Celiac/Gluten-Free Thread

[Kejan]

Does anyone have celiac or any other issues with their gut and eat a gluten-free diet? What do you do to when out and about or eating out?

Not officially diagnosed yet, so won't say yay or nay and wait til then (hopefully early next year) but strangely most of my symptoms  were on the decline or even almost gone after 17 days gluten-free e.g toilet issues, reflux, bloating/puffyness, itching/dermatitis, bumps on scalp, and hugely brain fog completely gone! I'm fortunate that my brain fog wasn't too awful, could still function but at it's worst really mundane shite like deciding on eggs or fish for tea or something could be a challenge at its worst. More like, the tiny proportion of creativity in my brain had gone too at times. 

Ended up eating gluten again - need to anyway for the tests - in the middle of last week and noticed all of the above are back albeit to a lesser extent. 

I like bread. I don't eat it every day but usually buy a nice loaf once a week from the bakery, love pastries and cakes etc too again more a treat than a daily occurance. And what about beer? Again, not a huge drinker but enjoy a pint every now and again. There are gluten-free beers but not sure how many are sold in pubs from a keg? 

Does anyone knows a good gf bread that doesn't crumble in to a shambles as soon as you touch it, I would appreciate that too.

I ken it's not the end of the world if I do have this, but even things like going to the football and getting a pie/tea at HT are some of the wee things I love about fitba. Also, restaurants etc (don't eat out too often but occasionally) cringe at being the "pretentious' "my food needs to be completely gluten free" type too. 

Anyhoos, would love to hear anyone with this or gluten sensitivity or even just follows a GF diet for lifestyle (Aye, right Djokovic ya wee fud, surely some advanced PEDs hidden in your lettuce wrap burgers too helped as well).

Havering now, but cheers.

PS if there is already a thread. Mods, feel free to punt this post in there.

[MacDuffman]

Not gluten free but on low fodmap diet due to IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Cant have certain things such as onions, garlic, peas, beans etc. Also need to cut down on fruit due to Fructose. Weirdly can't eat apples but can drink Cider. not eaten out much since I found out I had it in 2019. Even something like burgers can be difficult. Biggest annoyance is ingredients on food sometimes don't mention onions but have them down as 'flavourings'. I wouldn't have a serious rection ie anaphylaxis, to anything just pretty severe lower bowel cramps, or diarhoea but its a pisser that they don't have to actually state what flavourings are. Found some excellent Chinese and Indian sauces in Chung Ying in Dobbie's Loan, Glasgow that are onion & garlic free.

[Sergeant Wilson]

6 minutes ago, MacDuffman said:

Not gluten free but on low fodmap diet due to IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). Cant have certain things such as onions, garlic, peas, beans etc. Also need to cut down on fruit due to Fructose. Weirdly can't eat apples but can drink Cider. not eaten out much since I found out I had it in 2019. Even something like burgers can be difficult. Biggest annoyance is ingredients on food sometimes don't mention onions but have them down as 'flavourings'. I wouldn't have a serious rection ie anaphylaxis, to anything just pretty severe lower bowel cramps, or diarhoea but its a pisser that they don't have to actually state what flavourings are. Found some excellent Chinese and Indian sauces in Chung Ying in Dobbie's Loan, Glasgow that are onion & garlic free.

Start your own food allergy thread and leave this to others with serious issue!

I've been diagnosed coeliac. I stick rigidly to recommended dietary limitations, except for beer. Opinion is divided on gluten in beer. Medical science says it has gluten, I say it doesn't.

But that's my only exception...except for bread, pies and cakes, the odd biscuit maybe...batter on chip shop goods...pizza...

Otherwise I stick to the letter of the law.

[bairn88]

Girlfriend is celiac, so through association know the ins and outs of lots of things you might find useful.

Best bread she says is this stuff - warburtons GF bread - expensive as you can see (common theme with GF stuff!)

Good thing is awareness. Even just 10 years ago awareness of GF and in particular celiac was basically zero. Now its one of the first things GPs look for when you complain over gut health. 

Jury definitely out on beer, however there are lots of GF beers about anyway. Bellfield Brewery is entirely GF and can vouch that lots of them are very very good. 

