etc. We are Coeliacs, not pixies.

@1stTimeMama there's a pasta brand called nappolini (sp) that do a gf range which can almost be passed as 'normal' pasta with a good sauce. Still turns to soup if cooked longer than 2 seconds and is £3.50 for a small boxbut could be worth a try. It's in a black box

The canteen at the place I used to work sold nothing without gluten at all. Even just being able to buy a packet of crisps or a chocolate bar would have been something but no, they seemed to have carefully curated their chocolate bar selection to ensure nothing was gluten free! Not expecting specialist products but there's plenty of brands of crisps and chocolate bars that are safe for coeliacs