2 year old is a Coeliac - Food Advise Please

[DryShampooholic]

Our daughter has recently been diagnosed as a Coeliac, it is a huge relief as prior to diagnosis she had lost a lot of weight and we didn’t know why. A week after removing gluten and giving her medicine for anaemia and she is doing so much better.

Luckily we live in London and there is a wide choice of gluten free food, but it’s hard to know what is good! Could anyone please recommend the best bread etc or what cookbooks I should buy.

Also would you recommend myself and DH went gluten free to avoid cross contamination?

thanks

Bread is subjective , my daughter generally has the Schar white but the Warburtons tiger loaf is also ok . For cakes we order from Sponge . Gf pasta we all use and I generally buy Tesco own brand . If you join coeliac uk there is loads of info and recommendations.

We don’t have an entirely GF house but she has her own toaster / sandwich toaster / butter dish etc .

Look for Becky Excell on fb or Instagram. She has a fantastic range of resources freely available. Lots of recipes etc to try. It’s worth remembering that if you already cook from scratch you can easily adapt recipes to be gf.

Make learning how to read labels a priority. Sounds daft but is such an important skill. Lots of foods are naturally gf so you don’t need expensive free from alternatives. However some things do have gluten in them eg soy sauce, some stock cubes.

My DD is coeliac. We largely eat gf but do have regular bread for us. It’s stored separately and only used on a certain chopping board. You’ll need a separate toaster If you’re going to continue to eat gluten and have a mixed kitchen you need to be hyper aware of cross contamination. It is doable though. Have you and your husband been tested? There’s a strong genetic link in families. If you are going to go gf it would be worth having the blood tests beforehand. Our daughter’s specialist insisted on it. Her symptoms were different from your daughters and it’s worth remembering that you can be coeliac without realising!

Thank you for the recommendations, really appreciate it

Thank you, this is all really helpful.

We planned to get tested at some point, but neither of us have any symptoms so not rushing to do it. Although I know we will still need to eat gluten for it to show up in a blood test.

I wouldn’t have things like flour/oats in the house as easy to contaminate other things but like others say you can have bread etc if you are careful. My dd had a gluten free diet when younger and I didn’t really bother with bread. I used gluten free cereals and either corn crackers or popcorn at lunchtime. Then normal gluten free evening meals using potato, rice or gluten free pasta.

My DS was diagnosed at 4 and a quarter and the good news is that he barely remembers before so it’s been easy to get him to switch to GF. Eating out has become easier and easier. If your area provides a prescription, make use of it for pasta etc. If you have room in the freezer to store it, the Juvela fresh bread has been some of the best we have found. DS also likes Schar rolls. You can get trial packs from the major manufacturers - Schar, Juvela and Glutafin. Supermarket pasta is absolutely fine and not miles more expensive. Tesco has a better (and cheaper) range of GF food than Sainsburys. Asda is also good.

The tricky times for us have been a couple of slip ups by an inattentive nursery manager - the nursery nurses were great - and kids parties when it can be difficult for them because they feel left out. We don’t get many invitations to play/tea with school friends. I can’t say with certainty but I suspect that is because people are nervous of catering for him.

Good luck OP, you and your daughter are really lucky to have a diagnosis so soon, it can take years.

My youngest was diagnosed at 2, the advantage of being diagnosed young, is they don't 'miss' certain foods.
I find M&S and Waitrose good for bread. Gail's also do a great GF sourdough - expensive, but a much more natural ingredient list than others.
I like Barilla GF pasta, I find it more robust than others.
M&S has a good range of GF foods - in the GF section and the 'normal' section.
Doves farm flour is great, can be used to make white sauces and I use cornflour to thicken gravy.
Old El Paso do Gluten free tortillas that are like 'normal' ones - I find other brands very rubbery.
If you are near Whole Foods, they stock Cool Chile Company Corn tortillas which are gorgeous, they also stock White Rabbit GF pizzas which are pretty good.

I do this too. We all eat GF pasta as there isn’t much difference in taste. I bake cakes using Dove’s farm GF flour . We don’t have a toaster, make it under the grill and use foil underneath the GF bread to ensure no cross contamination. Or you can get a separate toaster.
Tbh home is easy, bread, pasta, cakes, biscuits are all widely available or can be made at home - the main problem is eating out. Cakes labelled as GF may be picked up and put on a plate with the same tongs used for normal cakes. Pizza might be put in with normal pizza etc. Eating out can be really stressful although it is getting better as places become more coeliac aware.
Friends may do the same thing, buy a gluten free cake but put it next to normal cake, or use the same knife etc. So you need to explain clearly each time to waiting staff, friends, family. This can make you feel like a massive fusspot as not everyone will take you seriously. In my family I am the one with coeliac, so I haven’t had to deal with schools but they are very allergy aware now so will hopefully be aware of coeliac disease too.

