I’ve been partially diagnosed (still waiting for some ‘confirmation’ test results) with Coeliac Disease.

I’m getting a handle on what I can and can’t have….but the problem i think I will have is eating out. Does anyone on here follow a gluten free diet and if so, what do you have / where do you go when you eat out?

Thanks all 🙂

My wife had to eat gluten free for a while and we never made special arrangements for eating out – we found that pretty much all restaurants were very good at being able to advise on what meals they had that were suitable.

There is also a pretty good range of gluten free stuff available now (including some nice cookies/biscuits etc).

We also asked a local butcher to make us some gluten free sausages and they were lovely (probably because they were rammed with meat rather than cereal).

We also made our own gluten free pasta. (The bought stuff is very expensive).

I have to eat gluten free, it’s annoying 🙁 http://www.coeliac.org.uk/gluten-free-diet-lifestyle
If you join up you get a book which has gluten free listings

thanks guys.

at first I didn’t see what the big deal was…but, working in an office where ‘tiffin’ is the norm….it gets hard 🙁

We also made our own gluten free pasta. (The bought stuff is very expensive).

I buy it at the same price as the regular dried stuff in Tesco, Asda or Sainsburys.

@cougar ???

I buy it at the same price as the regular dried stuff in Tesco, Asda or Sainsburys.

It might be cheaper now then – this is going back about 8 years now. When she identified it wasn’t gluten but dairy causing her problems she went back to the normal stuff.

Bizarrely the dairy problem has disappeared since having children.

Yes, I’m GF. The first thing to do is to think about what you can eat – which is most things. Also remember not eating gluten will mean that you’ll be completely healthy, and that for lots of other conditions there is no simple fix.
Eating out can be a pain, some places really have no idea, even knowing that pasta is made from wheat flour! Chain restaurants are usually bad, places where the chef cooks from raw ingredients are better, talk to your server and ask them to ask the chef. The thing that annoys me most is when something comes on the plate that wasn’t on the menu.
When you get you diagnosis you’ll be able to get bread and pasta on prescription, and the supermarkets have huge ranges of ‘free from’ stuff that is good, if a bit pricey. GF beer is also available.
More good news is that your blood count should go back to normal which is equivalent to a spell of altitude training (or EPO)- you’ll be flying!

gf is coeliac

See Tesco/Sainsburys/others free from ranges
Genius bread currently best bread *IMGFHO
(*There is a coeliac society – worth joining for info)

Indian – lots of curries are ok
Thai – ditto
Chicken Kebab – no pitta bread ………………..
The tapas place chain menus are gf (*gluten free) marked, as are some pub chains (Wetherspoons/Marstons I think)

@cougar ???

“Tiffin” was a running gag in one of the Carry On movies, CO Up the Khyber or some such. It was a euphemism for, well, what everything in the CO films was a euphemism for.

As you were.

Gluten free breakfast cereals and bread are ridiculously priced however as are some snacks.

OH’s mum has to eat gluten free.

Every so often there are open days arranged & places that sell gluten free stuff turn up so you can try what they have to offer.

As above, she reckons Genius bread is the best.

Most restaurants we have been to are pretty good at providing alternatives, with a couple even having specific gluten free versions of their menus, rather than just a symbol next to gluten free choices.
Smaller, independent restaurants can generally re-jig meals to swap out bits that have gluten in them.

The bread is gross so I gave up 🙂

As a Coeliac may I say – Never mind bloody TIFFIN – you can’t drink chuffing BEER!

(well you can but there are currently about 6 brands available – however all are of limited availability, and severely limited taste!) and as nmdbase says Coeliac UK is a good place to start though….

As regards to GF dining out – as someone said most decent places now provide alternatives, be aware Chinese is pretty much off limits unless the Soy sauce they’re using is GF(unlikely)

My email is the profile if you need any questions answered…good luck!

Started GF back in June and going back to hospital in January for tests to see if I can bo back on the gluten. The biggest problem when eating out is looking at the menu and crossing off all the things you can’t eat. Indian, Thai and Chinese are normally OK.