R.E in restaurants, I was like you where I hated being fussy, asking lots of questions about whats in food etc etc...but after years you get used to it. I've seen what bad reactions can do, and being forceful with waiters gets results - health is more important

[RH33]

My daughter was a nightmare from day one, reflux, screaming, no top layer skin. Then weaning brought couple bouts anaphylaxis which after second pinpointed to strawberries.

She's dairy, egg, soy, gluten, strawberry free.

She can now tolerate a wee bit gluten or dairy but know if she gets sore tummy I'm giving her no sympathy! 

The products available in the ten years she's been around have increased hugely. Most restaurants are much better set up to cater for allergies.

[NotThePars]

My gf is celiac and tbh it sounds like an absolute pain in the arse. Imagine having to largely give up pints. Couldn’t be me.

[RH33]

32 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

My gf is celiac and tbh it sounds like an absolute pain in the arse. Imagine having to largely give up pints. Couldn’t be me.

We've a ceolac who comes into the club house so we get the gluten free tennants in for him.

[yoda]

BrewDog (I know) do a decent GF pale ale. The Black Isle Brewery do one too (Goldfinch, I think) and they serve it in cask and keg at their bar in Inverness.

The GF bread you can pick up in the supermarkets is mostly shite. 

[derrybiy]

I was diagnosed coeliac about 2 years ago. During the process I actually had to learn very quickly before going on a 3 week mostly driving holiday in Australia knowing if something went wrong I could be looking for spider infested huts to shit in. Or at best I would be too knackered to enjoy anything. With a lot of research it turned out ok but then forcing myself to eat gluten before the last test was horrible. The test itself isn't great but I'm not sure if there still doing the tube down the throat during covid.

Learning what to eat and drink while at home is hard at first but eventually becomes the easiest part. There's a gf alternative for pretty much everything and eventually I think I stopped noticing any taste differences. 

The biggest problem is eating out and people's understanding of coeliac disease in general. Most restaurants don't understand it or there understanding of it is if the food is gf it doesn't matter how it's prepared. Whereas in actual fact it can't use the same fryer or ideally the same utensils or preparation area as gluten unless there are all cleaned. When you explain this a lot understandably don't bother or can't accommodate you so I always check first. Also the general publics understanding of it is it's an allergy and if you eat something wrong you'll get the shits. Whereas it's an autoimmune disease so I'd probably have that and most of the symptoms you mentioned affecting me for days or a week, apparently some people have ended up in hospital but I don't know why. Now I have a small list of takeaways and restaurants I know are fine. And for things with family and friends they generally have to change plans to suit me which I'm sure is a pain so I'm always quick to offer to sort my own food out. It's also the first thing I think of before booking any holidays now.

For pubs there probably is gf beer in the minority but I generally stick to cider or vodka now as I think I still get minor reactions to gf beer. In terms of there being gf beer available in pubs, tennents introduced tennents light just before covid and that was on tap in a few places at first but it just tasted like a very watered down version of how I remember normal tennents. 

I could go on and on but I'll bore everyone so pm me if you want more information. I'd recommend joining Scottish coeliacs and coeliacs eat abroad on Facebook and coeliac.org.uk if you are diagnosed.

 

[RH33]

I've a friend who is ceoliac and her reaction to gluten is horrible. My daughter's been gf since weaning so as far as I know it's an allergy only, as you'll know for ceoliac disease to be confirmed you have to eat gluten. 

Like you of she's going to friends I tend to just send food. That way the parents don't need to worry. There's a pizza truck that offers gf and I know they do full clean down before making the pizzas up. There's also a place in Paisley we've been going too since she was a tot and they were offering gf pasta before the big chains. 

The guy that comes into work who was diagnosed couple yrs ago says he misses pizza the most!

[ICTChris]

I don’t really know what gluten is but it must taste amazing as all the food marked gluten free tastes like shit.

[Snobot]

I have been Coeliac since I was born almost 50 years ago - a healthy baby but failed to thrive after weaning and I was pretty sick until diagnosis around about a year old. I was formally diagnosed at 5 after being forced to eat gluten for a few weeks which was torture - apparently I had a distended stomach and all sorts and I can remember the sensation of the scope being forced down my throat despite being anaethetised.  