I'm the one GF in my household but my son has multiple allergies ( not gluten) so am used to managing kids diets aswell.
In terms of dinners lots of naturally gf options just use potatoes or rice as your carb, make sure you check any sauces you use.
Examples -
roast dinner ( Bristol gf gravey is my favourite)
Jambalaya
Cottage pie

Fish pie ( sauce with gf flour)
Tacos
Chilli
Curries
Stew
Chicken thighs with chips and veg
Pork chops with roast potatoes and veg
Any combo really that suits.

Breakfast I find the nestle go free Rice pops the nicest and the tesco gf bran flakes. My 2 year old even eats these with me and loves them.
For breads I go with Warburton tiger loaf usually or genius triple seeded. If you want to make your own I recommend the how make anything gluten free book. It's full of brilliant recipes. When I make my own bread will usually leave enough in a sandwich bag for a couple days and slice and freeze the rest.
Pasta-I use sainsburys own brand as that's where I shop but most own brand gf pasta I have tasted has been fine.

In regards to cross contamination in your home I have a different Butter and jams ( ie anything that would come into contact with normal bread). I have a separate toaster. If you are putting something in the oven make sure the gluten free things are at the top so no crumbs can fall ( if not on a tray so a pizza for example) Different baking trays for everything gluten free. Different knives ect as highlighted above.
Unless I'm somewhere that I fully trust someone ( lots of celiac in my family so generally pretty good) I bring my own food. Same applies for my son regarding his allergies.
Eating out always tell waiting staff as pp mentioned although places are alot better now then 20 years ago when I first went gluten free.

Bisto not Bristol for the gf gravey -sorry phone autocorrected

My son is allergic to wheat so we eat a fair bit of gluten free food. For convenience the sainsburys frozen margarita pizza is the nicest ready made but the white rabbit sourdough bases and then passata and whatever toppings are much nicer. My son likes the M&S wheat free lasagne but I mainly make GF lasagne using doves flour or cornflour for the white sauce.

Pasta can be mixed. I’ve found the more expensive ones are a bit nicer. Barilla is a good brand.

schar are good for biscuits (digestives, custard creams and choc fingers) and we tend to find the brown seeded breads are nicer and keep longer before going dry/mouldy- Schar vitality loaf is nice.

M&S do nice wheat free chicken goujons and I’ve found a few decent cake/muffin mixes that just eggs or oil/fruit added.

gluten free oats are great for porridge and baking flapjacks and we make a lot of caramel crispy cakes with gluten free rice pops and Mars bars.

the gluten free aisles and freezer sections are getting more varied all the time. Saw some gluten free cornettos at Waitrose today.

you’ll be fine- there are so many family faves like roast dinners, paella, cottage pie, omelettes, jackets and fillings, stuff and chips etc that don’t rely on gluten, once you get into it you’ll be grand.

This is lovely pasta for lasagnes- we can’t tell the difference.

@lairyMcClairy
"gluten free oats are great for porridge and baking flapjacks and we make a lot of caramel crispy cakes with gluten free rice pops and Mars bars."
Mars bars are not gluten free, they are fine for someone who is whest intolerant like your son but they contain barley.
Im not trying to be picky I just wanted to mention it in case anyone reads this thread and thinks they are safe for celiacs.

These are nice for a treat too. Also picnic lunches with things like hummus and falafel with crudities and toasted GF pitta are good.

Can easily skip the mars bars and use chocolate and syrup instead. Most things are quite easily adaptable to dietary needs. DS is allergic to loads so I guess I’m used to reading packets and making adjustments.

Be careful with oats as they contain a protein which is very similar to gluten so some coeliacs cannot have them at all.

Sadly I think eating out is actually becoming more difficult as lots of restaurants lump the GF in with the vegan as they don’t want to have a massive menu , at least that’s our experience in the last year or so .

Pizza express have been good for us for eating out- they will do a kids pizza on a GF base, have GF dough balls and then icecream or lolly plus babycino for pudding. My DS loves a PE pizza. I always lay it really thick about cross contamination when ordering as my DS is epipen dependent for wheat anaphylaxis and never had an issue.

Pizza Express is still quite good but both Zizzi and Prezzo have definitely reduced the gf options . In Zizzi they no longer do any non seafood gf starters for example and my daughter doesn’t eat seafood / fish .

I agree it’s not great in terms of variety for eating out. We often comfort ourselves thinking about the cash we’ve saved with not popping out for pub/restaurant lunches with the kids for the last 3 years.

Check the ingredients list on oven chips, quite a lot of them randomly have gluten in them.

We've found the best bread is wheat free bakery direct (online)

We use warburtins GF thins to make things like 'steak bakes' etc - you can make pastry it's just hard to work with but you get better with time !

You can get El Paso corn tortillas (just regular corn tortillas rather than Free From) from Asda online, they're cheaper as they're not specialty GF food, two or three packs (can't remember, think it's three) for £3.50

The best oven chips are M&S Gastropub triple cooked , either frozen or off the prepared veg section , their gf garlic / cheese bread is also good .