Japanese Soy Sauce is Gluten free and you can get all the info on the links posted above.

Warburtons have just come out with a new recipe for GF bread and it tastes great, much better than the Genius stuff but only found it in Morrisons so far.

As a Coeliac may I say – Never mind bloody TIFFIN – you can’t drink chuffing BEER!

Tesco do a gluten free ale and lager, both of which are quite passable. Pubs is a pain though.

You’ll be relieved to know that whisky is OK though 🙂 Cider and Crabbies is GF too

OH is Coeliac. She can get a lot of the basics (pasta, flour etc.) on prescription which is handy.

Otherwise, it’s just a case of experimenting with the different brands of GF bread/biscuits etc. to see what works for you. If you go on-line you can ask for samples from a lot of the suppliers (Genius, Glutafin etc). – and they seem to send you a massive box of their wares.

Warburtons have just released a GF bread and the OH rates that as the best one.

Edit – TGI Fridays do a good GF menu. Some chains seem to be switched on and have good options.

Thanks all – massively appreciated 🙂

as for the beer, I’m not a big drinker anyway (4.5 years of dorrwork to blame) but at least cider is still on the cards

I have been GF for about 10 years and it’s not that bad. Avoid process foods and stick to fresh fruit, meat etc. I eat a lot of rice and quinoa which is similar to rice. Quinoa is a slow release carb so good for riding etc.Both can be bought in porridge format. Eating out is not so bad if you stick to Indian food where they use gram flour for thickening instead of the usual wheat flour. Thickening is the way a lot of restaurants sneak gluten into the dish. I drink Cider and also whisky where a chemist friend reckons very little if any gluten is retained through the distilling process. I think things are improving generally – I was in Italy earlier this year, home of pasta, pizza and all things gluten, and all restaurants we visited had gluten free menus for pasta etc. Be wary of the gluten free processed foods the supermarkets produce – check out the sugar and salt content as they can be very high. Good luck.

All the gluten free bread I’ve tried has been horrible, apart from the loaves I’ve made myself. It’s also **** expensive! Make your own would be my advice. Health food shop near me does loads of GF stuff, also pricey 🙁

The OH can’t eat gluten. It’s usually dessert that’s a bit of a pain when eating out, as the only choice is usually ice cream. It’s also a pain if you just want to pick up a snack from somewhere, most places only have sandwiches. He used to eat the Genius bread, or made his own from the Mrs Crimble mix, but has cut it out altogether now.

Aaron Gwin used a Gluton Free diet last season so at least you dont need to worry about it affecting your riding!

Main points seem to have been covered, so just to reiterate, it’s a PAIN IN THE TITS.

For shop-bought bread, Genius brown and seeded are pretty decent- the seeded reminds me of old Mighty White. Glutafin Select multipurpose white mix makes a decent white loaf- if you’re going to do your own, get a bread machine, it’ll eat too much of your life otherwise.

For riding- the mighty rice crispie square is gluten free. There’s various bar options- 9bar, nakd- but I’ve not found one i like. There’s a gluten-free oat bar that Tesco sometimes have which is passable.

The Genius pizzas are OK if you like thincrust. The DS ones that Asda sell (sometimes also tesco but only Asda seem to carry the pepperoni ones) are better though.

And for pasta, Doves Farm is IMO the only one to use- there’s plenty of others that are decent, but it’s almost indistinguishable from real pasta (it goes a bit slimy when it cools, is all)

Lastly, eating out… Call ahead, ask the questions, don’t be afraid to be a pain in the arse. Watch out though, I’ve had such highlights as a chinese place serving me a meal I couldn’t eat because when I said “gluten free”, they had no idea what I meant so assumed I must mean “MSG free”. Grr.

Oh and last comment- ask about followups for anaemia and osteoperosis. Cyclists are predisposed to osteoperosis anyway- we sweat out a lot of calcium and it’s a fairly lowimpact sport- but if you’ve been affected by coeliac for a while you could be pretty calcium deficient. THere’s treatments for this and it’s better to find out now, than by falling off and breaking all your s**t.

Good luck!

