To expect family members to remember I'm a coeliac when planning their buffets?

[pollykettlechips]

I'm probably being selfish and self-centred, but after this weekend at a Christening and a birthday where i had nothing to eat but a crappy GF sandwich and choc muffin that i brought along myself, I'm beginning to get really pissed off.

I was diagnosed over a year ago and since then there have been lots of family events, all of which I try to take with me something I can eat. Not once has there been even a token attempt to provide any GF food - even a couple of GF digestives would do the trick, at least i would appreciate the effort.

The consensus seems to be 'So? Bring your own?'. There's another birthday this weekend, on DH's side which is a long drive to get there, a long drive back, and I'm not sure i want to make the effort to just be hungry (Glutafin bread is awful but better than the others I've tried, so I only take a couple, along with a few biscuits - no wonder i'm piling on the pounds)

I know GF food is expensive and I'm not asking for my own personal buffet, and I know that the hosts have more important things to think about that my diet, but my DH and I ARE very considerete people and would without a doubt make the effort (and have done with other issues). But when my own sister can't be bothered, well I guess I'm just annoyed that as a considerate and thoughtful person, I seem to be always overlooked.

What to other coelics do at other people's buffets?

actually, I think you should bring your own stuff.

if there is just you who is gluten free, it does not make sense for them to splash out on something only to be eaten by one person.

Pollykettlefish.... I have one of the most allergic children in the country and, although I understand what you are going through, I think you are a bit unreasonable.

They have no way to know what is safe and what is not, they may have not yet even imagined there is glutten in sausages and many other readymades that do not have any resemblance to contain the things you are not supposed to eat. They are very likely not to know where on Earth they could get the products you need (I know for a fact that it took/takes me a long time to find where to get things). They may not even know what does it mean to be a coeliac.

Providing a glutten free cake is an adventure for an expert and an impossibility for the non initiated.

You said you find it a stugle to pack a lunchobox for work, how do you expect those people who are not aware of what your restrictions entails to get it right?

I have seen lots and lots of people trying very hard to do something for DS, and still... many times they get it wrong (and I feel unreasonably embarrased, wanting to hide under a rock when I have to tell them that I'm so sorry but DS would still be unwell if he had what they so carefully prepared)
I'm afraid that I'm with Libra on this.

BTW, DS and me didn't attend EsSIL's wedding because they didn't allow us to bring his lunchbox to the event. Even when they knew that DS' allergies could be, unfortunately, fatal.

People can't appreciate fully your position until they experience it near to home. ( obviously my inlaws where miles and miles away)

Sympathies from me. On a much more minor note, I had Xmas with the in-laws, MIL made brussels sprouts with chestnuts. I'm allergic to nuts so could not eat. And no one ate them as I was the only person who actually liked sprouts (believe this is true universally - I love them!). Denied!

i can see how you might get 'overlooked' if just one of a big group, like you said, dh's aunt's whatever. but i would expect your sister to do better, and asking you over for chirstmas & not catering is just plain mean.

i seem to know a lot of people who are intolerant/allergic/veggie/fussy eaters, and i'm of the opinion that a good host provides a reasonable assortment of food, which should be possible for eveyone to eat. i would feel mean/selfish/inhospitable if i didn't

the only time i messed up was when i was doing a 'drinks and nibbles' party, but one group turned up thinking they would get a whole meal. eek. luckily, loads of people brought loads of nibbles, so although it was snack food, there was plenty.

Are you sure your MIL was not disguising the nuts with the bait of the sprouts??? I would keep an eye on her just in case...

[just joking, obviously )

Your family are rubbish - you must get more vocal! my mum is wheat free -self diagnosed - (lets not go there!) However i still make the effort for her. on top of that my sister is lactose intolerant (sp!) and my other sister is permenantly on some sort of diet. i always make the effort for them - it really is not that hard to come up with things that they can all have, or combinations of things.
I think you need to remind them all and tell them exactly what you cant have (for goodness sake - white bread is OK??!) and the easy things you can - salads, jacket potatoes, rice stuff etc.
You are right to feel hard done by (and i am busy patting myself on the back for being a good sister/ daughter!).

Branflake - no-one's saying that the OP wants something special for her alone, apart from a pack of gluten-free biscuits (hardly a huge chore). The list of things she can eat is not a short one by any means, nor is it all unusual things that no-one else will want to eat. She's not expecting that everything will be suitable for her to eat, but it hardly seems unreasonable to expect that there should be one or two things suitable for her!!