I drank normal beer for a long time with no obvious ill effects other than usual hang-overs but following a GP review a couple of years ago  I decided to go GF on beer which was the only thing I was not strictly following - Peroni is pretty good if you drink lager, Daura Damm and Bellfield is ok too. The thing is, if I eat small amounts of gluten in food I get ill so I suspect the beer thing is manageable. I still lapse if I’m out for pints (rare these days) and there is no GF available but I genuinely don’t see a big difference. 

Bread wise, I used to get it out of a tin from the chemist on prescription and it was vile. It might be “mostly shite” as a couple of the edgy comments above attest but readily available GF stuff in supermarkets has genuinely changed my life. Can you imagine running out of bread and having to get a prescription and wait days to get it, something like bread that is a basic staple? And never having access to pasta, or jealously looking at pizza? Genius bread was the first really good bread and I still buy it today and would recommend.

I also remember the big fanfare in the Coeliac community when Mars Bars announced they were gluten free in the late 80s. My mum used to get packs of the fun sized ones and I spent months being ill from time to time until Mars admitted the normal size ones were GF but the mini ones were not FFS! Many unhappy hours on the pan as a result.

Do GF things taste the same as “normal”? I have no idea as I’ve never tried normal stuff but apparently there is not a big difference in pasta etc.

I would slightly disagree with @derrybiy on the eating out thing but maybe I’m coming from a far lower starting point 30 years + ago when people genuinely had no clue about it - places are far more enlightened these days and make sure you say you’re coeliac, rather than food intolerant as there is no debate or pretence to a medical condition as opposed to lifestyle choice and there have been cases (Wagamama I think) where someone died due to anaphylactic shock, not connected to coeliac, but this has caused much more awareness (and fear of liability)  about catering for people. Ironically it is the lifestyle people  who have pushed GF to the mainstream and enabled the easy availability of GF products / acceptance of the condition despite them being, in the main, annoying  fannies (hi Jamie Oliver with your shite my made up gluten free pal adverts c. 10 years ago, hello Novak) to those of us with genuine coeliac requirements. The only problem is that this has emboldened people to slag off GF as some kind of precious middle class fad and leads to ignorance as displayed above.

It used to really stress me out eating out but it is slightly easier nowadays as you don’t feel like a freak for asking and everywhere can cater where they are making food from scratch. 

If I’d been born 50 years earlier i’d almost certainly be dead like several young siblings of my grandparents who failed to thrive in infancy and died, probably due to undiagnosed coeliac so thank goodness for medical science (and it pushed me up the Covid Vaccine queue too which was handy).

It is no longer the life-limiting condition it once was but I’d imagine transition in adulthood will be harder than having it been all you ever have known like me. 

[House Bartender]

24 minutes ago, Andrew85 said:

Yes, it's true, now a lot of restaurants have free gluten and vegan menu.

and even if they don't, a decent kitchen can and will produce a variation on the menu - like grilling fish instead of battering, or (as often happens) a curry is only non-GF cos it's served with a naan. Like someone said above, you get accustomed to asking soon enough. It pisses me off that more eateries pander to the lifestyle-choice vegans than to the health critical coeliacs - of whom there are probably at least as many. (Guesstats).

But. If you react badly to gluten (I'm luckily asymptomatic coeliac) beware that a GF listing means no gluten containing ingredients which means there's a real possibility of cross contamination (like deep frying fish in gf batter in the same oil as they do regular battered stuff). 

Again as said above Warburtons has proved decentish bread, although still not great. That was the worst thing I had to desist from stuffing down my neck - nice crusty real bread. And pies. Bellfield Brewery has a great range of beers - they do mixed boxes which is a good way to taste-and-try or just get pissed. Mostly I've reverted to my teenage indulgence in cider. Spirits are certified gluten free so no problem getting stuck in there.

And if you cook you own food from scratch it's dead easy to manage the diet. Coeliac UK have a useful app which helps you find out what's OK and what's not. It's a shock to find out things that have totally unnecessary (or seemingly so) wheat flour. Like Oxo cubes. Like corn flakes. Corn and cornflour is fine and Nestles manage to produce a can-you-tell-the-difference corn flake without the wheatflour. It's a confusing world for the coeliac, so it is, but if you're gonna have ongoing health problems it's best to have one like this with no medicines, no surgery, no therapy. And no decent bread.