Wife and FIL are both Coeliac. Things have improved a lot since FIL was diagnosed about 10 yrs ago. Any good restaurant will be fine and quite a lot have specific gluten free menu’s now – your dietician will point you in the right direction (or introduce you to a local coeliac group who will list where to eat etc). Major chains are sometimes OK (IIRC Weatherspoons list GF options on their menu) but smaller places that just ping stuff in the microwave or fryer are not good. Lunches are harder than dinners. Buffet food at parties is usually a nightmare.

Homemade pastry is easy (but unlike ordinary pastry which you have a very light touch with – you need to really work it). The Glutafin website will provide recipies (and free samples of products). They have some cakes on there which you can’t tell the difference between.

Genius bread is the best (almost OK if it is very fresh) but not available on prescription, like some of the other bread.

GF beer is expensive and hard to find. DON’T FOLLOW THIS SUGGESTION UNTIL YOU ARE COMPLETELY SORTED OUT AND ‘UNDER CONTROL’: Someone suggested to FIL that the gluten content in Brahma beer was very low. He will drink two or three in one night and maybe 4 a week with no ill effects. Wife has never risked going beyond 2 bottles but had not problems either. Everyone’s ‘tolerance’ will be different to the trace which is still there – but it means for those summer BBQs etc where really you just want a cold beer you have an option.

Wife is Type 1 Diabetic too (there is a correlation) and says if she could get rid of one it would be the Coeliac – unfortunately a lot of people will treat you as though you are just fussy / awkward / weird.

Oh- I meant to add, if you want a really vague starting point, Glutafin stuff is generally a bit above average. Their Select range isn’t 100% gluten free, but it’s codex alimentarius-approved “coeliac safe” but still has a tiny amount of gluten in it which apparently helps make it not suck. (or so I understand it- I can’t take this stuff seriously, it sounds like a warhammer game book- CODEX GLUTANNICUS)

And, allegedly, many lagers such as budweiser are low enough gluten to be safe- they just aren’t tested/approved. But I’ve not experimented there, it might be safe but it’s still horse piss.

Been GF for a year, still haven’t got my shit together yet. Breakfast, lunch, and snacks are the hardest – dinner is easy! It got even harder today when I was told to avoid benzoates too 🙁

M&S gluten free mince pies and their wee millionaire shortbread squares are pretty nice, but generally I find GF substitutes for cakes, biscuits and bread are terrible. Also GF spaghetti doesn’t seem to work too well. Polenta works too – had an amazing lemon polenta cake in an Edinburgh restaurant :p

I also noticed recently that Walkers crisps went from being Coeliac friendly to non-friendly 🙁 That’s another thing to watch – flavourings on crips…

cheers guys – really appreciate the time you’ve taken to reply.

I headed out to a Beefeater last night and got something sorted. To be fair, the staff were really helpful (although nothing was printed on the menu’s) and came over with their ‘allergy book’ and went through the entire menu. The staff were awesome, but must admit I was a little peeved that nothing on either of the ‘deals’ menus were GF.

Oh well, meant I managed a nice portion of potato shells, steak and a lemon sorbet thingy ma bob!

Main points seem to have been covered, so just to reiterate, it’s a PAIN IN THE TITS.

…except when you consider that for all the other autoimmune disorders, e.g. multiple sclerosis, lupus, arthritis, the trigger isn’t known or possible to eliminate and the outlook is long-term ill health. Better to think about what you can eat, and be happy that, with a minor adjustment to your diet (probably healthier), you can live a perfectly healthy life.

There are all sorts of things that are better than MS but I’d prefer not to have most of them tbh. This doesn’t stop them from still being a pain in the tits.

(incidentally- had to refresh myself on arthritis, mine is osteoarthritis so not autoimmune but if you look up the wiki entry and scroll down to rheumatoid arthritis, the information there is not entirely correct)

poly – Member

Wife is Type 1 Diabetic too (there is a correlation) and says if she could get rid of one it would be the Coeliac –

Aye, I’d agree with that too, the diabetes is far less intrusive.

GF is the way to go for everyone, check out the paleo diet stuff on the internet…