I wouldn't dream of inviting someone with a special dietary need to my house and then not providing them with suitable food - that would be rude and inhospitable in the extreme.

Agree with stayingsunnygirl I would never expect a gluten free cake or even special and VERY EXPENSIVE gluten free equivalents to normal stuff - just that things that are naturally gluten free and cheap are available - potatoes and rice are hardly speciality food are they?

thumbwitch, surely 1 in 100 hundred people makes something 'fairly unusual'
And just because 1 in 100 people show symptoms, doesn't mean that 1 in 100 people are prepared to cut out wheat
It isn't that long ago that you could only buy gluten free food in specialist health food shops
Granted, most tescos now has a small 'free from' section, but if you stopped 1000 people on the street, I would put money on hardly any one knowing what 'coeliac' even means
As someone else said, most people struggle to know what contains wheat and what doesn't.
To say 'my food needs to be gluten free' is double dutch to most people

If you expect them to make elaborate gf things then yes, YABU, but there's no reason there can't be plenty of cold meat, cheeses, salad, etc., that are fine for you. Perhaps you could make a dish for everyone to share that you know you can eat?

My mom, DS, and I are all celiacs so I understand how tough it can be. Luckily MIL is good about this (surprisingly, as she wasn't very fond of me before I popped out a grandson! ) and makes me delish gf fruit cobblers and things for family events.

Good luck!

wasabipeas-you say "it doesn't mean 1 in 100 people are prepared to cut out wheat"

Coeliac Disease is not a lifestyle choice. If you continue eating wheat, it causes anaemia, malnutrition, loss of bone density and a tendancy to develop some cancers. Before it was recognised as a condition, it could cause death because the body could not absorb enough nutrition. It is an auto-immune disease,not an allergy or intolerance.

Polly-dont know if anyone else has suggested it, but juvela do a fresh sliced white bread, which is obtainable on prescription. It is by far the best we have found-it was recommended by the dieticians at our hospital.

Wasabipeas - it's probably not reasonable to expect anyone and everyone to know what coeliac disease is, or what gluten-free means - but surely it is reasonable to expect this from members of one's own family!

My BIL is dating. If he told me that his girlfriend needed a special diet for health reasons such as coeliac disease, I'd either ask him for more information and advice, or I'd go to the internet to find out what she could and couldn't eat, before she came to visit.

wasabi, I wasn't trying to be contentious and don't want to argue semantics - but imo, 1 in 100 people means that most people are likely to come across someone with the condition - if that number is correct, then at least 1 child in every school year would have it (assuming 3-4 classes of 30 children). To me that makes it not that unusual.

The 1 in 100 is diagnosed cases, there may be many more undiagnosed who have mild symptoms or even no recognised symptoms. Lots of people go through life (my sister included) thinking that stomach ache, acid reflux and dodgy bowels are just "one of those things" and nothing they have to deal with or worry about.

The trouble is, it isn't just a case of providing food without any wheat or gluten in because I heard someone on the tv talking about it today and he said that you can find gluten in mayonnaise, soy sauce and other things that tbh, I would have thought were ok to use, so just because people are used to their own dietary needs, doesn't mean that everybody else is as clued up on it.
As I said before, if it were me or my dc's, I would make sure I took a dish of something or other food that I knew I could eat safely because even with the best interest in the world, somebody might add something that they think is harmless but is in actual fact, quite harmful.

If people do not have direct experience of having to cook for someone who cannot eat a foodstuff, then they often have no real clue about what that person can or cannot eat.

You need to be far more direct with them. Phon ein advance to ask what there will be at the buffet so you know if you have to take something. With luck, you will then get into a conversation about what you could or could not eat.

Tiggiwinkle - I only got the Juvela once on prescriptions, all my other products since then have been Glutafin which on the whole I quite like. But I do miss a huge crusty bread sandwich with chicken salad. I sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if I did eat it, but so far, I've not dared!

I find packed lunches hard as I've always been a sandwich person, and as much as I love Baked Potatoes, i have issues with using the kitchen at work and in my working life, I've rarely ever used the work kitchen, even to make a cup of tea (a whole different thread!).

And I'd never heard of coelic disease until diagnosis, so I should not expect others to know the ins and outs (and I was GUTTED when I found out that most sausages had gluten). But, I'm feeling more positive about the party this weekend, as it should have a wider range of food than that offered by my family, and I'm thinking of bringing along a GF pizza base ready prepared to pop in the oven. And there's always the meringues that will (hopefully) be on offer!

Tiggiwinkle - I only got the Juvela once on prescriptions, all my other products since then have been Glutafin which on the whole I quite like. But I do miss a huge crusty bread sandwich with chicken salad. I sometimes wonder what the consequences would be if I did eat it, but so far, I've not dared!

I find packed lunches hard as I've always been a sandwich person, and as much as I love Baked Potatoes, i have issues with using the kitchen at work and in my working life, I've rarely ever used the work kitchen, even to make a cup of tea (a whole different thread!).

And I'd never heard of coelic disease until diagnosis, so I should not expect others to know the ins and outs (and I was GUTTED when I found out that most sausages had gluten). But, I'm feeling more positive about the party this weekend, as it should have a wider range of food than that offered by my family, and I'm thinking of bringing along a GF pizza base ready prepared to pop in the oven. And there's always the meringues that will (hopefully) be on offer!

Was it the "fresh sliced" you tried? it is much different to their usual loaves and has a texture closer to normal bread than any other I have seen.

But it does have to be ordered ahead-they bake it to order and deliver on Wednesday and Friday.

Yes, it was the fresh sliced, it comes in batches of 8. i think the Glutafin and Juvela bread are very similar, though the Juvela Tea Biscuits are vile. Like eating sawdust.

YANBU, part of being a good host to me means that everyon enjoys the food that i cook.

i have always catered for my gluten free SIL, it's really not that hard, particularly at a buffet.

pollykettlechips - I think that moving forward into not replacing sandwiches with GF sandwiches is the way to go. What about sushi, a cold GF pasta salad, a cold rice salad, a quinoa salad, a cold potato salad with whatever you would normally have on your bread mixed into it?

If the meal is catered by a company or hotel, I call the hotel myself give the name of the host and ask if I can have a separate GF plate. I tell them that if they put it out with all the other food someone will grab it, or use tongs that have been on the normal food.

At a buffet I usually find I can eat the cut up fruit, meringues, rice crackers and cheese, and possibly something like a chicken leg if they look not marinated. I will always eat before I go.

polly, if you want gluten-free sausages, try Graig Farm - they do gluten free organic. Not the cheapest but bloody lovely!

Polly, I don't think you're BU. One of my good friends was diagnosed coeliac a year ago and I was almost entirely ignorant about it till then. He has just been to stay, with other friends, for a weekend at our house and we ate out quite a bit (checking that the restaurants could cater for him) but also cooked for him at home, and got in a few things like GF brown sauce so he could have a fry up like all the rest of us. He brought his own GF bread but we felt it was only right for us as hosts to make a decent effort. Same goes for your family.

I think people often see it as faddiness and don't realise that it can make coeliacs badly ill to eat forbidden foods. Are your family fully aware of this? Have you spelt out the risks to your health for them? It might need a bit of 'this could really harm me' drama.

Finally, my Tesco is now doing at least three brands of sausage that are GF so it's worth checking them out.

MeMySonandI - at you not being able to take a lunchbox to the wedding for your son. That was very inconsiderate of them. You're probably better off not going to their dos if that's their attitude.

Polly, I don't think you're BU. One of my good friends was diagnosed coeliac a year ago and I was almost entirely ignorant about it till then. He has just been to stay, with other friends, for a weekend at our house and we ate out quite a bit (checking that the restaurants could cater for him) but also cooked for him at home, and got in a few things like GF brown sauce so he could have a fry up like all the rest of us. He brought his own GF bread but we felt it was only right for us as hosts to make a decent effort. Same goes for your family.

I think people often see it as faddiness and don't realise that it can make coeliacs badly ill to eat forbidden foods. Are your family fully aware of this? Have you spelt out the risks to your health for them? It might need a bit of 'this could really harm me' drama.

Finally, my Tesco is now doing at least three brands of sausage that are GF so it's worth checking them out.

MeMySonandI - at you not being able to take a lunchbox to the wedding for your son. That was very inconsiderate of them. You're probably better off not going to their dos if that's their attitude.